<p>Let's translate this English sentence to Classic and Modern Chinese: </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Donald Trump is a New Yorker. </p>
</blockquote>

<p>Classic Chinese:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Donald Trump 者 New York 人也.</p>
</blockquote>

<ul>
<li>者: topic marker (which does not exist in modern Chinese)</li>
<li>人: person</li>
<li>也: to be (is)</li>
</ul>

<p>Modern Chinese:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Donald Trump 是 New York 人.</p>
</blockquote>

<ul>
<li>人: person</li>
<li>是: to be (is)</li>
</ul>

<p>The 人 (meaning person) is written the same in classic and modern Chinese, but the pronunciation in Classic Chinese was probably very different. But we will never know, unless someone invents a time machine that will allow us to go back in time and talk to ancient Chinese. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-03-13T02:58:12.373Z
These examples give a completely wrong impression that Classical Chinese was more explicit and modestly more verbose than modern.
Colin McLarty
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-03-12T18:31:05.630Z
2016-03-12T21:18:08.310Z
2016-03-12T21:18:08.310Z
pat
<p>The following is an excerpt from wikipedia, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese_grammar#Grammar">Classical Chinese Grammar</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p><strong>Grammar</strong></p>
  
  <p>Further information: Classical Chinese lexicon</p>
  
  <p>Classical Chinese is distinguished from written vernacular Chinese in
  its style, which appears extremely concise and compact to modern
  Chinese speakers, and to some extent in the use of different lexical
  items (vocabulary).[citation needed] An essay in Classical Chinese,
  for example, might use half as many Chinese characters as in
  vernacular Chinese to relate the same content.</p>
  
  <p>In terms of conciseness and compactness, Classical Chinese rarely uses
  words composed of two Chinese characters; nearly all words are of one
  syllable only. This stands directly in contrast with modern Chinese
  dialects, in which two-syllable words are extremely common. This
  phenomenon exists, in part, because polysyllabic words evolved in
  Chinese to disambiguate homophones that result from sound changes.
  Similarly, Chinese has acquired many polysyllabic words in order to
  disambiguate monosyllabic words that sounded different in earlier
  forms of Chinese but identical in one region or another during later
  periods. Because Classical Chinese is based on the literary examples
  of ancient Chinese literature, it has almost none of the two-syllable
  words present in modern Chinese languages.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Pronouns</strong></p>
  
  <p>Classical Chinese has more pronouns compared to the modern vernacular.
  In particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to
  the first-person pronoun ("I"/"me"), Literary Chinese has several,
  many of which are used as part of honorific language (see Chinese
  honorifics), and several of which have different grammatical uses
  (first-person collective, first-person possessive, etc.).[citation
  needed]</p>
  
  <p><strong>Syntax</strong></p>
  
  <p>In syntax, Classical Chinese is always ready to drop subjects, verbs,
  objects, etc. when their meaning is understood (pragmatically
  inferable). Also, words are not restrictively categorized into parts
  of speech: nouns used as verbs, adjectives used as nouns, and so on.
  There is no copula in Classical Chinese, "是" (pinyin: shì) is a copula
  in modern Chinese but in old Chinese it was originally a near
  demonstrative ("this"); the modern Chinese for "this" is "這" (pinyin:
  zhè).</p>
  
  <p><strong>Word order</strong></p>
  
  <p>The Classical Chinese word order is often the reverse of Mandarin; for
  example, Mandarin 饒恕 (pinyin: ráoshù, "forgive") is Classical 恕饒
  (Classical Chinese: ŋjew hnjas).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese_grammar#Grammar">1</a> [2]</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-30T05:22:57.490Z
2014-09-30T05:22:57.490Z
George Chen
<p>What I mean by difference is its grammatical difference. How is Classical Chinese grammatically different from today's Chinese? Is modern Chinese's golden rule similar or equivalent to some rules in Classical?</p>

<p>If someone would lead me to a page or answer that would be appreciated.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-30T03:54:08.650Z
http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/s/blog_5d6891650100c7gh.html?vt=4
user6453
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-30T03:59:45.857Z
Totally different rules.
Daniel Yang
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-30T04:02:16.197Z
Cause the difference is a little complicated,so I  find out a website for you,it provided integrity different grammatical between them(particularly the sentence pattern like judgement sentence etc.)and a lot of examples.
user6453
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-30T04:14:51.477Z
Look downward  until '文言文句式' ,It's in.  :)
user6453
<classical-chinese><literary-chinese>
What's the difference between Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese?
# What's the difference between Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-09-30)

What I mean by difference is its grammatical difference. How is Classical Chinese grammatically different from today's Chinese? Is modern Chinese's golden rule similar or equivalent to some rules in Classical?

