In recent years, many experts have called for "saving" the purity of Chinese, arguing that Chinese should not be mixed with foreign words. However, there are many loanwords in common vocabulary of modern Chinese. The most commonly used loanwords in modern Chinese are "imported" from Japan, and the number exceeds that of other languages. This is not only because Japanese and Chinese * * * share Chinese characters, but also because the modernization process of China and Japan is similar, and they learn from each other when translating and introducing western concepts such as culture, politics, economy and science. Many people are extremely proud of the use of Chinese characters in Japanese, but the contribution of Japanese vocabulary to Chinese may be far beyond the imagination of China people.
If Japanese words are removed from Chinese, even a complete sentence cannot be written.
Today, many Japanese words have been internalized as part of Chinese words. If we don't study the source of a word from literature and historical texts, it is difficult for us to notice their connection with Japan in our daily life. It's like a successful organ transplant without any rejection, which is why it's hard for us to realize what it might mean to leave these words. If we remove all the words "Nissan" from modern Chinese, we can't even write a complete sentence, let alone express our views and opinions. For example, the following is a random excerpt from a news report:
After analyzing the demographic trend of age and income, we find that the market economy is not the only reason for the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States. In fact, the gap between the rich and the poor is related to the demographic structure, not the problem of capitalism. ..... We know that these people account for a considerable proportion of the total population of the United States. The average person's income will peak at the end of his career, and the peak of wealth accumulation is usually around 63 years old, that is, before retirement. Many baby boomers are at the peak of their careers. Because they account for a large proportion of the total population, they have an impact on the distribution of income and wealth.
In this passage, the key words "trend", "analysis", "economy", "capitalism", "proportion", "distribution" and "career" which constitute the main body of the sentence are all borrowed from Japanese vocabulary. Without these sentence elements, the above passage will lose its meaning. Japanese vocabulary not only brings new words, but also word formation, which further affects the syntax and expression habits of vernacular Chinese in all directions. For example, before borrowing Japanese words, there were no expressions such as "XX", "XX sense" and "XX boundary" in Chinese. Obviously, a person who uses classical Chinese can't explain what "diversity", "superiority" and "art world" mean.
Does it mean that the modernization of China people has always been in the shadow of Japan? You can't say that either. The modernization processes of China and Japan overlap each other, and there is bound to be tension. Japanese vocabulary has influenced Chinese vocabulary. However, we can never come to a rude conclusion that 70-80% of modern Chinese vocabulary comes from Japanese. Pure foreign words are far from such a high proportion, not exceeding 1000 words. In a word, Chinese has indeed "introduced" many Japanese words. Without these words, vernacular Chinese is "short"; However, we can't exaggerate the influence of Japanese on Chinese. In the process of "introducing" Japanese words, there are also cases of "exporting to domestic sales".
The so-called "export to domestic market" refers to some words that are regarded as borrowed from Japanese and have appeared in ancient books in China. It's just that some Japanese scholars who are familiar with China culture rediscovered these words with similar meanings from China ancient books when translating and introducing western documents, so as to make the past serve the present. For example, the Book of Changes records the history of Shang Tang's change of Xia Jie regime: "The Tang and Wu revolutions depend on heaven and people." The "revolution" here can be regarded as the Japanese's exploitation of China's resources, and it is also a typical example of China's vocabulary "export to domestic sales". In addition, in addition to searching for resources from ancient books, there are also excavations of Tang, Song and even Ming texts. Therefore, from Meiji Restoration to World War II, it was a common practice for Japanese scholars to dig old words from China ancient books as new words corresponding to western words.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Japanese translation gradually defeated the native translation represented by Yan Fu.
Language expresses and explains the world, and the modernization of language becomes a mirror. When China gradually popularized the vernacular movement from the top to the bottom of the intellectual elite, it opened a door to the West. It can be said that behind the mutual reference of Chinese and Japanese words is the modernization history of the two languages, as well as the history of China and Japan accepting western ideas, reforming political and economic systems and innovating social customs. This process is closely related to the key words such as "learning from foreigners to control foreigners", "reform for survival" and "constitutionalism in the late Qing Dynasty", and also closely related to the Meiji Restoration Movement in Japan, which started almost at the same time.
