Introduction to ancient Chinese:
Ancient Chinese is the ancient language of Han nationality. Compared with modern Chinese, in a broad sense, all the languages used by the Han people before the May 4th Movement can be regarded as ancient Chinese. Ancient Chinese can be divided into written language and spoken language. The oral language of ancient ancestors is now left in some Chinese dialects.
From written records to the May 4th Movement, the writing form of ancient Chinese has a history of more than 3,000 years. Generally speaking, ancient Chinese can be divided into four periods: ancient, ancient, medieval and modern. Ancient times refers to the period from the Yin and Shang Dynasties, ancient times refers to the Zhou, Qin and Han Dynasties, medieval times refers to Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties, and modern times refers to Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The ancient Chinese we usually study and study refers to classical Chinese. Classical Chinese has a wide range, and the classics of the pre-Qin and Han dynasties are orthodox classical Chinese. After the Six Dynasties, the ancient prose written by imitating the works of the Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties was also classical, such as the articles written by eight masters in Tang and Song Dynasties (Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Ouyang Xiu, Su Xun, Su Shi, Su Zhe, Wang Anshi and Ceng Gong).
Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio and Gong Zizhen's Sick Plum House are both written in classical Chinese, which are the contents of ancient Chinese learning and research. As for the ancient vernacular, it is not the content of our study, mainly because it is not very different from modern Chinese. Such as Buddhist scriptures, Tang and Song legends, Song and Yuan scripts, Ming and Qing vernacular novels, etc. These are the direct sources of modern Chinese, which are not very different from modern Chinese.
Even though there are some words and grammatical rules in classical Chinese, as long as we study classical Chinese, the ancient vernacular Chinese is understandable. So the ancient vernacular is not the focus of our study. The part of learning classical Chinese emphasizes prose rather than poetry.
This period is as follows:
There is no clearly recognized dividing line between ancient Chinese and modern Chinese. Generally speaking, the May 4th Movement and the Vernacular Movement are a watershed. Ancient Chinese can be subdivided into ancient Chinese and middle Chinese.