If someone would lead me to a page or answer that would be appreciated.

**Tags:** classical-chinese, literary-chinese

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/s/blog_5d6891650100c7gh.html?vt=4  
> **username_2**: Totally different rules.  
> **username_1**: Cause the difference is a little complicated,so I  find out a website for you,it provided integrity different grammatical between them(particularly the sentence pattern like judgement sentence etc.)and a lot of examples.  
> **username_1**: Look downward  until '文言文句式' ,It's in.  :)  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2014-09-30. Score: 7 | Accepted answer

The following is an excerpt from wikipedia, [Classical Chinese Grammar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese_grammar#Grammar):

> **Grammar**
>
> Further information: Classical Chinese lexicon
>
> Classical Chinese is distinguished from written vernacular Chinese in
> its style, which appears extremely concise and compact to modern
> Chinese speakers, and to some extent in the use of different lexical
> items (vocabulary).[citation needed] An essay in Classical Chinese,
> for example, might use half as many Chinese characters as in
> vernacular Chinese to relate the same content.
>
> In terms of conciseness and compactness, Classical Chinese rarely uses
> words composed of two Chinese characters; nearly all words are of one
> syllable only. This stands directly in contrast with modern Chinese
> dialects, in which two-syllable words are extremely common. This
> phenomenon exists, in part, because polysyllabic words evolved in
> Chinese to disambiguate homophones that result from sound changes.
> Similarly, Chinese has acquired many polysyllabic words in order to
> disambiguate monosyllabic words that sounded different in earlier
> forms of Chinese but identical in one region or another during later
> periods. Because Classical Chinese is based on the literary examples
> of ancient Chinese literature, it has almost none of the two-syllable
> words present in modern Chinese languages.
>
> **Pronouns**
>
> Classical Chinese has more pronouns compared to the modern vernacular.
> In particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to
> the first-person pronoun ("I"/"me"), Literary Chinese has several,
> many of which are used as part of honorific language (see Chinese
> honorifics), and several of which have different grammatical uses
> (first-person collective, first-person possessive, etc.).[citation
> needed]
>
> **Syntax**
>
> In syntax, Classical Chinese is always ready to drop subjects, verbs,
> objects, etc. when their meaning is understood (pragmatically
> inferable). Also, words are not restrictively categorized into parts
> of speech: nouns used as verbs, adjectives used as nouns, and so on.
> There is no copula in Classical Chinese, "是" (pinyin: shì) is a copula
> in modern Chinese but in old Chinese it was originally a near
> demonstrative ("this"); the modern Chinese for "this" is "這" (pinyin:
> zhè).
>
> **Word order**
>
> The Classical Chinese word order is often the reverse of Mandarin; for
> example, Mandarin 饒恕 (pinyin: ráoshù, "forgive") is Classical 恕饒
> (Classical Chinese: ŋjew hnjas).[1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese_grammar#Grammar) [2]


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2016-03-12. Score: 1

Let's translate this English sentence to Classic and Modern Chinese:

> Donald Trump is a New Yorker.

Classic Chinese:

> Donald Trump 者 New York 人也.

* 者: topic marker (which does not exist in modern Chinese)
* 人: person
* 也: to be (is)

Modern Chinese:

> Donald Trump 是 New York 人.

* 人: person
* 是: to be (is)

The 人 (meaning person) is written the same in classic and modern Chinese, but the pronunciation in Classic Chinese was probably very different. But we will never know, unless someone invents a time machine that will allow us to go back in time and talk to ancient Chinese.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: These examples give a completely wrong impression that Classical Chinese was more explicit and modestly more verbose than modern.  

---

