ABSTRACT
In the last quarter of the 3rd century BC, the Chinese-speaking world experienced the greatest revolution in its history. Some scholars call it the only Chinese revolution worthy of the name. This chapter presents the opinion of Chmielewski, who wrote a Polish article about linguistic aspects of the oldest layers of Chuci. The chapter explains why the popular poetry as opposed to all poetry is so important for the study. Zhuangzi and Qu Yuan – the greatest literary authorities of the archaic period – expressed themselves in a Southern Chinese idiom that was the language used in the middle basin of the Yangzi. Many archaic Chinese documents mention semi-barbarian Chinese, spoken in the Qin kingdom. The phonetic changes caused a gradual disappearance of specific archaic morphology based on phonetic changes within a syllable, very near to what is called “alternation.”
