Semantic Transliteration. A Good Tradition in Translating Foreign Words into Chinese. Babel. 2003. 49 (4)

17 Pages·0.1 MB·English

by  Hu Qingping, Xu Jun.

Babel 49:4 310–326 © Fédération des Traducteurs (FIT) Revue Babel
Semantic Transliteration
A Good Tradition in Translating Foreign Words into Chinese
Hu Qingping & Xu Jun
1. Introduction
Th eoretical studies of translation cannot be conducted without classifi ed inqui-
ries into concrete problems, which are met in the practice of translating [HU
1999]. Th e major diff erence between Chinese and Western languages lies in
morphology, while the diff erence between their grammars is minor1. Many an
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eff ort has been made to translate new words from foreign languages into Chi-
nese. Words of foreignD oerigliinv aerer ecadlle db byor rIonwgede wnortdas or loanwords. People
use these worodsn i:n sSevaerta,l w1a8ys ,N incoluvd in2g0 tr0an6sl it0er0ati:o5n,0 fr:e3e 6translation, se-
mantic transliteration, and copying without translation.
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Transliteration is a kind of phonetic transcription, a process in which sylla-
bles are converted into characters disregarding the word meaning. For exam-
ple, “Chocolate Wafer Cookie” is translated as Zhukuli Weihua Quqi (hereinaf-
ter the underlined words are the spelling letters in the pinyin system, to avoid
would-be diffi culties in typesetting Chinese characters). Th e result, called a
phonetic loanword, cannot conjure up the meaning, and the translation may
even be disgraceful. For example, “fan” is translated as shi in Cantonese, mean-
ing “shit or dung” when translated back into English [SHAO 2000]. Anoth-
er problem with transliteration was pointed out and explained by Mr. LIANG
[1929] that phonemic length of the foreign words had resulted in “the same
name being translated in a hundred diff erent ways by a hundred people”.
Free translation possesses a high degree of naturalization, but the Chinese word
corresponding to the foreign word may have diff erent notations, either denot-
ed or connoted [GU 1998], which can be seen in the following cases: 1) More
oft en than not, a semantic loanword is unknowingly misrepresenting; exam-
Semantic Transliteration 311
ples: “tragedy” is translated as beiju (sad drama), “intellectual” as zhishi fenzi
(mind worker), and so on. 2) A foreign word corresponds to quite a few Chi-
nese words, causing the problem of translation multiplicity; example: “presi-
dent” is translated as zongtong, zongcai, dongshizhang, zhuxi. 3) A Chinese
word corresponding to several foreign words without distinguishing between
them; example: both “peasant” and “farmer” are translated as nongmin (farm-
ing man) [HU 1995].
Copying without translation can be called “zero translation”, such as “CPU,
CAD/CAM, E-mail, EMS, VCD, DVD, MIDI, MTV, GDP, ATM, SARS,
CDC, …”. Excessive use of such foreign words may cause diffi culties to ordi-
nary citizens in their understandings. Language purists also complain that the
purity and unity of the Chinese language are being aff ected, even ruined.
Since China was opened to the world in the 1970s, the pace of loanwords com-
ing into Chinese has been accelerated. Now China has entered the WTO, in
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2008 Beijing will host the Olympics, and in 2010 Shanghai will host the World
Fair. Words of foreigDn oerilgiivn earree adnd bwyill Ibne gfl oeodnintga into Chinese in large
numbers. In tohisn s:it uSatiaont,, it1 is8 an N urgoevnt t2as0k t0o 6re a0ch0 a :c5on0se:n3su6s in approach-
es to translating new words from foreign languages into Chinese. Based on a
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proposal previously published [HU 2001], the authors of this paper maintain
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that, when borrowing words from abroad, the technique of semantic translit-
eration be used as the best choice. For this purpose, the authors would like to
create a new term for the product of such translation, that is, a “phono-seman-
tic loanword”, meaning a phonetic-semantic loanword. Th ough the term is new,
the practice is age-old. In fact, many loanwords belong to this category. And we
expect more loanwords of this kind to emerge in the future.
