目前並唔清楚古漢語係幾時開始走向「口語」同「書面語」嘅逐漸分離，然而，從商朝後期開始慢慢發展出來嘅漢字，一方面算係進入一個比較穩定而統一嘅局面，但係另一方面亦都開始走向「口語」同「書面語」分離嘅情況。從春秋戰國一直到漢朝末年呢段時間所產生嘅《詩經》、《論語》、《孟子》、《左傳》、《史記》等，形成咗古漢語嘅「書面體」古典文體，中間再加上從隋唐開始科舉制度嘅施行，一般文人更加淨係採用標準書面語來研習經史、吟詩作文，因此，一直到20世紀初期中國新文學運動嘅發軔為止，「文言文」支配咗中國歷史就快2000年喇。
It is not clear when ancient Chinese began to move towards the gradual separation of "spoken language" and "written language", but Chinese characters, which began to develop slowly from the late Shang Dynasty, entered a relatively stable and unified situation on the one hand, but on the other hand, they also began to move towards the separation of "spoken language" and "written language". From the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the end of the Han Dynasty, the "Book of Songs", "Analects", "Mencius", "Zuo Chuan", "Historical Records", etc., formed the classical style of ancient Chinese "written style", and in the middle of the implementation of the imperial examination system from the Sui and Tang dynasties, the general literati only used the standard written language to study the classics and history, and to compose poems, so until the early 20th century when the Chinese New Literature Movement was launched, "Classical Chinese" dominated Chinese history for almost 2,000 years.