A language has existed for too long, so in different historical periods, its pronunciation will always change greatly. If you bring together people who speak in these different historical periods, they may not understand each other what the other is saying.
Not long ago, a scientific magazine pointed out that in fact, as early as nine thousand years ago, people in the pan-Asian region, including Japan, South Korea and Turkey, used a language in northeast China.
In other words, nine thousand years ago, it was possible that people from China, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and other countries said the same thing. But at least nearly two or three thousand years ago, or earlier, people couldn't understand what the other person was saying.
Therefore, it is natural that the pronunciation of ancient Chinese words one or two thousand years ago is very different from today. This kind of thing has happened a lot.
Some time ago, netizens were talking about the pronunciation of individual words in Tang poems, which was "unified" by the education department. For example, the "riding" of "riding a red dust concubine laughing" now has to read "qí"; the "oblique" of "far up the stone path of the cold mountain" is now pronounced "xié".
Now some experts and scholars have moved out a unit of measurement, that is, the word "stone" in "one stone", telling everyone that this thing is now pronounced "dàn", but it was "shí" more than 2,000 years ago.
The education department wants to "unify" the pronunciation of individual words in Tang poetry, which is to make the pronunciation of ancient Chinese, to be modern. Experts want to "correct" the pronunciation of the word "stone", but they want modern people to go to the ancient dictionary.
Fortunately, this time, only a few experts and scholars stood up to say things, and the education department did not speak about it. So, which sound should be pronounced as the "stone" as a unit of measurement?
First, which pronunciation of the word "stone" is read, and who has the final say?
Professor Wang Liqun once mentioned in the "Hundred Family Pulpit" program that when Lü Buweimen's guests ate 600 stones, he pronounced the stone character as "shí". Later, when another Peking University professor was lecturing on Sima Guang, he also pronounced the word "shí".
It can be seen that the word "stone" is pronounced with the sound of "shí" when making units of measurement. This problem, among some experts and scholars, has begun to appear "the phenomenon of human-to-human transmission".
It is said that Wang Liqun once argued in the program that "stone" as a unit of measurement does not read "dàn", but "shí". This question was determined by many experts that he had consulted, and it was wrong to read it as "burden".
So, what is the "correct" pronunciation of this unit of measurement "stone" according to today's regulations? "Stone" is a unit of measurement officially established during the Qin Dynasty, and is written as "Heshi" in ancient books.
Written in the Eastern Han Dynasty's "Commentaries on the Interpretation of Texts", it is said: "Heshi, one hundred and twenty pounds also ... From the grass, the sound of stones. It can be seen that its earliest pronunciation must have been pronounced "shí".
Until the publication of the Kangxi Dictionary of the Qing Dynasty, this "stone" was still pronounced "shí" when used as a unit of measurement. However, when "stone" is used as a unit of measurement, it has been pronounced as "dàn" for a long time in the folk. How long is this? It is said to date back to the Tang Dynasty.
We all know that China has been in history for the next five thousand years. The same Chinese character, at different times, in different regions, will often have different pronunciations. The change in the pronunciation of Chinese characters is often the result of folk "conventions".
In simple terms, what pronunciation of a word actually depends on what the vast majority of people in society pronounce it. "Stone" is pronounced "dàn" as a folk convention. Today, this pronunciation has been officially included in the Xinhua Dictionary.
This shows that China's education department is also recognized, and also uses this as a standard to promote education. Therefore, it cannot be said that it is wrong to read the "stone" of the unit of measurement as "dàn".
This is like some Chinese place names, such as "Liu'an" in Anhui, where the word "six" is pronounced "lù", and you can't say that people read it wrong because "six" in the ancient dictionary only has one pronunciation of "liù".
In the same way, for example, the "Tai" character of "Taizhou" in Zhejiang, pronounced "tāi" here, if you insist on saying that there is no such pronunciation on the ancient books, it is not pronounced as "tái" for others, then in the locals, is it not "lifting the bar"?
In the past, when there was no standard dictionary, it was natural that everyone could read it as much as they wanted. Now the state has published a uniform and standardized dictionary, and the pronunciation on it is also very clear.
As a result, some people have to go to examine an "ancient sound" of more than 2,000 years ago, and then say that it is wrong to read it as "dàn".
These people are looking at the unit of measurement of "stone", which has long been used, otherwise, like the pronunciation of those place names mentioned earlier, people are still using it to see who will listen to these "experts and scholars" nonsense.
Ming Ming was born in New China, grew up under the red flag, had to turn out the ancient Chinese pronunciation of more than 2,000 years ago, and then wanted to make the general public recognize their views.
Second, if the evidence is too much, it is a bit contrived
In the past ten years, the cultural self-confidence of the Chinese people has increased, which would have been a good thing. However, because of the improvement of cultural self-confidence, now a lot of "examination fetishes" have emerged inexplicably.
These "examination habits" often do not examine some really useful things, and often examine some ancient "side branches" and not too important things.
For example, we are watching TV dramas now, in some costume dramas with the background of the Han Dynasty, when the subordinate answers the words of the superior, he no longer says "yes", he has to say "no".
It seems that this has to be the case to show that the screenwriter and director have culture. In fact, after talking about "No", the lines in the play are still not plain, and the audience is still confused.
For example, the big drama "Great Qin Fu", which was very popular before, when the people in it were happy, he was no longer called "good", he began to call "cai", because "cheers"!
The king in the play took the lead in shouting "color", and the courtiers at the bottom followed suit to coax "color color". However, after they drank the "color", the audience still did not buy it, thinking that the plot, the lines, were all nonsense.
However, some experts and scholars always work these ancient chickens and dogs, and do not use their knowledge to important places. The so-called "application of learning", it is better to study knowledge or to study some valuable things.
Why? Because of this kind of highly professional thing about Chinese linguistics, if you have researched a result yourself, written an academic paper yourself, and then found someone in the professional field to discuss it.
However, these people do not do this, they prefer to move out some old antiques, so as to give the audience "something you don't know", Xiuyi put his own superiority in knowledge, whether it is practical or not.
If you say to these experts and scholars: Now the "Xinhua Dictionary" has said that "stone" is used as a unit of measurement, and the ancient books read "shí", but the folk have always read "dàn", and now reading "dàn" cannot be wrong.
It is estimated that their heads will shake like a rattle, they will tell you that the dictionary is wrong, the dictionary is not all compiled by our experts, turn around and we will make a report to the relevant departments, so that the relevant departments will pronounce the word "stone" to "unified"!
epilogue
It is recommended that non-linguistics friends not be played by the star "experts" on TV. In particular, there are some experts, obviously studying history, inter-professional interpretation of Tang poetry, even if it is, and now cross-professional to popularize the pronunciation of ancient Chinese characters, it is simply inexplicable.
Chinese is a living language, and its pronunciation is constantly evolving. Some so-called experts, on the pronunciation of the word "stone" in the unit of measurement, engage in unnecessary pronunciation "retro", which is completely "opening the history backwards".
If this example is opened, then there are probably more words to change the pronunciation later, is it not chaotic? Personally, I believe that experts who are not experts in the pronunciation of Chinese characters usually use this word, and the pronunciation should only be based on the Xinhua Dictionary.
At least before the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences did not "unify" the pronunciation of the word "stone" in the dictionary, although there has been a "phenomenon of human-to-human transmission" among individual "experts" scholars, when we see "stone" as a unit of measurement, we still have to read "dàn" and resolutely do not read "shí".