Yufa you meiyou? Le condizioni della nascita (o dell'assenza) dello studio grammaticale in Cina

Since the beginning of the XX century, when Western grammar was introduced into China, a heated debate has arisen on the causes of the lack of any grammatical study before then. Usually Chinese scholars have singled out as causes: the elementary structure of the Chinese language; the traditional educative system, which was organized just for a very narrow cultural elite and was based on learning by heart; the absence of contacts between Chinese and the languages of neighbouring populations. Nevertheless, many Chinese linguists have lately found out the «sprouts» of a native grammatical study. In order to correctly frame this topic, it is necessary to formulate a preliminary definition of what ‘grammar’ is, by pointing out its object, its method and its branches. Moreover, a comparison with two of the world’s most important traditions of grammatical studies, i.e. the European one and the Indian one, would make clearer the conditions under which what in Europe and in India was called ‘grammar’ could develop and why Chinese linguistics did not feature the same characteristics.

I linguisti cinesi tradizionalmente individuano la nascita dello studio della grammatica in Cina fra il 1895 e il 1898, quando Ma Jianzhong 馬建忠 (1845-1900) pubblicò il suo Mashi wentong 馬氏文通 [On the perfect knowledge of language by mr. Ma]. Quest’opera, in effetti, ha la caratteristica di essere la prima descrizione della grammatica della lingua cinese, compilata in lingua cinese e non in una lingua straniera, e ad opera di uno studioso cinese e non straniero. Tuttavia non è la prima opera di grammatica scritta in lingua cinese: durante i cinquant’anni precedenti alla pubblicazione del Mashi wentong erano anche comparse alcune semplici descrizioni della grammatica cinese, di quella inglese e di quella latina, redatte in lingua cinese da studiosi sia cinesi che occidentali.