一个在现代说中文的人能够与来自公元 100 年的中国人交流吗？
Would a Chinese speaker today be able to communicate with a Chinese person from 100 AD?
译文简介
纯属好奇，一个现代的中国人（讲普通话/粤语等）能否与大约 2000 年前的中国人交流？
正文翻译
Would a Chinese speaker today be able to communicate with a Chinese person from 100 AD?
今天会说中文的人能够与公元 100 年的中国人交流吗？
Just wondered if a Chinese speaker (mandarin/cantonese/etc.) today would be able to communicate with a Chinese person from approximately 2000 years ago? Or has the language evolved so much it would be unintelligible. Question for the history and linguist people! I am guessing some key words would be the same and sentence structure but the vocabulary a lot different, just a guess though.
纯属好奇，一个现代的中国人（讲普通话/粤语等）能否与大约 2000 年前的中国人交流？还是说语言已经进化到双方无法理解的地步？想问一下论坛里的历史和语言学家！我的猜测是有些关键词和句子结构是一样的，但词汇量有很大不同，这只是我的猜测。
纯属好奇，一个现代的中国人（讲普通话/粤语等）能否与大约 2000 年前的中国人交流？还是说语言已经进化到双方无法理解的地步？想问一下论坛里的历史和语言学家！我的猜测是有些关键词和句子结构是一样的，但词汇量有很大不同，这只是我的猜测。
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Literally no speaker of any language today would be able to communicate with a person from 100 AD.
实际上，今天任何语言的使用者都无法与公元 100 年的人交流。
What about Hebrew? Or Latin?
希伯来语呢？或者拉丁语？
I'm not sure even the text from literature and poems are not so ancient and there are not a lot nowadays. 2000 years ago they still have different kingdoms in China and different languages and cultures. I don't think they would be able to understand more than 20% except if they are speaking dialects that wouldn't have much evolved during all that period. But I doubt about it ^^
我不确定，即使是留存下来的文学和诗歌也没有那么古老，也没有留下很多。2000 年前，中国还存在着不同的王国，不同的语言和文化。我不认为他们能够互相理解超过 20% 的内容，除非他们说的是方言，而方言在那段时期并没有太大的发展。但我对此表示怀疑 ^^
No lol
哈哈，当然不行
Short answer: not even a little bit.
简短的回答：一丁点也没办法交流。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Deepends on your field of study in Middle/Old Chinese with an emphasis on the classics & rhyme tables, and if you know multiple dialects (with an heavy emphasis on yue, wu, min so you can actually notice the sounds in the first place). You might be able to reverse learn in that case... .other wise your more listening than speaking
Writing on the other hand you should be able to if you know the classics because everyone who was of importance knew Literary Chinese.
这取决于你对中古汉语的研究领域的重点是不是经典典籍和韵表，以及你是否了解多种方言（重点是粤、吴、闽方言，这样你才能初步听懂别人说的话）。在这种情况下，你也许可以通过逆向学习进行交流......否则，你在听力方面遭遇的困难可能比口语更严重。
另一方面，如果你了解经典典籍，你就应该能够通过写作交流，因为那个时代每个重要的人都懂得文言文。
Would a modern English speaker be able to understand Angle and Saxon German dialects from 400 AD? No way! Same applies here. No way anybody would understand anyways. Plus: there was not “Chinese” commonly spoken.
Maybe partially possible to communicate using characters with some difficulties.
讲现代英语的人能听懂公元 400 年的盎格鲁和撒克逊德语方言吗？不可能！中国也一样。无论如何都不可能有人听得懂。另外，当时的“汉语”并不普及。
也许可以部分使用汉字进行交流，但会有一些困难。
Language would change and evolve ...phonetically shift.....vowel and consonant shift.......
so written sentence not changed,,,but Sounds might be change and uncommunicable..LoL
语言会改变和发展......语音上的转变......元音和辅音的转变......
书面的句子没有改变，，，但声音可能会改变并且无法沟通..哈哈
For the same reason that an English speaker today cannot understand old English without prior study, a modern mandarin speaker cannot understand classical or ancient mandarin without prior study.
就像今天说英语的人不经过学习就无法理解古英语一样，说现代普通话的人不经过学习也无法理解古典或古代普通话。
That's not true. Confucius is much closer to today's Chinese than actual old English is to today's English. Everyone can read a little Confucius and Mencius I mean it's a staple in schools.
Old English isn't Shakespeare. We read sections of Canterbury Tales in school in America and it sounds like French not even English. Whereas you can tell Confucius is speaking the same language lol.
