Tang Dynasty Crossing Guide: Chang'an and People's Life Manual

Chapter 3 Crossing the language barrier first (2)
"Two Ga Huang Lie are busy with green willows, and a group of fathers are in the party. The fragrance is cold and Cen Qiuxue is cold, and the father moves east and throws it away." ①
Look, Du Shisheng really got up and greeted him with an old face and joy.What are you going to say next? — Do you feel that translation services are too expensive and you are not willing to buy them?It’s okay, then you can pretend to be a student from Silla, Japan who came to study abroad, and only learned "dumb Chinese", and bring a pen and paper to talk with the poet.

You said that you can only write simplified characters, afraid that Du Fu can't understand?There is no need to worry about this at all. You must know that most of the simplified Chinese characters we use today are not artificial, but selected from the ancient cursive script. Even if you write the characters a little bit sloppy, as long as the context and meaning are clear, The context is clear, and Lao Du can guess what these words are.

Instead, what you need to worry about is grammar and semantics. Some sentence structures and words in Middle Chinese are far from modern ones...

For example, the use of words, the most obvious is that the names of various names are different.Suppose you write "My father likes you" to the poet, Lao Du will probably look at the mosquito coils and "scratch the white head and make it shorter"②--"Xi" and "Huan" are used together, and he can barely guess what it means. Although the word "you" is an honorary title that only appeared in Jin Yuan, but it looks so similar to the word "you", he should be able to guess the meaning of the word correctly, but "father"...in the Tang Dynasty, most people would not call their father that way. At that time, people usually called "Aye", "Yeye"③ or even "Brother". Although the word "Pa" had already appeared, it was only used in the dialect of Shan'ao Haiyanzi, so Lao Du looked at these six characters. After waiting for a long time, you finally turned over the table in anger—you are considering Lao Tzu's vocabulary of rare words!

It's not just nouns that have this problem, but verbs too.For example, if you write another sentence "I invite you to drink", Lao Du will start to feel dizzy again - "drink" in the Tang Dynasty only means "shouting", which is similar to the usage of "yelling".You want to ask Du Shisheng to "drink", he pondered for a long time, got up together and began to shout "wine! "La.

By analogy, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns...the ancient and modern semantics of each part of speech are different.Now let’s talk about the most frequently used Chinese character——“的”.You write a sentence "I like your poems" to the poet, and Lao Du stares at the five words and wonders, what do "I", "Hi", "You", "Target" and "Poetry" mean?From which Java country did this kid smuggle into Datang?

Because "de" only meant "archery target" in the Tang Dynasty, think about the idiom "one stroke", "de" is a pure noun, not a particle in modern Chinese.When you speak in the Tang Dynasty, if you want to use "the" habitually, you can omit it directly in most cases, and squeeze the adjectives and pronouns in front with the nouns in the back, and write "I like your poems" as "I love Junshi", Lao Du could understand and smiled.

If the front and rear parts of the word "的" are complicated and it is uncomfortable to connect them together, you can generally use "zhi" instead. For example, "the reason why Li Shimin won the world" should be written as "the reason why Li Shimin won the world".

Finally, let’s talk about this grammatical difference... Hey, have you fainted, guest?I'm about to cry too, the grammatical problem is much more complicated than the phonetic and semantic problems mentioned earlier... Let's pick the simplest one and talk about it, verbal complement.

① From Du Fu's masterpiece "Quatrains".

②From Du Fu's masterpiece "Spring Hope".

③The pronunciation of "Yeye" in the Tang Dynasty is close to "jiājiā", and "Ye" is also pronounced this way.

When you say "You have written poems for decades", Lao Du doesn't understand again, so let's change it to "You have written poems for decades"—have you noticed the difference in the structure of these two sentences?The key lies in the positions of the two parts "poetry" and "tens of years" (tens of years).

When modern people speak Chinese, the complement of "tens of years" is placed before the object of "poetry", subject + predicate + complement + object.However, when people in the Tang Dynasty spoke, the complement should be placed after the object, which is a structure of subject + predicate + object + complement.

You can't say "I miss you to death", you should say "I remember you want to die"; "I finished eating" is wrong, you should say "I finished eating"; Said "Li Shimin shot Li Jiancheng to death"...

