The spoken language, like all others, was undergoing phonetic change much of the time, which the written form could not reflect because of its non-alphabetic nature; hence the rise of the use of phonetic compounds, of which there were already almost 7000 out of the 9350+ graphs recorded in the Shuowen. Because the written form could no longer reflect the sounds of the spoken there was much less incentive to attempt reflecting syntax either, especially when it is kept in mind that the spoken language was indeed continually undergoing change as well, and that to refer to the differences in sounds and sound patterns between them as “dialects” overlooks the fact that some of the variants were (and are) as different from each other as Italian from German. In this sense to say “I speak Chinese” is like saying “I speak European”. So the two language forms evolved separately for the most part, the spoken, we may surmise, much more rapidly, both within and between regional “dialects”.