事实并非如此。孔子与今天的汉语的关系，比古代英语与今天英语的关系要密切得多。每个人都可以阅读理解一点孔子和孟子的著作，我的意思是，它是学校教学的主要内容之一。
莎士比亚还算不上是古英语。我们在美国的学校里读过《坎特伯雷故事集》，听起来像法语，甚至不能说是英语。但你能看出孔子与今天中国人说的是同一种语言，哈哈。
See above where I said you need to have special training for it. I was taught some old English in school and knew from that, same way students in china learn a bit of Classical Chinese
参见上面我过说你需要接受专门的训练。我在学校学过一些古英语，也能理解一些，正如中国的学生学习一些文言文一样
Lol you do not the scales are completely different. regular ppl can grok that ancient Chinese has 日 instead of 说 but most regular English speakers can't make heads or tails of Beowulf.
哈哈，你不知道两者的尺度完全不同。普通人可以理解古代汉语中的“日”而不是“说”，但大多数普通英语使用者却无法理解《贝奥武夫》。
Had to memorize part of Beowulf, did some essays and I can infer enough from learning the additional letters. Pretty arrogant to say another English speaker can’t do the same.
我曾经不得不背诵《贝奥武夫》的一部分内容，并且写了一些相关的文章，而且我可以通过学习额外的字母推断出足够的内容。说一个说英语的人做不到这一点，真是太傲慢了。
Whereas you can tell Confucius is speaking the same language lol.
That's because you read the Analects in the pronunciation of a modern Chinese language like Mandarin. Confucius did not speak Mandarin.
“但你能看出孔子与今天中国人说的是同一种语言，哈哈”
那是因为你读《论语》时的发音是现代汉语的发音，比如普通话。孔子不会说普通话。
eh, Classical Chinese is still significantly more understandable than Old English is without specialized study. By that I mean I can usually at least work out what the topic is reasonably easily and take a stab at guessing what it’s trying to say. Sure, I’m usually wrong, but not always, and there’s enough there to give me some basis for guessing. (And my Chinese level is significantly below that of an educated Chinese person.) Whereas even being both a native English speaker and knowing some German, I’d be hard pressed to get anything out of a random Old English passage besides a few guesses at cognates.
In addition to the character system making changes to pronunciation far less relevant for understanding the written language, you also get exposure to classical style constructions and diction because a lot of classical sayings/quotations are still in fairly widespread circulation. And while it’s not enough to understand the details of classical texts, it’s enough to, idk, enjoy old poetry without having to read it in translation, because even if I don’t understand everything I’m still getting some of the imagery.
呃，文言文还是比古英语好理解很多的，不用专门研究。我的意思是，我通常至少可以相当容易地弄清楚主题是什么，并尝试猜测它想说什么。当然，我通常是错的，但也并非总是如此，而且有足够的依据去让我猜测（我的中文水平明显低于受过教育的中国人）。尽管我的母语是英语，并且懂一些德语，但除了猜测一些同源词之外，我很难从一段随机的古英语段落中得到任何信息。
除了汉字系统使得发音的变化与理解书面语言的关系不大之外，你还能接触到古典风格的行文和修辞，因为很多经典名言/名句仍在广泛流传。虽然这对于理解古典文本的细节还远远不够，但对于欣赏古诗词来说已经足够了，不用再去读翻译版本，因为即使我不能完全理解，我也能领会到其中的一些意象。
The gulf between the spoken and written languages is massive in Chinese compared to most languages on earth, so how well they'd understand each other depends entirely on literacy.
与地球上大多数语言相比，汉语的口语和书面语言之间的鸿沟巨大，因此它们之间的相互理解程度完全取决于识字能力。
I think they can neither communicate with speaking or writing. The spoken language changed completely. And the writing system (i.e. font for simplicity) of 100 ad would be a mystery for all but few modern people who actively studied it.
我认为他们既不能用口语来交流也不能用写作来交流。口语完全变了。而公元 100 年的书写系统（即简体字的前身）除了极少数积极研究它的现代人之外，对其他人来说都是一个谜。
isn’t the most popular scxt in 100 AD clerical scxt? clerical scxt is still very readable, it’s not oracle bone scxt. Chinese cursive is harder to read than clerical. In fact, random cutesy logo fonts are often harder to read than clerical, or maybe that’s just me lol
公元 100 年最流行的文字不就是隶书吗？ 隶书还是很好读懂的，它不是甲骨文。中国草书比隶书更难读。事实上，随处可见的logo上扭扭曲曲的字体往往比隶书更难读，也许这只是我是这样，哈哈。
Everyone who has been through high school can manage at least a little Classical Chinese, where are you getting this from?
