明清中国“大西洋”概念的生成与演变

Generation and Evolution of the Concept of Daxiyang During the Ming and Qing Dynasties

中文语境之大西洋概念最晚出现在明朝嘉靖时期,其意本指印度洋北部及其沿岸地区,特别是阿拉伯半岛一带。待到耶稣会士来华后,随着利玛窦等人对中国大西洋概念的巧妙借用,以及《坤舆万国全图》等中文世界地理图书的广泛传播,先前出现的大西洋概念开始发生明显变化。概言之,此后之大西洋概念已逐渐固化为三层内涵:一指欧洲大陆,二指今大西洋特别是伊比利亚半岛以西之北大西洋局部海域,三指葡萄牙或意大利。中文大西洋概念虽由中国人自主创造,但其由明到清的内含演变却深受中欧政治、文化关系的影响。因为“大”字冠首,以及西方殖民势力对中国东南沿海的侵掠骚扰,指称欧洲或具体欧洲国家的大西洋概念遭致明清保守士人的广泛质疑,且有被“西洋”二字所取代的趋势,这是大西洋概念政治化的必然结果。但作为海洋称谓的大西洋概念不仅没有受到影响,其范围反而扩大到整个今大西洋海域。

Daxiyang,in the context of Chinese,appeared in the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty at the latest,which meant the northern Indian Ocean and its coastal areas,especially the present Arabian Peninsula.After the Jesuits came to China,with the ingenious borrowing of the concept of Daxiyang by Matteo Ricci and others,and the wide dissemination of Chinese world geography books such as Kunyu Wanguo Quantu,the connotation of this term began to change significantly.To summarize,after the Jesuits came to China,the concept of Daxiyang in Chinese had turned into three main connotations.Firstly,it was the popular appellation of Continental Europe during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.Secondly,it referred to the Atlantic Ocean,especially the local maritime space of North Atlantic Ocean which was to the west of the Iberian Peninsula.Thirdly,it referred to Portugal or Italy.Although the Chinese concept of Daxiyang was created independently by Chinese,the evolution of its connotation from Ming to Qing was affected deeply by Sino-European political and cultural relations.Because of the prefix“Da”in this term and the aggression and harassment on the southeast coast of China by the western colonists,the concept referred to Europe or the specific European countries was widely questioned by the Chinese conservatives,and it was in the tendency of being replaced by the word Xiyang,which are the results of the politicization of the Daxiyang concept.However,Daxiyang,as the appellation of the ocean,has not been affected.On the contrary,its scope expanded to the entire Atlantic Ocean today.