雅言의 槪念과 實體에 대한 管見

Abstract

Chinese linguists have two differing views about Yayan. First, Yayan is a common language in the pre-Qin period. Second, Yayan is not a name of common language, furthermore, there was no common language in the pre-Qin period. This paper analyzes the concept and substance of Yayan in the pre-Qin period, Tongyu in the Han Dynasty and Guanhua in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, based on historical records as well as a variety of research results. The analysis of this paper shows that the Guanhua in the Ming and Qing Dynasties transcended the regional boundaries and class differences, functioning as a common language. This conclusion is not far from the general opinion of academic circles. Especially in the Qing Dynasty, a large number of documents with a title name Zhengyin were compiled. Through the fact that Zhengyin Academy was established in Yongzheng period, we can confirm that Zhengyin, the standardization of Guanhua was samely important. It can be inferred that Guanhua in Ming and Qing Dynasties was a unified common language in all linguistic fields. The research result of Tongyu in this paper may be different from the general opinion of the academic circles. This paper argues that Tongyu in the Han Dynasty is not reasonable to be judged as a common language in phonetics, vocabulary and other fields, which is different from the case of Guanhua in the Ming and Qing. Fangyan show the correlation of voice in some use cases; nevertheless, I pay more attention to the differences of vocabulary than voice with reference to the overall composition, hereby proposing Tongyu for the vocabularies of common language among the related vocabulary with regional differences. Based on this analysis, it is speculated that Tongyu in the Han Dynasty did not take into account the unity of voice, which cannot be regarded as a real common language in the oral language practice, responsible for smooth communication function. The expression of Yayan in “Shuer” section of The Analects has put forward a variety of opinions in the historical documents and the current academic research results. There are two kinds of views in current academic circles. One view is that Yayan is a common language in the pre-Qin period, the other view denies the establishment of the common language in the pre-Qin period. Yayan as a common language is not free from this sense of objective: the history of Chinese common language should be promoted to the pre-Qin period. This view appears to become debatable without putting forward convincing sources and objective and reasonable analyses of explaining the time periods of thousands of years. The view of considering Yayan as a common language represents a challenging and daring stance without including clear and concrete evidence. This paper is far from the purpose consciousness that the history of Chinese lingua franca should be promoted to the pre-Qin period; however, this paper also proposes the existence of common language with following reasons: academic thoughts of various schools including Confucius witnessed their spread and development process. Although there only remain very few documents, Confucius had to rely on a common language considering a series of situations that can only be logically explained. The expression of the “Yayan” in The Analects is considered as a concrete example of Confucius’ language life. The use of common language can be inferred considering the travel and entertainment as well as the communications and exchanges made between the disciples who gathered from various places. According to the analysis and inference of this paper, Yayan is a relative concept for regional dialects in the pre-Qin period, which functioned as a common language of going beyond regional differences.