Module talk:zh/data/dial-syn/丈夫

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That's not really classical, right? It's rather late, from the Yuan dynasty. RcAlex36 (talk) 16:35, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * We need to roughly delineate Classical, Medieval and Early Modern(?), which could be hard. How do you think we should go about it? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 16:37, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a term that I commonly hear in Chinese historical dramas. Where should we put it then? It's certainly not a term that is used in modern speech, or even in modern written Chinese unless you are referring to ancient times. The dog2 (talk) 16:38, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there seems to be a lot of this kind of lingo that seems to carry over from opera that has been fossilized in historical drama but are actually from more recent dynasties (like Yuan). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 16:40, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, thinks Classical Chinese is "the language of the classic literature from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through to the end of the Han dynasty". In other periods the written language should be called Literary Chinese instead. RcAlex36 (talk) 16:43, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if that definition of Classical Chinese is that accurate. All the way up to the Qing Dyansty, court records were made in Classical Chinese, and you can even find material in Classical Chinese that was composed in Japan and Korea up to 1868 and 1910 respectively. In fact, Classical Chinese was still the de facto standard from of Chinese in the early Republic of China period before it transitioned to modern standard Mandarin after the May Fourth Movement in 1919. In fact, the national anthem of Taiwan is in Classical Chinese. The dog2 (talk) 16:53, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Those 白話 (vernacular) novels are not Classical Chinese though. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is perhaps borderline Classical Chinese. RcAlex36 (talk) 16:56, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm aware of that, and that's why good novels of those eras are so rare. Writing in vernacular Chinese was considered to be low-class at that time, because the well-educated upper class mostly wrote in Classical Chinese. For that matter, even Mao Zedong's poetry was mainly in Classical Chinese. The dog2 (talk) 16:59, 14 September 2020 (UTC)