Classical Chinese

Classical Chinese is the style of Chinese language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from c. the 5th century BCE. For millennia thereafter, the syntax of written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary Chinese, which was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century. Compared to modern vernacular Chinese, each written character in Classical Chinese almost always corresponds to a single independent word, and as a result the language is characteristically terse and can be difficult to understand for readers without literary training and experience.

Starting in the 2nd century CE, use of Literary Chinese spread to surrounding countries that were heavily influenced by Chinese culture such as Vietnam, Korea, Japan and the Ryukyu Islands, where it represented the only known common form of writing for a long time in those countries' history. Even after the inventions of local writings, Literary Chinese was adopted as the international auxiliary language for civil administration and scholarly communication in these countries, creating what is known as the Sinosphere. Each additionally developed systems of readings and annotations that enabled non-Chinese speakers to interpret Literary Chinese texts in terms of the local vernacular.

While not static throughout its history, its evolution has traditionally been guided by a conservative impulse: many later changes in the varieties of Chinese are not reflected in the literary form. Due to millennia of this evolution, Literary Chinese is only partially intelligible when read or spoken aloud for someone only familiar with modern vernacular forms. Literary Chinese has largely been replaced by written vernacular Chinese among Chinese speakers; speakers of non-Chinese languages have similarly abandoned Literary Chinese in favour of their own local vernaculars. Although varieties of Chinese have diverged in various directions from the Old Chinese words in the Classical lexicon, many cognates can still be found.