Wenhua Academia 中國文化學原

The Brief Introduction of Wendu

He Yunzhong, Dec. 2021, edited Dec 2023

Wendu (文讀), the classical style of reading for thousands of years’ tradition, can be traced back to Confucius’ age, or even back to the time of King Shun (舜). It was a system of reading, writing, lecturing, and practicing in daily court, social, and family life which was only carried within the royal families and the nobles’ before Confucius.

It was Confucius who carried the mandate from heaven (天) as he believed and said, passed this system to the public by lecturing in Yayan (雅言). And that’s the main reason that Cnfcious has been respect as the“Teacher of all ages”(萬世師表) of Chinese people.

To put it in short: Yayan is composed with two perspectives —— writing as Wenyan (文言) or Wenyanwen (文言文), reading as Wendu (文讀)or Wenduyin/ Wenyanyin (文讀音/ 文言音).

Chinese culture is generally acknowledged as the only one passed down for 5000 years without interruption. One of the main reasons has to be attributed to the main carrier of this very culture, which is the Chinese language and characters (中國語言文字). Without the incredible stabilization and flexibility of the Chinese reading-writing system, we wouldn’t be able to understand, communicate with our ancestors, and inherit this great culture and tradition. Interestingly, the very basic fact is often ignored.

While the classics in writing form remained for the past 5000 years, the language tone production has evolved along with the Dynasty changes, however, the reading form basically remained the same fashion mystically till the end of Qing (清) dynasty. i.e., The consonant system (聲紐) strongly reserves the main frame and track, and at the same time the system of vowels (韻部) remains at least basically the same backtracked to Sui Dynasty (隋朝) according to the literature. This super stable and incredibly comprehensive reading–writing system which we call it the Yayan or Wendu system consists of the double helix of the Chinese cultural context (中華文脈) just like the double helix of the DNA of human beings.

So what is the way and style of Wendu (文讀) indeed then?

(to be continued)

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The Brief Introduction of Wendu

何允中 （He Yunzhong）， Funder of Wenhua Academia

Wendu (文讀), [MOU1] the classical style of reading for thousands of years’ tradition, can be traced back to Confucius’ age, or even back to the time of EmperorShun (帝舜).

It was Confucius who carried the mandate from heaven (天) as he believed and said, passed this system to the public by lecturing in Yayan (雅言) (Named the Wendu 文讀 system in general in the rest of the history) . And that’s the main reason that Confucius has been respect as the“Teacher of all ages”(萬世師表) of Chinese people.

Chinese culture is generally acknowledged as the only one passed down for 5000 years without interruption. One of the main reasons has to be attributed to the main carrier of this very culture, which is the Chinese language and characters (中國語言文字). Without the incredible stabilization and flexibility of the Chinese reading-writing system, we wouldn’t be able to understand, communicate with our ancestors, and inherit this great culture and tradition. Interestingly, the very basic fact is often ignored.

While the classics in writing form remained for the past 5000 years, the language tone production has evolved along with the Dynasty changes, however, the reading form and pattern basically remained the same fashion mystically carried on based on word of mouth in generations especially under the background of the Imperial Examination System along the history till the end of Qing (清) dynasty. i.e., The consonant system(聲紐) strongly reserves the main frame and track, and at the same time the system of vowels (韻部) remains at least basically the same backtracked to Sui Dynasty (隋朝) according to the literature. This super stable and incredibly comprehensive reading–writing system which we call it the Yayan or Wendusystem consists of the double helix of the Chinese cultural context (中華文脈) just like the double helix of the DNA of human beings.

So what is the way and style of Wendu (文讀) in deed then?

To put it in short: the traditional Yayan is composed with two perspectives —— writing as Wenyan (文言) or Wenyanwen(文言文), reading as Wendu (文讀) or Wenduyin/ Wenyanyin (文讀音/ 文言音). It’s the authentic system to pronounce when read all classics, and also the way to speak in the royal court and Formal occasions for government agencies to work.

