Why learn classical Chinese?

Classical Chinese laid the foundation of our national vocabulary system, and some classical Chinese words still live in our language today. Learning classical Chinese will help us to understand our language more deeply and use it properly. Chinese should be a miracle in the history of language. After thousands of years, although its vocabulary system has changed, stability is still its remarkable feature. Today, although we seldom use the word "Zhong Ming Shi Ding", we often use words like "full of voices" and "helping each other with all my strength". Although the utensil "Ding" has disappeared for a long time, the meaning it carries has settled down, and students in the third grade of primary school should use this word. If he doesn't know what a tripod is, he won't understand the word "buzz" accurately, and of course he can't use it correctly. Besides, we often use the word "to the point". Many people only know that "Ken" means "key", but they may not know that this is not the original meaning of the word, but its metaphorical meaning. If you have read Master Zhuangzi, you will know that "Ken" originally refers to "the place where bones and muscles meet", which is not easy to decompose when killing cattle. So when we use this word, we will consider its weight and will not misuse it. Another example is the following sentence: "Pen, ink, paper and inkstone have not disappeared because of the current high-tech means, but continue to show the simplicity and agility of the Chinese nation in the art of calligraphy and painting." At first glance, this sentence is neat and concise, and the words are exquisite, which is commendable. Actually, it is not. The original meaning of the word "hubbub" is that the army is chaotic, noisy and dusty. Later, it was described that there was a lot of discussion about rumors. Now refers to a very arrogant and derogatory statement. Let's take a look at it again: escape, mountain scenery, pledge, Yi Shi IKEA, my fair lady, alarmist, learning from the old and welcoming the new, eating ladybugs, loving people, a long way to go, knowing that it is impossible, losing family members, killing chickens without knives, carefree, blockbuster and bustling. Expression will no longer be a pain, but a wonderful enjoyment! In addition, vocabulary has scientific and associative significance. The scientific meaning is clear and fixed, while the associative meaning is implicit and temporary. The issues discussed by Lin Geng in his essay On Konoha are worth pondering. The scientific meanings of "wood" and "leaf" have not changed much from Qu Yuan's "under the leaves of Dongting Lake" to "the leaves fall like the waves of a waterfall". However, the poet chose "konoha" and "fallen wood" from many combinations of words to form his works, because he took a fancy to their associative meanings. Who can say that "Yang Liuan Morning Wind, Canyue" is just a bunch of scientific significance? Because of associative meaning, the use of language has moved from tools to art. Associative meaning is not an objective reflection of the real world, but an artistic pioneer of the poet's language expression function in a specific situation. When we read those classic classical Chinese works, we can feel that the world of Chinese is so beautiful and charming after being carved by generations of Chinese descendants. The continuous precipitation of these associative meanings has formed colorful and profound images: when it comes to plum blossoms, it comes to lofty loneliness; Speaking of the moon, you will miss it; Speaking of willows, it will be sad to leave ... these images have condensed into cultural factors and flowed in our blood. This is probably the essential feature that distinguishes China people from Americans, British people and French people. Read modern prose masterpieces: moonlight in the lotus pond, lotus fragrance and moonlight complement each other, simple and quiet; Autumn in the old capital deeply misses the countryside, desolate and deep ... which one is not an accurate inheritance of China cultural genes? Thirdly, in the historical evolution of ancient Chinese, its phonetic beauty was gradually discovered, which made the internal essence and external form of language highly harmonious. Throughout the development of ancient Chinese, from four-character poems to five-character poems, from Sao-style poems to Han Fu, from Han Fu to Tang poetry, Song Ci and Yuan Qu, every exploration of language forms has promoted a great leap in Chinese. The perfection of rhetorical devices such as parallelism, antithesis and rhyme, and the patchwork of sentence patterns promote the perfect combination of prose and verse. Among the famous essays, Preface to Lanting Collection, Preface