2. A retrospect of the history of word translation
To begin with, let us plot the Chinese history of translation only to fi nd that se-
mantic transliteration is a good tradition and is worth carrying forward.
Th ings or ideas expressed by loanwords are lexical gaps in the target language
that lacks the words corresponding to the items in the source language [HOCK-
ETT 1958; XU 1998]. Early translations of foreign words into Chinese had
to transcribe the sound mechanically. In the fi rst climax of translation, The
312 Hu Qingping & Xu Jun
Buddhist Bible, translators adopted transliteration for a great number of words
from Sanskrit, and did not hesitate to create characters and words. Xuanzhuang,
great translator in the Tang Dynasty, advocated a principle of “avoiding trans-
lation in fi ve cases: Do not translate for the sake of a secret, a polysemant,
no such a thing, obedience to the old way, and good deeds for good fruit. In
these cases, transliterate the sound only” [LUO 1984]. Th us a large number of
transliterated words occurred in the Buddhist scriptures, and the Sanskrit syl-
lables kept in transliteration became Chinese words and idioms, such as “bo-
dhi-sattva” — pusa (Buddha), “Amitabha” — Emituofo (May Buddha preserve
us). Many transliterated words were awkward reading and hard to understand
at fi rst glance. Only a few understood sentences that were made up of Bud-
dhist jargons. In the process of explaining The Bible, eminent monks changed
some words previously transliterated into new ones through semantic translit-
eration. Examples: “bhikkhuni” — biqiuni — ni — nigu (ni girl = nun. (Here-
inaft er a phono-semantic loanword is written in block letters); “yamaraja” —
yanmoluoshe — Yanluo wang — Yanwang (Yama = King of Hell); “mara”
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— mo — mogui (devil).
Delivered by Ingenta
In the secondo clnim:a xS oaf ttr,a n1sl8ati oNn, oXuv G 2ua0ng0q6i, g 0rea0t :s5ch0ol:a3r i6n the late Ming
Dynasty and the fi rst Chinese offi cial who was converted to Christianity, car-
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ried forward the good tradition of semantic transliteration. When he was trans-
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lating The Original Manuscript of Geometry jointly with Mr. Matteo Ricci, the
Italian Jesuit, he translated “geometry” as jiho, recording the pronunciation of
“geo-”, and expressed the meaning “a science concerned with measuring the
earth” as well, combining the sound and the meaning into one word: ji — how
large is the area, plus ho/he (ho is the southern pronunciation, equivalent to
he in Mandarin) — what does the shape look like. How wonderful this trans-
lation is! Th e word jiho could be looked upon as a model of semantic translit-
eration, and it might be the fi rst loanword translated consciously in a phono-
semantic way.
At the third translation climax in the 19th century, over 500 foreign words
came into Chinese, of which many were semantically transliterated. Exam-
ples: Th e English word “beer” was translated into Chinese as bier-jiu that was
a semantic transliteration already; and then in order to naturalize the transla-
tion into a two-character word, somebody created a new character pi with a
character component “mouth” and changed the translation into pi-jiu, meaning
Semantic Transliteration 313
“beer wine”. Th e popular noun pijiu has been used ever since. Similarly, “cof-
fee” — kafei, “curry” — kali, “ton” — dun … all these characters have a com-
ponent “mouth” in them. Likewise, “pound” — bang has a basic structural part
“stone” in it. Th ese added components indicate that these words are imported
from abroad. Mr. John Fryer, a British missionary, was employed as a transla-
tor for Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, and he summarized the techniques of
translating scientifi c nouns and unifying technical terms as follows:
Create a new name. If there is no such a name in Chinese, and you have to set up
a new one, then adopt one of these methods: 1. Add a basic structural part to an
ordinary character, and you will get a new name. Pronounce the new character as
the old one is read, such as chemical elements Mg — mei, Ba — bei, Ti — tai, Zn
— xin … with a jin in them, meaning “metal”; Si — xi, As — shen … with a shi
in them, meaning “nonmetal” … [MA 1998:342].
