You’re Wrong About Classical Chinese — It Was Never Pure
Classical Chinese was never a pure, frozen language. Every ancient text is a hybrid — a dead tongue polluted by the living speech of the writer’s era. This article reveals the ‘oral intrusion’ phenomenon, using examples from Han Yu to Gong Zizhen, and argues that the very act of imitating the past betrays the present. Language is alive, and no one can escape its pull.