Hey, guest, why are you crying again?Forget it, forget it, if it really doesn’t work, just write on the paper—attention, write vertically from right to left—"I have admired Duke Du and asked Tang Yin for advice for a long time", and then drag him to read poems to you.You see, on the walls of this courtyard, on the faded porch pillars, and even on the slightly flatter rock surface, there are poems everywhere.Taking advantage of the bright moon today, let Lao Du read a few more poems, and when you return home after your trip, you can show off to your friends that your medieval Tang Yin was taught by the poet himself, what a shame!

Then again, don’t you think it’s strange, what is this place? Why are there poems written all over the walls in the yard?I came in during the day and took a quick look, thinking that I entered some forum, this is a long and short post...

The thought just turned here, probably because of the tossing between you and the poet just now, there was a lot of movement, the courtyard door opened with a "squeak", and three men walked in holding candles, and first politely called Du Gongbu Say hello, and then shine a candle on your face, and the leader will speak: "Dare to ask your name? Where is the post card?"

Station - Well, yes, you are in a station.The first person who came in was the "Post General" or "Post Chief", who was the person in charge of the post.He is asking you for proof of residence.

Do I need a letter of proof to live in a post station?of course!Posthouses have always been official in ancient times, and even military agencies were specially used to receive public servants, but not everyone with two dollars can live in them.The Tang Dynasty clearly stipulated that only emergency reports on military affairs, must be used by all divisions in Beijing, urgent and major events must be reported by various states, congratulations by states during state affairs, transfer of various roads to rent and send postal services, personnel elected from outside the country to take exams in Beijing, and government affairs. The inn can only be used or stayed in thirteen situations, such as picking up important officials in the past, and government officials passing away on business and returning to their hometowns for care.

Those who lived in post stations or passed official documents between post stations had to obtain vouchers from the competent authority before they could go on the road.If you get the certificate in the capital, you have to apply for it from the "Dragon of the Driving Department" under the Ministry of War of Shangshu Province;

According to the postman's identity and tasks, there are four types of certificates: the first one is called "silver medal", which is uniformly issued by Menxia Province. It is a silver plate with a width of two and a half inches and a length of five inches. There are five characters in the imperial edict Zouma Silver Medal; the second type is called "Jiao Fu"; the third type is called "Voucher"; the fourth type is called "Chuan Fu".Both the coupon and the talisman were made of paper, and there were words written on it, roughly explaining the identity and mission of the bearer.

① All the roads are rented and sent to the post office. "Dao" is an administrative regional unit in the Tang Dynasty, which is roughly equivalent to the modern territory merged by several neighboring provinces. For example, "Guannei Road" includes the present Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia , Inner Mongolia and other provinces and regions. "Zuyong Tiao" is the three main taxes and labor levied by the Tang government on the common people.The general meaning of this sentence is that when all parts of the country send their tax revenues to the central government, the escort team can live in post stations.

You touched your pockets, but there was not even a piece of paper. Obviously, your entry into the post station is an illegal intrusion... The post general is quite polite. Seeing that you have a good talk with the Ministry of Industry, I don’t have the nerve to turn against you, so I just tell you to come out quickly Post, Hugh was delayed.

There's no way, let's bid farewell to Yiyi, the poet saint, and let's go.You must know that "harassing the station" has been considered a moderate crime in all dynasties.

You asked again, the public guest house is not allowed to live, where should we go for the night?In the middle of the night, do you have to sleep in the open?Don't worry about this, we are not in the wilderness, but on the post road of the two busiest capitals (Chang'an and Luoyang) in the world.There are many pedestrians on this Kangzhuang Avenue. Next to almost every official post station, there are several privately run "Ni Lu" and "Guest Houses". As long as you have money, you are welcome to knock on the door in the middle of the night.

You can also make an appointment with the poet saint. If he is free tomorrow, I will go to the nearby Nilv to find you and continue to teach you to read poetry—you will know when you enter those private hotels. There are also poems written everywhere on the walls and walls.Those literati in the Tang Dynasty who owed a lot of money could not see a clean blank space. Those who could write poems could write poems, and those who could write articles could write articles. They really didn’t know anything. A certain official from a certain township in Yuemou came here for a visit"...

