民国时期大学数学教科书汉译案例研究——以博歇《高等代数引论》为例

A Case Study of Chinese Translations of College Mathematics Textbooks during China's Republican Period——A Probe into Chinese Translations of Maxime Bôcher's Introduction to Higher Algebra

哈佛大学教授博歇撰写的英文版大学数学教科书Introduction to Higher Algebra(《高等代数引论》),至迟于20世纪20年代传入中国,并先后被多所大学用作教科书。20世纪30年代,余介石和吴大任分别独立将其翻译成中文,并同在1935年在商务印书馆出版发行。博歇《高等代数引论》中译本,是民国时期知识分子建设大学数学中文教科书的阶段性成果。两个中译本均忠实原著,用白话文逐段逐句照译,语句通达,表述准确,虽有少许小的错误,但不失为高水平的民国大学教科书译著。相较而言,余介石译本质量更高,影响更大。

Introduction to Higher Algebra in English,written by professor of mathematics at Harvard University Maxime Bôcher,was introduced into China in 1920s at the latest,and adopted as a textbook in many universities.Yu Jieshi and Wu Daren translated it into Chinese in 1930s respectively.Both of the two Chinese versions were published by the Commercial Press in 1935.The Chinese versions of Bôcher's Introduction to Higher Algebra were the phased achievement of the construction of Chinese textbooks for college mathematics by intellectuals in the Republic of China.They were both faithful to the original works and translated sentence by sentence in modern vernacular,with fluent and accurate expressions.Although there were some mistakes,both versions were high level translations of university textbooks in the Republic of China.Comparatively speaking,Yu Jieshi's version was of higher quality and greater influence.