Baihua (vernacular written Chinese)

E558059

Baihua is the written form of modern spoken Chinese that developed to reflect everyday speech rather than the archaic, literary style of Classical Chinese.

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Observed surface forms (1)

Surface form Occurrences
vernacular Chinese movement 1

Statements (48)

Predicate Object
instanceOf register of Chinese
vernacular language
written language variety
alternativeName baihua
colloquial written Chinese
vernacular Chinese
白话
associatedMovement May Fourth Movement NERFINISHED
New Culture Movement NERFINISHED
basedOn spoken Mandarin Chinese
contrastWith Classical Chinese
Literary Chinese NERFINISHED
differenceFromClassicalChinese greater one-to-one correspondence with spoken words
more explicit grammatical markers
domain language reform in China
educationPolicy promoted as the standard written form in modern Chinese schools
historicalPeriod 20th century
Republic of China era
late Qing dynasty NERFINISHED
influencedBy Beijing dialect of Mandarin
vernacular fiction of the Ming and Qing dynasties
languageFamily Sinitic languages NERFINISHED
linguisticFeature colloquial vocabulary
simpler grammar than Classical Chinese
topic–comment structures
use of pronouns closer to spoken Mandarin
use of sentence-final particles
originatesFrom everyday spoken Chinese
prominentAdvocate Hu Shih NERFINISHED
Lu Xun NERFINISHED
purpose to reflect everyday speech in writing
relatedConcept diglossia in Chinese
language modernization in East Asia
replaced Classical Chinese as the main written standard in the 20th century
standardizedAs Modern Standard Written Chinese NERFINISHED
status dominant written form of Chinese in the contemporary era
timeOfRise late 19th century
timeOfStandardization early 20th century
usedFor education
magazines
modern Chinese literature
newspapers
official documents
usedIn China NERFINISHED
Singapore NERFINISHED
Taiwan NERFINISHED
overseas Chinese communities
writingSystem Chinese characters

Referenced by (2)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Classical Chinese distinctFrom Baihua (vernacular written Chinese)
Hu Shi movement Baihua (vernacular written Chinese)
this entity surface form: vernacular Chinese movement