Th e purpose of creating new characters in Chinese is to transliterate seman-
tically by adding a new ideographic component to an existing phonograph-
ic character. Th is practice carried on the principle of creating characters in the
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process of translating The Buddhist Bible. Th e creation practice went on till the
second half of the 20tDh ceenlitvurey rwehedn tbhey m Ienchganeiznattioan of the Chinese char-
acter processoingn m: eSt traout,b le1s.8 Th Nen othve c2re0ati0on6 s to0p0pe:d5, a0n:d3 a 6few of the cre-
ated characters were eliminated. In the list of eliminated characters, there are
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some single characters such as qianke, standing for “kilogram”, qianwa for
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“kilowatt”, etc. Since then, these single-character words have been replaced by
compound words qian-ke, qian-wa, and so on, mostly with two characters in
them, conforming to the Chinese norm.
Another good example is huashi (changed stone) for “fossil” [LI 1876].
Th is semantic transliteration was enlightened by the description of Shen Kuo,
great scientist in the Song Dynasty, about the discovery of animal fossils [LUO
1999].
Unfortunately, the good tradition of semantic transliteration was interfered
from time to time, and could hardly be carried through. Frequently, political
factors promoted diff erent approaches to translation. In the late Qing Dyna-
sty, offi cials were sent to Western countries to investigate into their overall set-
tings. Almost all the reports of investigation treated Western words in the same
way — transliterating — in order not to make any political mistake and off end
the imperial government, but wrote out diff erent transliterations for the same
word [CLSHK 2001]. Just before the Reform Movement of 1898, a rumor was
314 Hu Qingping & Xu Jun
spread among plebeians in Peking, saying: Tan Sitong wants to overthrow the
rule of Queen Mother Cixi, become puliexidente himself, and encourage the
Western woolen costume to come into fashion. Hearing this, those merchants
who sold the long silky gowns were frightened by the Southerner named Tan,
although they did not know exactly what puliexidente meant. In fact, the word
“president” had a free translation zong tongling (general commander) that had
been made by ZHI Gang [1872]. Instead of using this new word, the conserva-
tives chose to use the transliteration to coin the rumor, lest the common peo-
ple know what this foreign novelty is. It is not unique, but has its counterpart.
When telephone was introduced to China, the Qing government acted in obedi-
ence to orders from Cixi the Queen Mother, and allowed delǜfeng to reach only
the imperial court and high offi cials. It was not until the Republic was found-
ed that telephone became available to corporations and citizens. Th e May 4th
Movement in 1919 met Mr. De and Mr. Sai, uncovered the mysterious veils
demokelaxi and saiyinsi covering “democracy and science”, and revealed their
true face. It can be concluded that translation is restrained by politics and it
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has to serve the political struggle [TYMOCZKO 2000]. Th is conclusion is evi-
denced not only by litDeraetulriev terarnesladtio bn, ybu tI nalsgo ebyn wtaord translation.
on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:50:36
Having got rid of the political interference, now the Chinese people are open-
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ing their chest wide and embracing the Western civilization. You see, anqier
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(angel) brings us kele (cola), yi-meier (e-mail) invites heike (hacker), wan-wei
wang (world-wide web) broadcasts tuokou xiu (talk show), zhuan jiyin (gene
transfer) produces kelong yang (cloned sheep) … So many new things make
modern life in China very colorful, and thousands of borrowed words enrich
the Chinese vocabulary.
3. Causes of the diversity of translation techniques
A Western word may have 3 diff erent kinds of Chinese translation, namely:
transliteration, free translation, and semantic transliteration that appear in dif-
ferent historic periods or among diff erent groups of the Chinese people. Th e
word “laser” was fi rst translated as laise, later it was translated in mainland Chi-
na (hereinaft er “ML”) as jiguang (excited light), and as leishe in Hong Kong
(hereinaft er “HK”) and Taiwan. Th e word “motor” as motuo, mada, diandong
ji (electrically-driven machine); “engine” as yinqing, fadong ji (launching ma-
chine); “metric” as mizhi, gongzhi (public system); … Many foreign words
Semantic Transliteration 315
came into Chinese in two or more translated forms.
