金尼阁的语言学思想和礼仪之争

Nicolas Trigault's linguistics Thoughts and Chinese Rites Controversy

1610年后,在华耶稣会会长龙华民在耶稣会内部掀起了著名的"礼仪之争",它的一个核心问题,即是Deus的中文翻译。拉丁文Deus有两种译法:意译和音译。龙华民和其他一些传教士支持音译,而金尼阁则支持意译。本文通过对金尼阁的《1610年中国年报》、《1616年给耶稣会总长的报告书》和《西儒耳目资》三份历史文献的分析,从语言学的角度,来探讨金尼阁与"礼仪之争"的关系,特别是他对于Deus之翻译问题的看法,以及原因。本文并不赞同将"礼仪之争"简单地归之于欧洲传教士如何理解和对待中国文化的问题,它更是欧洲传教士如何对待欧洲文明与世界其他文明之间关系的问题。

In 1610, Nicolas Longobardi, the president of the Society of Jesus in China launched the famous Chinese Rites Controversy within the Society of Jesus. The core issue of Chinese Rites Controversy was to translate Deus into Chinese. There are two translations for the Latin word Deus： free translation and transliteration. Nicolas Longobardi and other missionaries supported transliteration while Nicolas Trigault supported free translation. Based on Trigault’s three historical documents, this paper discusses the relation between Nicolas Trigault and Chinese Rites Controversy from the perspective of linguistics, particularly his views on the translation of Deus. The author does not agree with the opinion that put simply Chinese Rites Controversy down to the problem that the European missionaries was how to understand and deal with the Chinese culture, instead, it is the problem that the European missionaries was how to treat European civilization and other civilizations of the world.