清末音译西药名用字考察

Research on the Phenomenon of Characters Used in the Transliteration of Western Medicine Names in the Late Qing Dynasty

以清末四种影响较大的西医文献为研究文本,测查其中的音译西药名用字,其用字呈现出以下主要特点:用字差异明显、口旁字使用数量多、尾音译字类化等。音译西药名的用字歧异由汉字系统外部与内部多种因素造成,多用口旁字与当时粤方言地区大量使用口旁字、口旁字用于音译具有优势及译者的翻译思想有关,尾音译字类化为译者自觉追求同音同译的结果。

This article takes the four kinds of influential Western medicine literature in the late Qing Dynasty as the ob-ject,and characters used in transliteration of Western medicine names were examined.These characters show the fol-lowing main characteristics:obvious differences in the use of characters,extensive use of characters with radical"mouth",and categorization of transliteration characters of the last syllable,etc.The differences in the use of charac-ters are caused by various external and internal factors of the Chinese character system.The multi-use of characters with radical"mouth"is related to the extensive use of characters with radical"mouth"in Cantonese at that time,the advantages of characters with radical"mouth"for transliteration and the translator's translation thought.The catego-rization of transliteration characters of the last syllable is the result of the translator's conscious pursuit of homophonic transliteration.