Th e causes of the diversity of translation techniques are many-sided. Th e vari-
ation of time and space, diff erences between societies and locations are all
the factors that cause diff erent translation techniques. Th e word “vitamin” was
translated in the 1920s as weitaming (sustain his life); it was changed into
weishengsu (life-sustaining substance) in ML in the 1950s when the Ideolog-
ical Remolding Campaign was launched, during which some leading transla-
tors advocated free translation and naturalization to avoid the “foreign tone”.
Th erefore, ML tended to translate freely according to the meaning, while HK
and Macao tended to transliterate according to the sound. It can be said that in
ML foreign words were treated as captives and subject to transformation, while
in HK and Macao loanwords were spoken spontaneously somewhat like a pid-
gin English formed in a colonist atmosphere. Nowadays, however, the HK way
of using loanwords is aff ecting ML more than ever before [Lǚ 2000], a trend
that can be seen in advertisements of weitaming coming back to media in ML.
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Submerged in the Western civilization, people in HK and Macao tolerate the
English words and LaDtine leltitvere wroerdds tbo ay h iIgnhegr edengrteae [WU 2001]. Separat-
ed by space aondn ti:m Se, Cahti,n e1se8 p eNopole vin M2L0 a0n6d i n0 o0th:e5r r0eg:i3on6s call the same
thing diff erently. For example: “taxi” is called tikci in HK, but chuzhu qiche
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(rented car) in ML; now the two names are used interchangeably in ML. “laser
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CD” is called leishe yingdie in HK and jiguang shipan in ML; “bus” — bashi
in HK and gonggong qiche in ML; “percent” — baxian in HK or Singapore and
baifenbi in ML; “party” — paidui (group of couples) in HK and juhui (gath-
er together) in ML; “tips”-- tieshi (allowance pence) in HK and xiaofei (small
fee) in ML … Facing these discrepancies, we should not be surprised, and we
should not sit back and watch without doing anything either. We, Chinese trans-
lators all over the world, need to analyze, choose the better or best form, learn
from one another the strong point, and try to transliterate semantically.
We can also look for the causes of the diversity from a perspective of cogni-
tion. Suppose a person who fi rst came across a foreign word and did not un-
derstand it. He had no choice but swallowed it whole by transliterating. Later
he understood gradually, and changed the transliteration into a free translation
or a semantic transliteration. I agree with MASINI [1993: 136] on his expla-
nation of the sequence:
316 Hu Qingping & Xu Jun
Th e alleged logical sequence between phonemic and semantic loans was attribut-
ed to a lack of linguistic competence on the part of the speaker, who was not fa-
miliar with the exact meaning of the original word and therefore reproduced the
model on the basis of its phonemic shape rather than semantic content.
For example, “microphone” can be called maikefeng, kuoyinqi (sound magni-
fi er), weiyinqi (micro-sound device), or huatong (talk tone). Th e transliteration
and the free translation of the same foreign word may belong to diff erent parts
of speech. Take “hysteria” for example: its transliteration xiesidili is used as an
adjective, while its semantic transliteration yibing is a noun. Th e same word
is transliterated fi rst and freely translated later — this phenomenon is seen fre-
quently when foreign words are surging into our native language. It is similar to
the rumination of a cow that swallows her food and chews the cud slowly later.
Th e cheek pouch of a mouse or a monkey also functions like that.
Unfortunately, once the approach is chosen to be free translation, many forms
of translation of the same word spread unchecked like fl ood. For example, “sys-
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tem” has a semantic transliteration xitong that is good enough: two Chinese
characters correspondD toe tlwivo eEnrgelidsh sbyylla bIlnesg, aendn tthaey form a two-charac-
ter word, exporenssi:n gS thae ti,d e1a 8of “Na gorovu p2 o0f t0hi6ng s0 th0at: 5are0 r:e3lat6ed to the same
stem”. But some translators come up with a lot of free translations to replace
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it: xi, tixi, tizhi, zhidu, zhishi, jiti, fangshi, fenleifa … Another example, “me-
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dium” — meiti (agent by which something is expressed); meijie, meizhi, jie-
zhi, zhongjie, zhongyong, shizhong, zhongjianwu, meijiewu, gongju, shoud-
uan, huanjing …
When native speakers of English use merely one word to express quite a
few meanings, why should you translate it into Chinese as quite a few words?
