“猩猩”“大猩猩”“黑猩猩”考辨

Traceability of “xingxing”“daxingxing”and “heixingxing”

现代汉语中的"猩猩"(orangutan)、"大猩猩"(gorilla)和"黑猩猩"(chimpanzee)这三个词来自日语,它们很容易发生混淆,例如将"大猩猩"理解成大的猩猩,"黑猩猩"理解成黑的猩猩。其实,这是三种不同的动物。现在日语已将这三种动物英语名称的音译作为学名,三个名称各自独立,不再干扰,但汉语还在使用原来的名称。

The Chinese names “xingxing”(orangutan),“daxingxing”(gorilla) and “heixingxing”(chimpanzee) are original loans from Japanese,but they are likely to lead to ambiguity. Now the Japanese have given up these words and switched to other words which no longer interfere with each other, while the original names are still used in Chinese.