22-06-2026, 10:13 PM
Yes, but it's not unlikely that someone dictating the text could have simply read out the Classical Chinese text in whatever his local pronunciation was in the early 15th century, or even that they may have had guidelines of how to adapt a Classical Chinese text to the local language when read out. They even had such guidelines in Japanese to turn Classical Chinese texts into Classical Japanese when read out. This is also done in Modern English when reading out, say, Shakespeare's texts - they are always read out using Modern English pronunciation, not the Middle English one from Shakespeare's time. Similarly, give a 19th textury text in Standard Slovenian to someone from a village in the middle of the Slovenian Littoral, and they're going to read it out with modern Slovenian Littoralese pronunciation. Even Latin has been so contorted - eg. Ecclesiastical Latin is basically Medieval Latin pronounced as if it was Italian.
So someone reading out a Classical Chinese text to a European visitor in the pronunciation of whatever their early 15th century local variety of Chinese was, is not at all unlikely.
So someone reading out a Classical Chinese text to a European visitor in the pronunciation of whatever their early 15th century local variety of Chinese was, is not at all unlikely.