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Auteur: Haruko SANADA

Titre:
Transference and adaptation of the terms from Japan to China at the beginning of the 20th century


Abstract/Résumé: Words being equivalents of European concepts, supported the building of a modern society in Japan in the late 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century. The aim of the paper is to study the history of terms with the macroscopic view. Tetsugaku Jii (Dictionary of philosophy) compiled by T. Inoue et al. in 1881, 1884 and 1912, played the role of introducing new scholarly terms which diffused in Japanese. I recently found another edition published in 1891 and a manuscript of the 1912 edition of Tetsugaku Jii. By means of Inoue's diary he wrote some entries of Tetsugaku Dai Jiten (Great dictionary of philosophy) while he compiled Tetsugaku Jii. It is found that Dictionary of Philosophical terms: Chiefly from the Japanese compiled by two missionaries, Timothy Richard and Donald MacGillivray in 1913 in Shanghai referred to Tetsugaku Dai Jiten and extracted ca. 2,500 English headwords with Japanese equivalents which could be also employed as Chinese equivalents. The results show that terms originally diffused by means of Japanese dictionaries in the late 19th century transferred to a Chinese dictionary to be adopted in China at the beginning of the 20th century. According to results of comparison of two dictionaries in the section from A to D, Richard and MacGillivray transferred ca. 65% of their headwords from Tetsugaku Dai Jisho with Japanese equivalents to their dictionary. Over 90% of Japanese equivalents were taken if the headwords were employed. It is assumed that they employed the index of English equivalents and revised it. With examples it is also assumed that Richard and MacGillivray had "their standard" of the employment of Japanese equivalents whether the words can be acceptable as Chinese equivalents. However, it is hard to be regarded that all equivalents are acceptable as Chinese. It is assumed that Richard and MacGillivray supplied the rest of their headwords from dictionaries complied by Dr. G. A. Stuart and Dr. Cousland who were mentioned by Richard and MacGillivray in their preface. These books of medical terms seem to be pointed out as: Mateer, C.W., Educational Association of China. (1910). Technical terms, English and Chinese, revised by Geo. A. Stuart. Shanghai, Methodist Pub. House, and Cousland, P.B. (1908). An English-Chinese lexicon of medical terms: compiled for the Terminology Committee. Shanghai: Publication Committee Medical Missionary Association of China. Results of the comparison of Richard and MacGillivray's dictionary with above two dictionaries are reported and a process of the compiling work of the term dictionary is described. Missionaries in Asia in the late 19th century or at the beginning of the 20th century seemed to work widely beyond the borders of the country and seemed to have frequent contacts to each other. It is very probable that there was an own network of information among missionaries in Asia, and it can be concluded that Japanese terms were transported to China using such a network.