Now just open a newspaper, and all the technical terms may come from Japanese translators or reformers more than a century ago. In addition to clear classification-science, culture, politics, economy, etc. -These words also point to new methodology, political practice, social fashion and so on, such as socialism, market economy, * * * harmony, civil engineering, proletariat, methods and extraterritorial jurisdiction.
It can be said that "the boundary of language is the boundary of the world", and the translated new words deconstruct the original world outlook and replace it with a set of unprecedented new ideas. Then, since people of insight in China and Japan tried to translate and introduce western ideas for similar modernization goals in the same historical period, why didn't local translators and reformers widely use Chinese translation methods? What causes Japanese vocabulary to prevail in the process of cultural exchange and game between China and Japan? This involves another issue, namely appropriateness and convenience.
The work of translating and introducing western languages is carried out by the intellectual elite from top to bottom, because few people have an open mind, foreign language ability, extensive knowledge and learning platform at the same time. Yan Fu, a thinker in the late Qing Dynasty, made great achievements in English translation. In addition to translating the famous book Evolution, Yan Fu also created some new words with Chinese characters that are not found in Chinese context and English, including "economy", "metaphysics" and "philosophy".
In the upsurge of learning from Japan in the early 20th century, a large number of students studying in Japan abandoned Yan Fu's translation method and turned to "Japanese translation". These Japanese translations have been preserved to this day, with words such as "economy", "metaphysics", "philosophy" and "capital". Yan Fu mentioned in Translation Examples of the Theory of Evolution that translation should be "faithful, expressive and elegant", in which "faithfulness" means accuracy, "expressiveness" means not sticking to the original text, and "elegance" means elegance. In the end, Yan Fu's translation was replaced by "Japanese translation", and the reasons can also be found in these three words.
From the words listed above, it is not difficult to see that Yan Fu's translation pursues elegance, but lacks some faithfulness. As Wang Guowei said, "strict translation" has two shortcomings, one is excessive pursuit of "antiquity" and the other is too "elegance". Looking at Yan Fu's translation alone, the accuracy is good, which is quite the character of China literati. However, compared with Japanese translation, the latter is more delicate and accurate, which is more in line with the essence of the original text, which may echo the pragmatic tradition during the Meiji Restoration. Yan Fu's translation was rejected by intellectuals because it was not credible enough, and it was too exquisite to be widely circulated. With the help of Liang Qichao and others, a large number of "Japanese translations" came to China to learn from Japan and had a far-reaching impact.
Japanese words such as "Meng" and "Ghost Animal" have been given new meanings since they entered China.
As we all know, although Japanese also uses Chinese characters, the ideographic process of Chinese characters in Japanese is different from that in Chinese. That is to say, the pronunciation (so-called "training reading" and "pronunciation reading") and meaning of two words composed of the same Chinese character may be very different in two languages; Similarly, Chinese and Japanese will use different Chinese characters to express the same meaning. However, in recent years, the Japanese animation industry has had a great influence in the world. The conservative government has praised and exported subcultures such as "Meng", "Zhai" and "Secondary Element", and China cultural circle has also been impacted by the "Secondary Element". Geographically, the influence of "Secondary Japanese" is first in Taiwan Province Province of China, and most recently in Chinese mainland.
"Meng", "Zhai" () and "Duyuan" () used to confirm cultural identity are all Japanese words. When these Japanese words came to China and were used by China people, their meanings changed. For example, in Japan, "Meng" is specially used to love and praise anime and game players, but in Chinese it replaces the meaning of "cute" in a broader sense. For another example, the original intention of the word "ghost animal" is cruel and abnormal behavior, but now it has been given a new meaning because of the development of video websites.
Funny Day and Comics is a special work, which extends the influence of "the second element" to the outside world. The translation of Funny Days and Comics has brought many new words with Japanese flavor to China audience. These viewers will be familiar with these words even if they haven't seen funny days and cartoons and don't know the origin of these words. The most typical word is "geili", which is purely a Chinese word created by animation translators based on Japanese language sense, but it has a great influence outside the works. Words in the same situation include "arrogance" and "black belly". Faced with these sudden, strange and novel words, people who are not familiar with "Second Hospital" have to classify them into the old category of "network language".