Do you want to avoid confusing? Don’t worry. If native speakers depend on the
context to diff erentiate the shades of meaning, we can do it, too. Changing one
into many, or using many to correspond to one, is a wrong practice. It is like
adding feet to a snake someone has drawn in a picture to ruin the good eff ect.
Too many forms of translation corresponding to one original word will do us
no good but make trouble to word processing (including machine translation).
Th e character-creating movement has died a natural death, and the extremely
free translation should also disappear. What in the hell makes some persons
translate so freely? According to me, they start something new and try to be dif-
ferent in order to show off themselves: “Look! I can play with words, and I’m
cleverer than others.” Th is mentality drives generations of translators to retrans-
Semantic Transliteration 317
late the same word again and again, weeding through the old to bring forth the
new. Th is practice is partly responsible for translation variation, and partially
responsible for language change as well, resulting in arbitrary changes in fash-
ion. I guess God will say to us: “Oh! You human beings, I know you all have
the same fault — off with the old love and on with the new.”
It is perfectly understandable that a foreign word may have two or more Chi-
nese translations for the following reasons:
1. Both or all of them are semantic transliterations with diff erent ratios of
sound versus meaning in them, as “vitamin” — weitaming and weisheng-
su.
2. Diff erent phono-semantic loanwords have diff erent applications, as “opi-
um” — yapian (a black drug) and apian (a pharmaceutical constituent).
3. Translations for specifi c trades, such as “wafer” — weihua (biscuit in food
industry), weifa (micro-hair chip in electronic industry); robust — lu-
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bangxing (strong and durable computer), Robust — Lebaishi (soft drink
pleasing everyboDdy)e.livered by Ingenta
4. Translatioonns :f rSoma tv,a r1ied8 v Niewopvoi n2ts.0 F0or6 e x0am0p:5le,0 a: 3po6pular Chinese
name for “pizza” is Bisa bing that conjures up a kind of Italian pie with
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toppings, for Bisa (Pisa) is a famous city of Italy; but a dictionary compil-
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er translates it as piza bing (assorted crust pie) in the hope that the new
name will keep the original pronunciation, but it has lost the Italian iden-
tity and never been accepted by eaters [YU 1999].
5. Various translations lead to various associations, which are oft en seen in
trademarks. Th e word “Human” is borrowed by a soft ware corporation
— Hongen (enormous favor), and for a brand of beer — Haomen (noble
family). “Welcome” is used as brands of medicine with varied Chinese
trademarks: Weikang (stomach health), Weikang (health guard), Wei-
kang (for health), Weikang (maintain health). On the contrary, a Chinese
word may have two diff erent foreign origins. Th e transliteration kudieda
came from the French word “coup d’État”, and it keeps the same mean-
ing. Strangely, Kudieda is also the Chinese name of a Japanese medicated
plaster, and the proper noun means “painful injuries from falls and frac-
tures”.
6. Abnormal translations may conceal the truth. “Nippon” means “Japan”, of
course. But when Nippon Paint entered the Chinese market, instead of be-
318 Hu Qingping & Xu Jun
ing named Riben qi (Japanese paint), it was translated as Libang qi (this
paint makes a nation) lest it be boycotted by Chinese consumers.
7. A translation may change when the political atmosphere changes. Th e
English word “information” has three free translations in Chinese. It was
translated as qingbao (secret report or intelligence) in 1899 [CLSHK
2001] and used till the end of the Cultural Revolution. In the 1980s when
China merged into the international community, the translation changed
into xinxi (news message). Recently, it has changed into zixun (data and
message), a word used in Taiwan. News media in ML, including China
Central TV, have taken this word from the other side of the Strait, proba-
bly to show we are unifying Chinese words and we are using the same lan-
guage. Likewise, “carnival” was translated as kuanghuan jie (revelry fes-
tival); now even CCTV calls it jia-nianhua (joyous time) just as all the
oversea Chinese people do. Similarly, “show” and “taxi” have found their
way via HK to ML, and xiu and di have become word-building compo-
nents in putonghua — General Chinese.