On the Liangjingyi Road, or any place in the world that is more prosperous and has been passed by a large group of cultural people, not only the inns have been graffitied, but even the temples, taverns, flag pavilions, city walls, mountain rocks... Anyone who can write with a pen is difficult to write. Get away with it.Thinking about it, I can understand that the literati at that time had no Internet, no forums, no QQ, no blogs, and they hadn’t even invented movable type printing.After all, compared to going to a brothel to teach prostitutes to recite poems and lyrics, the cost of scribbling is much lower...

References & in-depth understanding recommendations for this article:
Zang Rong. Ancient Chinese post stations and postal transmission. Beijing: China International Broadcasting Press, 2009
Shi Yuzhi, Li Na. The Course of Chinese Grammaticalization. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2001
Eastern Linguistics (http://www.eastling.org)

Don't call "your lord" when you meet officials, unless you want to worship godfather...

call
In the previous section, we talked about the language problem after traveling back to the Tang Dynasty. Some guests said: We learn English from elementary school to university. It's impossible to learn everything, right?Don't help the poor, how about your tour guide first teach us some of the most urgent and useful Tang Dynasty dialects?
It makes sense.How about this, let's talk about the "address" that people use first when they speak today.

According to my limited understanding, the men and women who traveled back to ancient times had the highest probability of being reborn as concubines, princes, princesses, and noble children in addition to being reborn as emperors.Then after you are reincarnated as a prince, princess, noble man or woman, what should you call the person in front of you when you open your eyes?

With a sound of "ding dong", you have won the battle with the original host's soul and occupied his/her body. Medicinal.Someone shouted from outside the screen in front of the bed: "Queen, your lord/princess is finally awake!" Then the bed curtain was raised, and a luxuriously dressed woman leaned over to see you—

At this time, you can call "A Niang" affectionately, or "Queen" seriously, but it is best not to call "Mother Queen" - this word was not used in the Tang Dynasty as a face-to-face address, and her old man might think you are confused up.

Modern people are no strangers to the words used by children in the Tang Dynasty to call their mothers face to face. The derivatives of "Niang" are called "A Niang" and "Niangniang" (not used to specifically address concubines, but ordinary children call their own mother) and so on. host.If you feel like you're a grown-up with status and need to be serious around your mother, call "Mom."

If the prince or princess you passed through has a close relationship with the queen, you can call her "Aniang" directly like an ordinary commoner on an informal occasion. The court etiquette rules in the Tang Dynasty were not as cold and strict as those in later generations. .If it is a formal occasion, or if you have offended the queen and need to be careful to make amends, then you have to follow outsiders and call her "His Royal Highness the Queen" in person - not "Your Majesty the Queen", only the emperor can call her "Your Majesty".

You called "A Niang", and the queen promised to call you by your nickname, or "Son", and the two of you were talking, when the servant outside announced: "The sage is here."

It wasn't Confucius or Guan Erye who came here, it was your own father who was the emperor.

In the Tang Dynasty, common people addressed the emperor face to face, such as "sage", "lord" and "everyone" (used by the emperor's close people, but generally not used by ministers), etc. The traditional "Your Majesty" can of course also be used.As for the time-traveling popular word "emperor", it seems to be a written term in the Tang Dynasty, and there is no example of a living person addressing the emperor face to face. "Long live" is used by the masses to flatter the emperor when they are emotional, and they don't use this word as a title in daily life.

As for you, a prince and princess who has just passed through the upper body, it is not recommended to be called "Father Emperor", this word did not appear as a salutation in the Tang Dynasty.Also, if the relationship is close, you can simply call "Father" or "Aye" like a commoner family.

Compared with the "mother" series called mothers, the names of fathers in the Tang Dynasty seem to us to be more unfamiliar, more chaotic, and more cheating.The most popular titles are various derivatives of "Ye" (Grandpa), such as "Ye Yee" (Grandpa), "Aye" (Grandpa).It is very common for parents to call "Ye (father) mother" together. For example, in Lao Du's "Soldiers and Chariots", "Ye Niang's wife walks to see each other, and the dust does not see Xianyang Bridge", "Mulan Poetry" "When the mother heard the daughter came, she went out to help each other. Will".

But there is another way of addressing his father, which is "brother". "Old Tang Book Wang Ju Biography": "Xuanzong cried and said: 'Fourth brother benevolent and filial...'" The "fourth brother" here refers to Xuanzong's father Ruizong (ranked fourth among his mother and brothers). "Old Tang Book Di Wangyan Biography": "Only the third brother defends his sinner." The "third brother" here also refers to his father Xuanzong (ranked third among brothers).Li Shimin wrote a letter to his son Li Zhi, signed at the end of the letter and also called himself "brother".