你为什么会这么觉得？每个读过高中的人都至少会一点文言文。
I lived in china, amd my wife is Chinese.
Try to find a photo an original piece of writing from 2000 years ago and see how many characters you can recognize. Remember that the Chinese character we can read and write, have changed significantly through out the past 5000 years. I agree, that she can try and guess at the meaning of a book written in classic chines printed using modern fonts, but if you bring her an original manuscxt, she said that she doubt that she can recognize more than a handful of characters
我曾在中国生活过，我的妻子也是中国人。
试着找一张 2000 年前的原始文字照片，看看你能认出里面多少汉字。记住，我们能读写的汉字在过去的 5000 年里发生了很大的变化。我同意，她可以试着猜测一本用现代字体印刷的古典中文书籍的意思，但如果你把原稿拿给她看，她说她很怀疑自己能认出的汉字能不能超过几个。
I am Chinese. This https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calligraphy#/media/File%3ALantingXu.jpg would be very legible to most Chinese people (high school graduates).
我是中国人。这个
对大多数中国人（高中毕业生）来说都没什么难度。
Absolutely not, and that holds true for every language that still exists as a spoken language.
绝对不行，这适用于每一种仍作为口语存在的语言。
No. Someone from 100 ad would be dead and therefore unable to talk.
不。来自公元 100 年的人会死掉，因此无法说话。
Read and write yes but speak no
读和写可以，但说不行
Spoken? Not at all.
Although Han Dynasty Chinese from that period shares many similarities with modern Chinese fangyan, the sounds and grammar are overall completely separate. To any modern Chinese speaker they may as well be listening to Vietnamese. In fact, due to more recent Chinese loanwords in Vietnamese, it may be more intelligible than Han Dynasty Chinese!
Some fangyan, like Hokkien and Cantonese, retain more conservative elements than Mandarin which make them more similar to ancient Chinese varieties, but they've still changed a lot in 2000 years. I don't think there's any [non linguist] speaker of a modern lect which could accurately understand any more than the occasional word from Han Dynasty Chinese.
This video shows pretty well the differences in pronunciation and grammar between Ancient, medi and modern Chinese: https://youtu.be/SUxGsjDEfvo?si=03V34wregQZ7yxAR
In terms of writing however, probably. Classical/Literary Chinese is taught in most Chinese schools and many characters retain similar meanings today as they did 2000 years ago. To the untrained modern Chinese person, you can probably get the jist of what a Han Dynasty person writes, but may miss out on a lot of additional context which could change the meanings completely. This is however only taking into account standard varieties, both modern and ancient Chinese have many written dialects and so intelligibility varies between people.
话？完全不行。
虽然汉朝时期的汉语与现代汉语的方言有很多相似之处，但在语音和语法上是完全不同的。对于任何现代汉语使用者来说，他们会以为自己听到的是越南语。事实上，由于越南语中出现了更多新近的汉语借词，它可能比汉代汉语对于现代中国人来说更易懂！
有些方言，如福建话和广东话，保留了比普通话更多的保守成分，这使它们与古代汉语更相似，但它们在 2000 年间依然发生了很大变化。我认为没有任何一个（非语言学家）会说现代汉语的人能够准确地理解汉代汉语中偶尔出现的词汇。
下面这段视频很好地展示了古代汉语、中古汉语和现代汉语在发音和语法方面的差异：
不过，就书写而言，大概可以。大多数中文学校都教授古代汉语/文言文，许多汉字在今天仍保留着与 2000 年前相似的含义。对于没有受过训练的说写现代汉语的人来说，你大概可以理解汉代人写的字的意思，但可能会忽略很多额外的语境，从而完全改变了字义。然而，这仅仅是考虑到标准变体，现代汉语和古代汉语都有许多书面方言，因此不同人的理解能力也不尽相同。
Does anyone know how reliable this channel is? They do a ton of "how ancient, barely attested languages sound" kind of videos, and I really want to believe them, but they even include for example Tocharian and barely have any sources.
有人知道这个频道有多可靠吗？他们制作了大量“几乎没有考证的古代语言听起来如何”的视频，我真的很想相信他们，但他们甚至演示了已经消失的吐火罗语，而且几乎没有摆出任何资料来源。
This is a long shot, but what have you heard about anything regarding the similarities between Korean-pronounced Chinese characters and Chinese spoken during the Han Dynasty?
