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Writing in China dates back to the hieroglyphs in that were used in the Shang Dynasty of 1700 – 1050 BC.
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The best literature of the Yuan Dynasty era and the four novels that are considered the greatest classics are important exceptions. However, even during the Qing Dynasty of two hundred years ago, most writers composed in a literary stream that extended back about 2,400 years.
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The grammar of the written Classical Language is different than the spoken languages of the past two thousand years. This written language was used by people of many different ethnic groups and countries during the Zhou, Qin and Han eras spanning 1050 BC to 220 AD.
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The Five Classics and Four Books were written in the written Classical Language. The Five Classics include: The Book of Changes, The Classic of Poetry, The Record of Rites that was a recreation of the original Classic of Rites of Confucius that was lost in the Qin book purge, The Classic of History, and The Spring and Autumn Annals that was mainly a historical record of Confucius' native state of Lu.
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The Tang Dynasty had a big empire that benefited from trade with the west along the Silk Road, battled with the Tibetan Empire, and experienced the growing influence of organized Buddhist religions. This era’s main contribution to Chinese literature was in the poetry of Dufu, Li Bai and many other poets. Dufu and Li Bai are often thought of as China’s greatest poets.
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The grammar of the written Classical Language is different than the spoken languages of the past two thousand years. This written language was used by people of many different ethnic groups and countries during the Zhou, Qin and Han eras spanning 1050 BC to 220 AD.
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The empires and groups of kingdoms of all these eras were composed of people speaking many different native languages. If Europe had a literary history like China’s, it would be as if most European writers until the 20th century always tried to write in ancient Classical Greek that became a dead language more than two millennia ago.
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The grammar of the written Classical Language is different than the spoken languages of the past two thousand years. This written language was used by people of many different ethnic groups and countries during the Zhou, Qin and Han eras spanning 1050 BC to 220 AD.
