“伟大”的词源及词义变迁--基于汉日语言接触的视角

The Etymology and the Change of Meaning of"Weida":Based on Language Contact between Chinese and Japanese

中日词汇近代化的过程中,大量汉字词得以创造、改造或出现词义变化,我们称之为"近代词"。"近代词"中的术语和部分名词已经得到广泛的关注,而形容词等词汇因为不具有典型的近代特征而往往遭到忽视,鲜见研究成果。本文以近代形容词中的"伟大"为例进行考证,结果显示:"伟大"源自汉籍,最初用于形容身体巨大。该词传入日本后,大约在19世纪后期产生表示抽象事物大且好的新义,且在较短时期内得到普及。19世纪末,"伟大"带着新义回到中国,其新义逐渐取代汉籍的用法,在20世纪早期融入汉语并沿用至今。

In the modernization process of Chinese and Japanese languages, a large number of words have been created, transformed or changed in meaning to become what are then called "modern words". Among these words, the terms and parts of nouns have already received extensive attention, while the ordinary words such as adjectives are often neglected because they do not have typical modern characteristics, and thus, have rarely been studied. This article studies "weida", a representative word among modern adjectives, and the results show as follows. "Weida" comes from the Chinese classics and was originally used to describe a large body. After it was introduced to Japan, in or about the late 19 th century, a new meaning was attached to express abstract things with a good connotation, and became popular in a short period of time. By the end of the 19 th century,the word "weida" with the new meaning was taken back to China and gradually replaced the old usage in the Chinese classics.It was widely used in the early 20 th century in Chinese and is still in use today.