People who know Korean usually soon realize that our pronunciation is much closer to the Cantonese and Vietnamese pronunciation of the characters than it is to Mandarin. I've heard somewhere that that's because Korea started to really accept Chinese culture during the Han Dynasty and that culture moved southwards which would also explain the Cantonese and Vietnamese.
Just a random question I had in mind since you mentioned loanwords in Vietnamese.
这个问题说来话长，但你听说过关于朝鲜语发音的汉字与汉朝时期的汉语发音相似的事情吗？
了解朝鲜语的人通常很快就会意识到，我们对汉字的发音与广东话和越南语的发音更接近，而不是普通话。我听说这是因为韩国在汉朝开始真正接受中国文化，并且这种文化向南迁移了，这也解释了为什么会出现跟广东话和越南话相似的情况。
看你提到了越南语中的借词，我随便问问。
It's possible that Old Korean and Old Chinese were similar, but AFAIK most modern Korean (as well as Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.) readings of Chinese characters come from Middle Chinese (which were borrowed into Middle Korean). A great deal of them were borrowed from the Tang dynasty, but there are borrowings earlier and later of course. I haven't studied similarities between Korean and the Han dynasty, but you can see a striking similarity between Korean and Middle Chinese in many cases.
Also, Cantonese and Mandarin started to develop in the late Middle Chinese period (Song dynasty).
Example: rhyming words from Du Fu's poem "Spring Scene" (春望):
Characters: 深, 心, 金, 簪
Korean: sim, sim, kim, jam
Hakka (Dabu): shim1, sim1, gim1, zem1
Cantonese: sam1, sam1, gam1, zaam1 (vowel changes)
Vietnamese: thâm, tâm, kim/câm, trâm (some initials are different, also kim is older and from Middle Chinese, while câm came later and is from Cantonese gam1)
Japanese On'yomi: shin, shin, kin/gon, shin/san
Modern Standard Mandarin: shēn, xīn, jīn, zān (only xīn and jīn rhyme)
But there are instances where Korean is not that close. For instance, entering tones that end with -t in Middle Chinese became -l, and other consonant and vowel changes occurred.
Let's look the words from "Spring Scene" that have entering tone in Middle Chinese (入聲):
Characters: 國, 木, 別, 月, 白, 欲
Korean: guk, mok, byeol, wol, baek, yok
Cantonese: gwok3 / gok3 (HK), muk6, bit6, jyut6, baak6, juk6
Hakka (Dabu): ged7, mug8, pied8, ngied8, ped8, rhug8
Vietnamese: quốc, mộc, biệt, nguyệt, bạch, dục
Japanese: koku, moku/boku, betsu, getsu, hyaku/byaku, yoku
Modern Standard Mandarin: guó, mù, bié, yuè, bái, yù (no -k/-t endings)
So as you can see, Korean and Middle Chinese are still quite similar, but in some cases like 月 Korean has diverged a lot (loss of ngj- at the beginning, changing of -t to -l. So ngjwot and wol are quite different).
古朝鲜语和古汉语可能很相似，但据目前所知，大多数现代朝鲜语（以及日语、越南语等）的汉字读音来自中古汉语（被借用到中古朝鲜语中）。其中有很多是从唐朝借来的，当然也有借用得更早和更晚的。我没有研究过朝鲜语和汉朝汉语之间的相似之处，但你可以在很多情况下看到朝鲜语和中古汉语之间惊人的相似之处。
此外，粤语和普通话在中晚期（宋朝）开始发展。
例如：杜甫《春望》诗中的押韵词：
汉字：深, 心, 金, 簪
中古汉语：syim, sim, kim, tsim/tsom
朝鲜语：sim, sim, kim, jam
客家话（大埔）：shim1, sim1, gim1, zem1
广东话：sam1, sam1, gam1, zaam1 （元音变化）
越南语：thâm, tâm, kim/câm, trâm（有些首字母是不同的，而且“kim”的历史较长，源于中古汉语，而“câm”的历史较晚，源于粤语“gam1”）。
日语音读：shin, shin, kin/gon, shin/san
现代标准普通话：shēn、xīn、jīn、zān（只有 xīn 和 jīn 押韵）
但在有些情况下，韩语并不那么接近。例如，中古汉语中以-t 结尾的声调变成了-l，其他辅音和元音也发生了变化。
我们来看看《春望》中有哪些入声的字：
汉字: 國, 木, 別, 月, 白, 欲
中古汉语：kwok、muwk、bjet、ngjwot、baek、yowk
朝鲜语：guk, mok, byeol, wol, baek, yok
广东话：ged7, mug8, pied8, ngied8, ped8, rhug8
客家话（大埔）：ged7, mug8, pied8, ngied8, ped8, rhug8
越南语：quốc, mộc, biệt, nguyệt, bạch, dục
日语：koku, moku/boku, betsu, getsu, hyaku/byaku, yoku
现代标准普通话：guó, mù, bié, yuè, bái, yù （无 -k/-t 词尾）
因此，正如你所看到的，朝鲜语和中古汉语还是很相似的，但在某些情况下，如“月”字的读法朝鲜语已经有了很大的分化（开头的 ngj- 丢失，-t 改为-l。因此，“ngjwot”和“wol”有很大不同）。
Korean began importing Chinese culture, including loanwords in the Ming dynasty. Mandarin then rapidly underwent a change that made it less similar to Middle Chinese. Han Dynasty stuff is much more different from both.
