I did a post earlier about Classical Chinese, so here are some learning resources that can come in handy
Textbooks:
Fuller, Michael A. An Introduction to Literary Chinese.
Kroll, Paul W., et al., comp. A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese.
Rouzer, Paul. A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese
Yuan, Naiying, Hai-tao Tang, and James Geiss. Classical Chinese: A Basic Reader in Three Volumes.
Grammar:
Detailed and more in-depth grammar and structure explanations
Study Texts:
Guwendao Has a vast resources of different texts to study and read
A very interesting collection of texts from Korea at the time when Classical Chinese was used there.
https://gimpomunhwa.or.kr/index.do
https://gimpomunhwa.or.kr/html/site/gimpo/jungbong/edition/original/record/contents_19_05.html
A collection of various translated different texts
Translated annals text collection of the Ming China emperors
Collection of texts, you can easily search up specific ones
Online reader for texts
Other resources:
Dictionary: One of the few online dictionaries that I know of for Classical-Chinese to English translations. Also includes texts with English translations below, so quite useful for studying
Alright, sound off! WHO is learning Classical Chinese?
I want to find friends to study with and complain to!!!
I have gotten back into it in a more serious capacity after a few years of nonsense, and am continuing (sigh) to work my way through Introduction to Literary Chinese by Michael A. Fuller.
Please reblog for greater sample size! Beginners or 古文大师 all please reply!
I know some people in HK, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, greater Sinosphere/diaspora might be also doing it or have done it as a school subject, and I'd love to hear from you guys too :D
i know classical chinese literature is read with a modern mandarin pronunciation, but are there other kinds of pronunciations as well, like "reconstructed" classical chinese? just wondering because ancient greek has several (erasmian, reconstructed, modern) and it's up to you which one you choose & i wanted to know how it is in other languages
It came up in conversation earlier today, "what style of Chinese romanization did 'Confucius' come from?" So of course I had to do the dumb thing and look it up.
According to Wikipedia laoshi, the first attempted romanization of Chinese was done by late 16th century missionaries. The first attempted bilingual dictionary was compiled by Matteo Ricci and Michele Ruggieri for Portuguese<-->Chinese. Unfortunately, their dictionary got misplaced for a few hundred years. Father Ruggieri is credited for being the first sinologist, and for the first western translation of Confucius. That should be problem solved, right? What if I tripped and fell down a rabbit hole?
Because while Ricci and Ruggieri's romanization system was missing, the next person credited with one is Lazzaro Cattaneo, yet another missionary. I wasn't getting very far looking for Cattaneo's writings in English, so I called in a favor to see if anything came up in Italian. My friend @stracciatellino found a source that confirmed Cattaneo's system was lost for good, but his contemporaries adopted it in their work, like Michał Boym and Athanasius Kircher (yet more missionaries).
Friend also dug up Kircher's CHINA ILLUSTRATA. My Latin is nowhere near what it needs to be to actually read this, but I poked through it to see how he spelled things. It is a TRIP.
Please, please take a look under the cut, fellow Classics Enjoyers. There's a lot here and I don't want to clog up your dashes.
THEY HAVE TONE MARKS!!
I HAVE MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT TYPE SETTING
This book includes, but is not limited to: Latin, Latin italic, the German Eszetts, Chinese characters, Syriac, Arabic, Ancient Greek with all the diacritics, Ethiopian, Biblical Hebrew with no diacritics, Sanskrit, and several illustrations one might call a crime against orthography. More on that last point shortly.
TONE MARK EXPLANATIONS (page 12, right column)
This made me turn on the Cantonese Jyutpin in Pleco. Chǒ pîm?? What could that be? 平聲 pīng shēng. Could this be something like 初拼 chū pīn?? IDK, I'm not actually reading all the Latin.
There are also at least two full translations where there's a whole ass answer key in the front in romanized Chinese, and then a Latin translation after. It appears that there WAS a Chinese text in here too but it wasn't scanned properly. (pages 13-28. Actual Latin Scholars PLEASE LOOK!! I AM LOSING MY MIND.)
On page 112, we're back in the China section again and there's a nice picture of Mattteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi. You can see a better scan of the picture on the latter's wikipedia page. Embed's not working for some reason.
On the left it says 利瑪竇西泰 Ly mà teú sī tảī
Pinyin: Lì Mǎdòu xītài
Do not ask me how long it took me to find what that hook thingie is supposed to be. it's an Ancient Greek rough breathing mark. I think they might have dropped some of the diacritics. But also, LOOK AT HOW BAD THE CHARACTERS ARE IN THE PRINT.
On the right side is 徐光啓 保祿 玄扈
pinyin: Xú Guāngqǐ Bǎolù Xuánhù
Siú guam` [not transcribed] pao lὁ Hiven Hú
This guy converted to Christianity so he does have a western-esque name. Paul Siu or Siu Hsiven Hu. How they came to these conclusions is giving me a headache.
Side note, I have some questions about these guys from the India section (pages 83-84)
back to page 114, this acutally looks like they rendered it right!! 窕 tiao3
Next page, not so sure. This might be 窃 qie4 with extra strokes? Might be a full on mistake? Might be a real character that I just can't find right now.
Another special shout out to this little weirdo from the of the Japanese and the Tartars Chinese idolatry parallel section (Again, Classics side of tumblr, please check my Latin.). I have no clue what sunshine banana kun is doing here on page 140. 141 is a little more interesting.
Now in the Exotic Animals of China section, I THINK I can recognize some words? Maybe.
p 192. that's a 海馬 hǎimǎ/ Haŷ mà Hippos, my beloved "sea-horse"
p 194. 栗鼠 lìshǔ? 松鼠 sōngshǔ? some sort of squirrel.
p. 205 綠毛（龜）some sort of green furred [turtle]!
Now the REAL FUN starts around page 227 with ON CHINESE LITERATURE, Chapter II Anatomy of the burden of Chinese Characters.
DON'T DO THIS TO ME YOU STUPID PRIEST
I CAN'T
Good Father, WHAT IN THE EVER LOVING FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE? THIS ILLUSTRATES NOTHING.
The following chapter, starting on page 233, The Difference Between Chinese and Egyptian Hieroglyph Characters, has some actual, logical sense behind it. THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF.
the humble xě 十 (pinyin: shí).
HOW DO YOU TYPE ROUGH AND SMOOTH BREATHING DIACRITICS ON LATIN THO????
hἐ, uàm, yú (pinyin: tǔ 土、wáng 王、yù 玉)
(門 mén、心 xīn1、悶 mèn 、人 rén)
Interesting thing about pinyin vs wade-giles romanizations is that the rhotic is an "r" in the former and a "j" in the latter. I think Giles said something about French to justify the decision but I don't remember. In Cantonese, however, the "j" is a /j/. The reason I bring it up is bc the Missionaries were only allowed in southern China, which is different enough from Mandarin that it has to be addressed at some point. But now it's a "g" in two cases so I guess this is a call that has to be made? Linguist brain is not firing at this later hour.
ok so we have 王 again.
全 teiuèn (Quán).... WHAT?
some sort of liàn 戀 MAYBE???? HELP!!!!!!
日gě (rì), 月 yué (yuè), 明 mín (míng)?
IDK anymore. It's late and the diacritics are looking blurry.