The title "brother" in the Tang Dynasty referred to both the father and the elder brother. For example, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty once referred to his elder brother King Ning as "Big Brother" and "Brother Ning" in public.It is said that this name was passed down from the grassland people, and it was not finalized in the Tang Dynasty.Therefore, I solemnly suggest that all travelers, don’t care about passers-by casually, and even call your own elder brother "big brother" and "brother". ""(ranking)+brother" is recommended.

When we come back, we still talk about how to address our father. Orally, we can call him affectionately "Yeye" and "Brother". In written language or in serious situations, we naturally call him "Father" or "Adult".

"Adult" is a face-to-face oral address. In the Tang Dynasty, it was only used to address parents. In some cases, it could be used to address the elders of direct blood relatives. You must not use "Master Zhang", "Master Wang" and "Master Li" to address all kinds of people. official.For example, when Li Shimin persuaded his father Li Yuan to fight against the Sui Dynasty in Taiyuan, he said: "My lord is ordered to punish the thieves..." Dunhuang Bianwen② "Shunzi Bian" also has: "Shunzi crossed his hands and said: If you kill A Niang, Shun Yuan has no filial piety, adults think about it."

In fact, the use of "adult" to address father has been preserved in the habit of writing letters until modern times.For example, we can see from "A Dream of Red Mansions" that people in the Qing Dynasty no longer called their father "adult" in colloquial language. Jia Baoyu called his father "Master", and Jia Huan and Jia Rong called him "Father", but When writing a letter, for example, Jia Yun, who recognized Baoyu as a godfather, wrote "The unscrupulous male Yun respectfully asks my father and lord to be blessed and safe."

When did "adult" become a term of address for officials?I can't tell the exact time, but the evolution process of the titles of "adult" and "ye" is the same, they both gradually expand and extend from "calling father". With the combination of flattery and ethos, the semantics of "adult" finally changed to address officials, and "ye" (lord) changed to address masters and nobles.

Well, you are asking now: Since the Tang Dynasty cannot use "Master Zhang" and "Master Wang" to call officials, then there are two high-ranking officials named Zhang and Wang standing in front of me, how should I call them?You can't just call me by name, can you?It's also impolite.

Hmm, a polite boy is a good boy... In the Tang Dynasty, officials were generally called in the following ways.

① Volume 40 of "Youyang Miscellaneous Cu": "The superior knows it, laughs, and reports to King Ning: 'Ning Ge can deal with this monk." "Yinhualu": ​​"Ning Wang sprayed a mouthful of rice on Yuzuo , Straight to Longyan. The above said: "Why did Brother Ning have a wrong throat." "Old Tang Book" Biographies No. [-] "Ruizong Zhuzi" collected Xuanzong's eulogy for King Ning: "Brother, filial piety, friend, Mo Yu in recent times ...The eldest brother is the eldest son, and he is the second heir...For more than ten years, Dihua has withered, and there are only elder brothers who are called siblings."

② Bianwen, a kind of talking and singing literature that emerged in the Tang Dynasty, mostly composed of interlaced rhymes and prose. The content was originally Buddhist stories, but later expanded to include historical stories and folklore.

One is "surname" + "official title".The "official nobility" here does not have to be the full name. For example, Liu who works as a "Sanqi Changshi" is often only called "Liu Changshi".Basically, all officials and nobles have some conventional titles. The "Shangshu of the Ministry of War" surnamed Zhao and the "Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites" surnamed Qian are called "Shangshu Zhao" and "Shangshu Qian", while those surnamed Wang and Li "Shangshu of the Ministry of Military Affairs" Gongzhushi" is called "Wangzhushi", "Lizhushi", and so on.

The second is respectful titles such as "surname" + "gong", which are widely used, and can be used in both folk and official circles.If you traveled back to the Zhenguan period and said "Fang Gongan is good" to Fang Xuanling, and "Wanfu, Duke Wei" to Wei Zheng, people would think that you are a well-bred child.In addition, the name of the name and the name of the place can also be used universally, "Taibai got a new sentence today?" "When will Liuhe River start southward?"

(End of this chapter)