Cantonese preserved a lot of the finals but lost the glides, and for Mandarin it is vice versa.
朝鲜人从明朝开始引进中国文化，包括借词。随后，普通话迅速发生变化，与中古汉语的相似度降低。汉代的读法与两者的差异更大。
粤语保留了很多尾音，但失去了滑音，普通话则反之。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
I think Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Sino-Vietnamese readings all date to the Tang/Song Dynasties. Sino-Korean kept the final stop consonants of Middle Chinese*, which are no longer found in Jianghuai Mandarin, which is (probably?) the closest surviving language/topolect to whatever would’ve been spoken in Nanjing/Beijing during the Ming Dynasty
this is pretty obvious if you look at Korean personal names (which like Viet names are of Chinese etymology) and the names of certain food items that have Sino-Korean etymologies like mayak (麻药)
我认为中日词、中韩词和中越词的读音都可以追溯到唐宋时期。中韩语保留了中古汉语*的末止辅音，而江淮官话中已没有这种辅音，江淮官话是（可能是？）最接近明代南京/北京话的现存语言/方言。
如果你看看韩国人的名字（和越南人的名字一样，都有中国词源）和某些食品的名字（如麻药mayak ），就会发现这一点非常明显。
ABC
Speaking, no. Writing 文言文 Classical Chinese, yes
A lot of sound components in characters e.g. 能 in 態 do not make sense in modern Mandarin but did in the past
说不了。但写“文言文”交流，可以
汉字中的许多音素，如“能（態）”在现代普通话中没有意义，但在过去是有意义的。
Except literacy was really really low
除了识字率非常非常低
Which is kind of the point. Only when literacy remains low can the written language remain consistent over thousands of years.
If writing and reading remains a "classy" thing to do, people would tend to resist changes to remain "classy", and would gladly give up practicality for authenticity. If you complain that it doesn't match the spoken language? "Shut up, you peasant, write it the old way or get out."
As literacy goes high...well, here comes the 白话文. Had literacy been this high 2000 years ago, written Chinese back then would be completely incomprehensible today.
这正是问题的关键所在。只有识字率保持在较低水平，书面语言才能在数千年中保持一致。
如果书写和阅读仍然是一件“高雅”的事，人们就会为保持“高雅”而抵制做出的改变，并乐意为艺术性而放弃实用性。如果你抱怨书面语与口语不符？“闭嘴，你个乡巴佬，要么按老办法写，要么滚蛋”。
随着识字率的提高......白话文来了。如果 2000 年前的识字率就这么高，那么当时的书面中文今天就完全无法理解了。
For some reason I thought at various points in Chinese history, literacy was promoted or high— buuut maybe that’s just relative to the world at the time though, or to more chaotic periods like 3 kingdoms?
I know the Qing pushed for literacy, but I thought literacy wasn’t too bad in the Tang either, being a golden age.
不知为何，我觉得在中国历史上的不同时期，识字率都得到了提升或提高，但这也许只是相对于当时的世界而言，或者是相对于三国等较为混乱的时期而言？
我知道清朝才开始提倡扫盲，但我认为唐朝作为黄金时代，扫盲情况也不差。
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It’s great but it’s still feudal. There are only so much you can do when there are production bottle neck.
它很伟大，但仍然是古代社会。当出现生产瓶颈时，你能做的只有这么多。
The written case is not only plausible, but something analogous actually happened before. Choe Bu was a Korean bureaucrat who was shipwrecked in Zhejiang and made his way back home by land, writing in Classical Chinese along the way to communicate.
书写交流的案例不仅可信，而且类似的事情也确实发生过。崔弼是一位朝鲜官僚，他在浙江遭遇海难，从陆路回国，一路上用文言文写作交流。