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4. Feasibility of semDaentliicv terarnesldite rbatyio nIngenta
on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:50:36
Th e mutual translation of words between Indo-European languages is quite
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easy: either transliteration or transcription will do, sometimes plus changing
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the infl ectional ending at best. From the Indo-European family to the Chinese-
Tibetan family, however, translation turns to be much harder. Th ere are two bar-
riers. One is that Chinese characters developed independently of the Indo-Eu-
ropean family, and they do not have a common core. Th e other is that Western
letters stand for phonemes only, not for morphemes, while Chinese characters
represent not only syllables, but also morphemes, even single-syllable words
[XU 2001]. So, when translating a Western word into Chinese, the word has
to be treated as a whole. In the target language, every Chinese character has
some meaning. Th us every transliteration arouses a certain association, which
can cause misunderstandings if readers take it too literally. Anyhow, associa-
tion is inevitable for Chinese characters, and it helps remember the newcom-
er. Th en why not try to transliterate semantically to reap both the sound and
the meaning?
Is semantic transliteration possible? Yes, it is absolutely feasible. We have no
problem transcribing the sounds. Th e Chinese language has 400 and more syl-
Semantic Transliteration 319
lables in it that are enough to transcribe all phonemes in the world and all syl-
lables spelt with them [ZHONG 1983:552]. As for translating the meaning, we
do not have any problem either. A syllable corresponds to a cluster of Chinese
characters, forming a large range to choose from.
Taking advantage of the feature that Chinese is rich of homonyms, great writ-
ers wrote innumerable pieces of verse and prose. Here we quote from some
of them:
1. A friend of Su Dongpo uttered the fi rst line of a couplet: You Xihu ti xihu
xihu diao xihu xihu xihu (I toured the West Lake, taking a tin kettle with
me. Th e kettle fell into the lake. What a pity!)
2. Dr. ZHAO Yuanren [1953] wrote a complete story Shishi Shi Shi Shi (His-
tory of Mr. Shi Eating Lions) using merely one syllable /shi/ with the four
tones of Chinese pronunciation (numbered here as 1, 2, 3 and 4): Shi2 shi4
shi1shi4 Shi1shi4, shi4 shi1, shi4 shi2 shi2 shi1. … (A certain poet Mr.
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Shi once lived in a stone house. He liked eating lions, and pledged to eat
ten lions. …) Delivered by Ingenta
3. Prof. XUo Yn.Z:. [S19a91t], w 1ro8te 8N paopevrs 2on0 tr0an6sl a0tio0n: s5tu0di:e3s t6hat summed up
the essences of translation with 8 homonyms of one syllable /yi/: “Yi zhe
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yi1 ye. Yi zhe yi1 ye. Yi zhe yi4 ye. Yi zhe yi4 ye. Yi zhe yi4 ye. Yi zhe yi4 ye.
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Yi zhe yi2 ye. Yi zhe yi2 ye.” (A translator should be consistent. He must
rely on the original text. A translation has to diff er a bit from the original.
It has to change something magically. A translator expresses the original
meaning in the target language. He must be a linguistic artist. A translator
conveys the idea of the foreign author to domestic readers. He bequeaths
great thoughts to his fellow men and younger generations.) Th ese state-
ments are called the Eight Argumentations on Translation2.
4. Mr. Ma Ji performed a comic dialog whose sentences are all made up
of geographical names, revealing the potential of associations. Since his
performance, “London” — lundun (squat in turn) has become a teenag-
ers’ slang, replacing “toilet / WC”. Also, “Singapore” conjures up a “new-
ly added slope” — Xinjiapo; “Arab” arouses association with “my uncle
with sideburns” — Alabo. “America” sounds like a “beautiful land” —
Meiguo.