Studies in Colloquial Chinese and Its History: Dialect and Text presents cutting-edge research into issues regarding prestige colloquial languages in China in their spoken forms and as well as their relationship to written forms and the colloquial literary language. These include the standard regional languages and prestige dialects of the past, the influence of historical forms of spoken Chinese on written Chinese, the history of guānhuà and the history of báihuà, proto-dialects and supra-regional common languages (koines), and their relationship to spoken dialects. The various studies in this collection focus on the dialect groups with the most substantial written tradition, including Mandarin, Wu, Min, and Cantonese, in north, central and eastern coastal, and southern China respectively. The contributors explore the histories of these dialects in their written and spoken forms, presenting a variegated view of the history and development of the regional forms, including their evolution and influence. This edited volume expands our understanding of the underlying factors in the formation of supra-regional common languages in China, and the written forms to which they gave rise. It broadens our understanding of the evolution of written and spoken forms of Chinese from a comparative perspective, revealing the interrelationships of various areal forms of Chinese and historical koines in China. “This is a rigorous and cohesive collection of articles important to our understanding of the development of the current modern varieties, and also to our understanding of the creation and interpretation of the texts themselves. Anyone interested in empirical work on Chinese dialects would find this of interest.” —Randy J. LaPolla (羅仁地), Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA) “The history of Chinese dialects and Mandarin is a source of interest for many scholars. It is rare, however, to meet a collection that addresses the history and appearance of writing in such a detailed and unconventional way. This unique volume deepens our understanding and offers new insights into established scholarship. A highly recommended publication.” —Marinus van den Berg (范德博), Editor of the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication (JAPC)

"DeFrancis's book is first rate. It entertains. It teaches. It demystifies. It counteracts popular ignorance as well as sophisticated (cocktail party) ignorance. Who could ask for anything more? There is no other book like it. ... It is one of a kind, a first, and I would not only buy it but I would recommend it to friends and colleagues, many of whom are visiting China now and are adding 'two-week-expert' ignorance to the two kinds that existed before. This is a book for everyone." --Joshua A. Fishman, research professor of social sciences, Yeshiva University, New York "Professor De Francis has produced a work of great effectiveness that should appeal to a wide-ranging audience. It is at once instructive and entertaining. While being delighted by the flair of his novel approach, the reader will also be led to ponder on some of the most fundamental problems concerning the relations between written languages and spoken languages. Specifically, he will be served a variety of information on the languages of East Asia, not as dry pedantic facts, but as appealing tidbits that whet the intellectual appetite. The expert will find much to reflect on in this book, for Professor DeFrancis takes nothing for granted." --William S.Y. Wang, professor of linguistics, University of California at Berkeley

The studies contained in this volume arose over the last thirty years. Originally the range of the materials I intended to include in my selection was very much wider. Publishing difficulties, however, have obliged me to curtail them to something less than half the planned content. At first I intended to include all the studies I supposed might be of interest to readers and represent contributi ons still of some significance for research in this domain of Oriental scholarship. When the necessity arose to limit the contents I gave preference to the standpoint of thematic completeness rather than to what would be of interest to the general reader. Thus in this volume I have confined myself to two them atic fields only-Old Chinese literature and studies dealing with mediaeval storytellers' productions-hua-pen. I have excluded the whole complex of historical studies and all studies relating to the new literature. I am now preparing, on the principal historical theme on which I was engaged already in the period of my studies in Prague under Prof. J. Bidlo, and then in 1928 till 1930, with Prof. B. Karlgren in Sweden and Prof. G. Haloun in Halle, in Germany, a more compendious study in which I hope to sum up the results of my research, and I also intend to publish a volume of selected studies dealing with the New Chinese literature at some later date.

This book consists of eight articles on Chinese literature, most of which have long been out of print. While in no sense a survey of Chinese literature, the content of the articles ranges from the Six Dynasties period (222-589 A.D.) to the seventeenth century and includes studies of poetry, prose styles, and colloquial fiction.

A one-stop, comprehensive account of the key developments in the phonological history of Chinese.