pre-Classical Chinese language

Pre-Classical Chinese refers to the earliest stages of the Chinese language, spanning from approximately 1500 BCE to 220 CE. This period is divided into Oracular Chinese (Shang dynasty), Archaic Chinese (Zhou and Qin dynasties), and Han Chinese (Han dynasty).1

Oracular Chinese is known from brief inscriptions on bones and shells. Archaic Chinese, further divided into Early, Middle, and Late phases, is represented by bronze inscriptions and early philosophical texts. Early Archaic Chinese had a grammar that relied on unwritten affixes and possessed a third-person personal pronoun with distinct cases. Middle and Late Archaic Chinese saw more pronounced linguistic changes, with the development of grammatical particles. Han Chinese marks the end of this period, with a language that saw some grammatical structures become less explicit in writing. The writing system from this era is the direct ancestor of the modern Chinese script.12