(East-West Question) Austrian Sinologist Lei Liber: How to use Latin to "build a bridge" for the dialogue between China and the West?
China News Agency, Beijing, June 6th: How to use Latin to "build a bridge" for Sino-Western dialogue?
Author Leopold Leeb, Austrian sinologist, professor at Renmin University of China
The dialogue between Latin and Chinese has a long history.
The earliest Latin teaching in China can be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty 700 years ago. In 1294, Menggavino came to Yuan Dadu (now Beijing) as a missionary and taught 40 boys to learn Latin.
Four hundred years ago, the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci began to translate the "Four Books" into Latin.
The 17th century was the peak period of translation between Lahan and Han, and many advanced science and technology from the West were introduced into China.
The relationship between Latin and Chinese is amazing
A few years ago I wrote a book "Latin in China" (unpublished), which discusses the process of Latin's introduction into China in a relatively comprehensive manner, including early cultural exchanges, academic translations in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and new words The creation of the earliest Latin scholars in China, such as the Fujianese Luo Wenzao (1615-1691) and the Cantonese Zheng Manuo (1633-1673), the writing and publishing of textbooks and bilingual dictionaries at the Chinese Latin Academy, until The interest of Latin scholars in the Republic of China and Chinese literati in the late 20th century in classical studies.
In fact, the relationship between Latin and Chinese is amazing.
Perhaps few people know that the ancient pronunciation of the word "cheese" is LAK, which is the same word as the Latin lac (milk).
However, such examples are really rare, although "turnip" also reminds me of the Latin rapum (turnip).
People line up to buy dairy products outside a cheese shop in Nanluoguxiang, Beijing, in 2008.
Photo by Yulong issued by China News Agency
Latin and ancient Chinese are both ancient languages with a history of more than 2,000 years and many documents are preserved.
Ancient Greek, ancient Hebrew, ancient Chinese, etc. are all ancient languages, but among these ancient languages, Latin should be regarded as the most modern ancient language, because Latin vocabulary contains many modern words, such as the ancient Romans have used "" The concept of republic, "voting rights", "civil law" and "international law".
The Romans wrote law textbooks, grammar textbooks, logic textbooks, astronomical studies, and encyclopedias covering many fields of knowledge.
Many words in the language of the ancient Romans are still used by modern people.
Many modern Chinese words come from Latin
About 60% of English words come from Latin, and many words in modern Chinese also come from Latin.
The "modern" (called "modern" in the Republic of China) in the four characters of "modern Chinese" comes from the Latin modernus.
The word first appears in papal texts in AD 496, meaning "near" and "just past", and literati of Charlemagne's time (800 AD) already spoke of their time as modernum saeculum (modern saeculum). period).
In this way the word "modern" became a word used in all European languages and other languages in the world, but the Romans used it first.
A modern advertisement on the streets of Shanghai in 2004.
Photo by Wu Mangzi issued by China News Agency
Modern Chinese also has obvious loanwords, such as "card" (from medieval Latin charta, a piece of paper) that people swipe.
A large number of Latin words are translated into modern Chinese, and people use them every day with little thought about their origin.
A very emotional example is "mother tongue" and "alma mater".
"Mother tongue" comes from lingua materna (English mother tongue, French langue maternelle, German Muttersprache).
Chinese dictionaries in the 1930s had no "mother tongue", only "national language" or "national language".
It is worth noting that the first Latin writer to talk about the "mother tongue" was Augustine (354-430 AD), who first described in his autobiography "Confessions" how infants learned language from their mothers, and Europeans began to pay attention The educational role of mothers.
"Mother school" comes from Medieval Latin alma mater (benevolent mother), referring to one's own school, because a school, like a mother, gives children (students) a lot of (spiritual) nourishment and makes them grow up.
Latin is the "most romantic" (romantic from Roma) language in the world.
At the same time, Latin is also the language of science, and most of Newton's works were written in Latin.
In June 2016, a primary school in Taiyuan, Shanxi held a graduation ceremony for the sixth-grade primary school students with the theme of "Flying at their alma mater", and invited the parents of the graduates to participate.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhang Yun
Regarding the introduction of academic terms, the book "Elements of Geometry" translated by Italian missionary Matteo Ricci defined many geometric concepts and created terms, such as "triangle", "square", "point", "surface", "body" "It's all translated from Latin.
The Chinese "body" refers to the body, but in ancient times there was no geometric meaning.
We use words such as "three-dimensional sense", "object" and "sphere" today because the Latin corpus (body, body) has changed the meaning of Chinese "body" and added the meaning of geometry.
Matteo Ricci's portrait, photographed by Yao Jun issued by China News Agency
Latin rewrote and enriched Chinese in many ways and added many terms.
For example, grammatical terms (verbs, nouns, adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, etc.) are not found in Old Chinese.
Civil law, criminal law, marriage law, commercial law, contracts, international treaties, associations and committees are also absent in ancient Chinese, but today there is a "village committee" in every rural Chinese village.
Who knew that "committee" comes from the Latin committere ("to", i.e. to "give" one's voice to another, appoint him)?
Latin is also the most "powerful" language. Modern Chinese's "imagination" (vis imaginationis), "memory" (vis memoriae) and "understanding" (vis intellectiva) are all Latin concepts.
I started learning Chinese in 1988, and I didn't expect to find so many words in Chinese that make me feel friendly.
At the time I thought Chinese was completely "another system" or "another way of thinking".
But today I know that the Chinese use the same vocabulary as the Europeans in many ways.
We have long since become brothers in thought, especially after 1949, "vernacular" and "Putonghua" were promoted, and the original "semi-classical Chinese" had disappeared.
