Did Ancient Chinese Use Vernacular in Daily Conversations?
Historical records show ancient Chinese used classical language in writings, but it is unclear if they spoke the same way in conversations. Comparing records of conversations to official historical accounts reveals classical Chinese was often adapted from colloquial speech during documentation.
The question of whether ancient Chinese people, particularly those before the Song Dynasty, used vernacular or classical language in their daily conversations is an intriguing one. Most of what we know about what ancient Chinese said comes from written records. However, if they modified colloquial speech into classical language for ease of recording, then we may not truly know how they spoke.
Examining diplomatic conversations from the Northern Song period recorded in “Collected Documents on Liao, Jin and Xia” and comparing them to the same events chronicled in the official “Long Draft of the Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government”, linguist Mei Zulin found clear differences between the colloquial “white speech” used in conversations and the classical language used in official records.
For example, during negotiations over land and population in Xijing, the Jin envoy Wanyan Zonghan said to the Song officials:
“Since your esteemed dynasty has given us the land, how can you not give the households as well? What use is empty land? Now that the dust has settled after the war, even the scant remaining households are good enough.”
To which Vice Envoy Ma Gongyan retorted:
“The two courts are now like one family. Since you’ve been given the land out of trust and feeling, not also giving the households shows a lack of sincerity. Letting the people go as well would demonstrate ultimate good faith.”
Wan Yan replied:
“Giving land but not people - what kind of reasoning is that? How is this a discussion? Land is generally more important than people. Now that you’ve given the land, even more so the people should be given, no need for further discussion or expression of gratitude. How else do you expect to get by?”
Phrases like “What use is…”, “shows a lack of sincerity”, “what kind of reasoning is that”, “ultimate good faith”, “suffered no small hardship”, “a good thing indeed” are clearly colloquial. But when Xu Mengqin later compiled these diplomatic records into the historical work “Collected Documents”, he “washed the draft” and converted the dialogues into classical language.
For instance, “Recently the talented scholar came, how old are you?” became the classical “You, how many years of age?” “I see you are a man blessed with fortune and longevity, unfit to be entrusted with minor duties” turned into the literary “Now you will not be troubled with palace duties.”
This shows that even for relatively recent history like the Song dynasty, there was a clear distinction between the colloquial speech used in conversations and the classical language required in official documentation. The vernacular allowed diplomats to accurately capture the state of discussions and vividly portray the personalities and tones of their counterparts - advantages lost in the translation to classical Chinese.
So in conclusion, evidence suggests that just like today, ancient Chinese used vernacular in daily speech but classical language in writing. Certain highly educated scholar-officials may have spoken in a semi-vernacular, semi-classical style. But overall, a diglossia existed where classical Chinese served as the standard for recording events, while vernacular dominated verbal interactions, until the modern Vernacular Chinese movement finally aligned the two.