Throughout history, Wendu has various names in different dynasties, such as Yayan (雅言), Zheng Yin (正音), Luoyang Dushu Yin (洛陽讀書音), Dushu Yin (讀書音), Wendu Yin (文讀音), Wenyan Yin (文言音), Guanhua (官話), Putong Hua (普通話) Guoyu (國語), sum up as Wendu (文讀) in general, because it represents barious ways to read Wenyan (文言). When Wendu applies to different ways and techniques, it can be performed as 諷，誦，賦，詠，歌，謠，唱，吟，念(唸)，唄，嘯, etc. In general, we follow the historical literature and name it in the way: writing asWenyan (文言) or Wenyanwen (文言文), reading as Wendu (文讀) or Wenduyin/ Wenyanyin (文讀音/ 文言音).

First of all, Chinese characters have three non-splittable perspectives: sound, image, and meaning (音、形、義). It cannot be merely tagged as hieroglyphics (象形文字), since both the image and the sound (including pronunciation, tones and rhythm etc.) contribute to the meaning, especially when reading in a fashion of Wenduin the traditional Wenyan context in classical literature. Throughout history, the Chinese have had many ethnic groups and dialects. To ensure the stable inheritance of the cultural and historical, both authentic writing and reading/speaking systems have to be coined, and that’s what happened in the ancient time till the abolition of the imperial examination system in 1905 and the Reading of Confucian classics was abolished in the Republic of China in 1912, while The Vernacular Movement (白話文運動) was about vigorously rising. In the author’s humble opinion, the coined writing and reading system was unified by Emperor Qin Shihuangbased on the rules and system of Zhou dynasty (not just character writing system as popularly said ), later called Wenyan (文言) in writing and Wendu (文讀) in Reading.

Secondly, Chinese characters come with 4 basic tones: 平、上、去、入. Since Yuan Dynasty, “入” has faded away into the other three tones. Today, we pronounce “平” in two tones as “陰平”“陽” . We line up the tones with the diagram below.

Not like we pronounce typical Guoyuor Putong Hua today, instead of usually pronouncing 1 beat for one character, Wendu system pronounces tones 1 & 2 longer (say 1 beat) and lower tones, tones 3 & 4 (say half beat) and higher tones, and 入聲 even shorter (say a quarter beat) and mostly highest tone with bumping or stock kind or feeling

Thirdly, Chinese text pronunciation then has differences in pitch, duration, tone, voicing, rhythm, breathing, etc. It is a complete musical system. And music has its irreplaceable function.

The Chinese language tone productions technically and in fact can generate unlimited and wonderful tone production and melodies especially when the ancient great poets and writers personalized and uniquely arranged the particular characters with the particular tone production and rhythm in their heart while composing their masterpieces in that particular moment. We can say, that their thought and emotions were consolidated in the pieces not just in writing form but also in the tone production as well! So it’s not hard to imagine that sadly we may lose the beauty in the tone, rhythm and even breathing in the sounding, at least, say 80-90% of it, if we read the classics strictly following the way reading in contemporary Chinese Guoyu (國語) or Putong Hua (普通話), since we typically read one beat a character in one relatively plain way, while it’s far more colorful and comprehensive in the original composed sounding . Nevertheless, we are still able to understand and appreciate the masterpieces of the past several thousands of years. On the other hand, fortunately, if we adopt the Wendu tradition, following its fundamental principles based on our contemporary pronouncing system, we can bring back most of the beauty of the classics, say 80-90% of it, to life. We can feel the rhythm, breath, emotion, and more layers of inner meaning embedded in the tone and melody composed by the original writer's hundreds of thousands of years ago, and even “talk” with them directly in the classics in Wendu.

More importantly, in teaching the young generations Wendu has demonstrated at least three advantages to help students learn. 1) making it much easier and faster for the students to learn, feel, understand, and memorize classical poems; 2) making it fun for the students to study Chinese classics along with the embedded cultural values, thoughts, and esthetics while the students hear, see, touch, taste, i.e., feel the rhythm, breath, emotion, state of mind, more layers of inner meaning in the poems and classical aphorisms, in a “live way”. In other words, the students can connect to the ancient masters and learn from them subtly and directly; 3) together, we are on the way to reviving the great tradition that has faded away and forgotten in the past one hundred years in the public education system.

Here we are sharing this “new” yet remotely aged teaching-learning system with you, no matter whether you are looking for a traditional and efficient education system for your students, or your dear babies, or you are an adult who are interested in learning Chinese language and culture, we are more than happy to share and walk with you on this path.

[MOU1]It was a system of speaking, reading, writing, poem composing, singing, music composing, dancing, and an important part of governing in daily court, and social life which was only carried within the royal families and the nobles before Confucius.