Today's Chinese are used to using "sex" (such as "purity") and "ism", but few people reflect on where their ideological concepts come from.
"ism" also comes from Latin.
By the 13th century, there were many schools and debates among scholars in European universities, and they began to use the suffixes -ista and -ismus (such as nominalismus nominalism, nominalism) to express a certain ideological tendency or ideology.
However, because the terms of modern Chinese are written in Chinese characters, people do not feel that the etymology of these words is foreign.
In fact, Latin has "transformed" many traditional Chinese words.
For example, in ancient Chinese, "society" refers to group activities such as "social fire" and "temple fair", but in today's Chinese, people more often refer to "society" with "social relations", "social class", and "sociology". The words "socialism" are linked together.
Latin can help us restore the original meaning of "society": societyetas (English society) comes from socius, "ally" and "friend".
So society is the product of friendship.
Moreover, in Medieval Latin, societas also means "association" and "civil society", which means that people organize "community", which can be regarded as a rich social life.
The striking similarity between Old Chinese and Latin
Not only that, but some striking similarities can also be found between ancient Chinese and Latin, for example: the Roman pupilla has two meanings, the first refers to the little girl, and the second refers to the pupil.
And why is there a "tong" (child) next to the "eye" in the Chinese word for "pupil"?
Is it all because we see our own image in each other's eyes - a shrunken "child"?
Otherwise, how to explain the "coincidence" phenomenon of pupilla and "Hitomi"?
There are other examples: the Latin fructus mainly means "fruit" "fruit", but it can also mean the abstract "result" like the Chinese "guozi".
This statement may be inspired by Buddhism: "Cause and Effect".
The Chinese "plant melons get melons" is equivalent to the Latin idiom Sicut seminaveris ita metes.
However, fructus in Latin can also mean "fetus" or "child," as in fructus ventris tui (the child you give birth).
Because Latin words are in many ways influenced by legal thought, fructus also means "enjoyment," "enjoyment," "benefit," "fruitfulness," and "beneficiary right."
Both Orientals and Westerners use "flowers" and certain animals to describe the beauty of women.
For example, the Latin adjective florens (blooming) means "beautiful", which is similar to the Chinese saying that a person is "a flower" and "gorgeous" (the original radical of the word "hua" is the beginning of grass).
Many Chinese girls' names are "Xiaohua" or "Red Plum", etc., and the West has the same phenomenon: the Latin rosa (rose) has become Rose (Rosa), the Latin lilium (lily) has become Lily (Lily), Hebrew susanna (lily) became Susan (Susan) and so on.
The Latin margarita (pearl; from Greek) also became a woman's name: Margaret, see Chinese gemstone names, such as "Lin Daiyu".
In Chinese, "high", "flat" and "low" not only express the height of the body, but also a certain mood and attitude, such as "arrogant", "approachable" and "low".
Latin also uses the word "height" to express the attitude of the mind, such as celsus (high) can also mean "proud", aequus (equal) can mean "calm", "fair", humilis (short) , low) can mean "unremarkable", "inferior".
In addition, the Latin sublimitas (height; sublime) connects "excellent" and "high", like the Chinese "noble".
On April 22, 2006, on the 37th "Earth Day", "2006 Earth's Third Pole Mount Everest Action" launched an environmental protection signature activity in Beijing, and began to formally recruit volunteers from the society.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Du Yang
The Latin caput (head) can refer to "the main city of a country", which is the root of the "capital" of modern Chinese.
At the same time, caput is also a "chapter" of literature, that is, English chapter (chapter).
Interestingly, Chinese also uses "shou" to refer to "one chapter", such as "three hundred poems of Tang Dynasty".
Both "Ding Ning" and "Ding Dang" in Chinese are onomatopoeia, but "Ding Ning" also means "repeatedly instructed".
The Latin tinnire also combines these two meanings: nummuli tinniunt (coins tinkling) and nimium iam tinnis (you have tinned and asked too much).
There are many more examples of this, all of which can be read in my book "Latin Bridges".
I want more Chinese readers to have the opportunity to learn Latin, so I have written several textbooks and dictionaries.
Chinese students today spend a lot of time learning ancient Chinese, but still very few people learn Latin.
In 2002 I started teaching Latin in Beijing.
After 20 years, my interest in teaching Latin has not waned, but has continued to increase.
Latin also gives me a strong sense of belonging.
For example, in 2018, the tombstone of Zheng Manuo (1633-1673), the earliest Chinese to study in Europe, was discovered in Beijing. The inscriptions on the inscription are in Chinese and Latin side by side, which skillfully combined the two cultures, and I began to read the story of this person. I felt like it was my own story in a sense.
Zheng Manuo's life and his bilingual inscription made me deeply admire and cherish Beijing, the "spiritual capital".
(Finish)
About the Author:
Leopold Leeb, an Austrian sinologist, was born in Austria in 1967 and came to China in 1995 to conduct research under the guidance of Professor Tang Yijie and Professor Chen Lai.
From 1999 to January 2004, he conducted translation and research at the Institute of World Religions, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Since 2004, he has been a professor at the School of Literature, Renmin University of China.
Fields of study: Western classical languages, ancient and medieval literature, philosophy, religious studies.
Main works: "Zhang Heng, Science and Religion", "Latin Bridge", "Latin English-Chinese Dictionary", "Latin Idioms Dictionary", "Radhe Dictionary of English-Chinese Legal Aphorisms", "Concise Latin Course", "English-Chinese Summary of Western Classics", etc. Beyond East and West: The Autobiography of Wu Jingxiong, etc.