希腊国名汉译探源

A Study of the Origin of “ 希腊 ”, the Chinese Transliteration of “Greece”

希腊国名的汉译史从一个侧面反映了中国西学东渐的历史进程。欧洲语言指称希腊国名的词语普遍采自拉丁文Graeci,但汉语用'希腊'来与其对应。这一汉译既非其意译亦非音译,实为希腊语自称之词Hellas音译的'张冠李戴'。本文通过查阅相关文献资料,分别考察了欧语中Graeci、Hellas名称的由来、演变及其汉语诸种音译'厄勒祭亚'、'额利西'、'希腊'的历史演变,认为汉译名'厄勒祭亚'早在十六世纪末甚至十五世纪中叶既已使用,而'额利西'和'希腊'则至少在1830年代就已较为通行,此后'希腊'历经百年发展取代'额利西'成为现代汉语指称希腊国名的唯一定名。

The Chinese translation of the name of the country of Greece,the origin of western civilization,marks the general feature of China’s history of its communication with the west.The term denoting the country in major modern European languages,e.g.Greece in English,owes its origin to the Latin word Graecia.Correspondingly,however,its modern Chinese translation希腊is neither its transliteration nor a meaningful match as is usually required in most cases of translation,but,rather,the transliteration of Hellas curiously‘misplaced’on Graecia.This paper attempts to,firstly,investigate the origin of the Latin word Graecia and Greek word Hellas;and secondly,after looking through some of the major Chinese books and translations of western works in the past four hundred years,trace the sources of three Chinese renderings of the same country name,namely,厄勒祭亚,额利西,希腊,back to the middle of 15th century and early 19th century,and thirdly,study the linguistic and historical reason behind the rise and fall of their use and the final dominance of希腊and disappearance of厄勒祭亚and额利西in modern Chinese.