Ancient novels and dialects

Author: Yan Jingchang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: Classical Chinese has strong (normative), and modern Chinese also has relatively strong (normative), but the (normative) of colloquial tales and novels since the Song and Yuan dynasties is relatively poor. For example, in Water Margin, "" (Laozi) is translated as "" or "," while in Journey to the West, "" is translated as "father." In both Water Margin and Journey to the West, "" refers to "aunt," while in The Story of the Scholars, "" sometimes means "aunt" and sometimes refers to a young woman. Originally, there were three rooms—In The World of Uproarious Tales, it means there are still three rooms, but in The Plum in the Golden Vase, it means there were originally three rooms. Why is there such a difference? Because various colloquial novels are works of dialect, even if they are from the same era, such as Journey to the West, The World of Uproarious Tales, and The Plum in the Golden Vase, they still have distinct dialectal flavors. If both the dialect and the era are different, the differences will be even greater. Reading ancient colloquial novels is not only an appreciation of classical literature but also a good opportunity to learn the language. The author wrote this small book with the purpose of providing readers with some potentially useful knowledge from a linguistic perspective, helping everyone read the novels.