to Wang Tengting, Afanggong Fu and Chibi Fu are the best, which are the perfect combination of ideological content and language form. When we got the Preface to Wang Teng-ting, we had the desire to read aloud, because not reading aloud was not enough to express our feelings for the work and our admiration for the text and the author. "As the old saying goes, a dead life is a fake birthday, and the destruction of Peng Qi is an illusion", "The sunset is lonely in Qi Fei, and the autumn waters are * * * one color", "I would rather be moved when I am old and strong; If you are poor, you will think about change, and you will not fall into the blue sky. ""The stars are ying ying, and the makeup mirror is open; Lv Yun is disturbing, combing in the morning and evening, nourishing and diverting gradually, and abandoning fat and water; The smoke is foggy and the pepper orchid is also burning; The thunder shook and the palace car passed; I don't know where it is when I hear it from afar. " "A drop in the ocean sends the ephemera to the ground." . What a clever use of the characteristics of Chinese syllables! This profound understanding of Chinese syllables is still difficult to compare with the application of modern Chinese. As the essence of national culture, couplets developed from ancient poems give full play to the beauty of Chinese syllables, emphasizing antithesis and artistic conception. Couplets have not disappeared until now, but are in a state of decline. During the Spring Festival, every household still hangs Spring Festival couplets, wedding couplets and funeral couplets. But the content is either outdated or superficial and straightforward, and there is no lasting appeal at all. Now merchants have begun to give couplets in the Spring Festival, and it is often found that many families in a community stick the same couplets: "Happy and peaceful Spring Festival, smooth and peaceful celebration." As a result, couplets become more and more symbolic, and the cultural factors it carries will become less and less until it is lost. Even in the college entrance examination, the so-called couplet "Raising pigs can make you rich" appeared! One day, people will see empty couplets, and there is nothing written on each mouth-the content has lost its meaning. Let's take a look at a couplet in The Journey to the West's poem: "The Liu Ping Bridge is late, the snow is fragrant, and the plum garden is spring". This is not the top grade in couplets, but the atmosphere it creates and the situation it renders are enough to make people admire and admire. The change of couplets is probably a microcosm of what we are losing in our lives. Today, with the popularity of vernacular Chinese, we feel that we must abandon classical Chinese and then quickly. When criticizing classical Chinese, many people always quote the words "Yang Yi doesn't pick up" and "Zhong You picks up" in Preface to Wang Teng-ting, thinking that this is a model of "using words to hurt meaning" in classical Chinese. However, how can we look at Mount Tai and deny the artistic value of this article? Come and see us today. Although "the combination of words and texts" facilitates people's written expression, there are a large number of "spoken languages" that are arbitrary and not literary. People no longer pay attention to rhetoric when expressing themselves. Is this the progress or degradation of Chinese? From here, we should also see that in the development of ancient Chinese, a vocabulary system dominated by monosyllabic words and rhetoric methods adapted to this vocabulary system have been formed. Modern Chinese is different. Disyllabic words have gradually become the main part of the vocabulary system, which will inevitably break the traditional rhetoric method based on monosyllabic words and form its own new pattern. In this regard, there are two important figures that cannot be ignored: Wen Yiduo and Dai Wangshu. Wen Yiduo advocated the "three beauties" of new poetry: the beauty of music, color and architecture, just to emphasize the rhythm abandoned by modern poets. Dai Wangshu, on the other hand, opened a new era with his linguistic genius (the language of Ye Shengtao) as the rhythm of new poetry. His Rain Lane skillfully uses disyllabic words to create a reciprocating effect, which can be said to be a major breakthrough in the rhythm of modern Chinese. Of course, I don't insist on keeping up with classical Chinese on this issue. Only on the road of the development of modern Chinese, learning from the experience of ancient Chinese can we make our mother tongue more beautiful, appear in the historical trend of national rejuvenation with a brand-new and elegant look, and spread the splendid culture of the Chinese nation for thousands of years!