The Analects – Chapter 166 (7.18). Confucius’s use of ‘Elegant Speech’

7.18

The occasions upon which the Master used correct pronunciation were when reciting the Songs or the Books and when practicing ritual acts. At all such times he used the correct pronunciation.

子所雅言，詩、書、執禮，皆雅言也。

Notes

This passage from the Analects documents Confucius’s linguistic practice.

During the Spring and Autumn period, diverse regional dialects prevailed, often hindering communication between different states. When expounding the Classic of Poetry (Book of Songs, or Book of Poetry) and the Classic of Documents (Book of Documents, or Book of History), or when performing rituals, Confucius consistently used “elegant speech” — a standardized, refined form of pronunciation. This lingua franca allowed disciples from varied backgrounds to learn on an equal footing, embodying Confucius’s educational philosophy of “teaching without discrimination”. Language, in his view, should not be a barrier to knowledge; elegant speech was the very foundation of educational equity. Furthermore, a common language served as a symbol of cultural unity, fostering a shared ethical outlook among people from different regions.

The Confucian classics

Originally, The Book of Songs and The Book of History were compilations of official documents and folk ballads dating from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period. The Book of Songs collected musical odes and songs from various regions, while The Book of History recorded the imperial edicts, oaths, decrees and state affairs of the sage-kings in ancient times.

After traveling around the various states, Confucius devoted his later years to compiling and editing The Book of Songs and The Book of History and other traditional cultural texts – he collated, selected and interpreted the scattered texts of these two classics, endowing them with a unified moral and political connotation.

Revised by Confucius, The Book of Songs and The Book of History were no longer merely literary or historical texts; instead, they became the carriers of core Confucian ideals such as benevolence, propriety and rule by virtue, along with other classics like the Analects, Mencius, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Book of Rites, I Ching, laying the classic foundation for Confucianism.

“Give me a few more years, so that I may have spent a whole fifty in studying the I Ching, and I believe that after all I should be fairly free from error.”(Analects 7.17)