东渐西传,语言先行——从伊大所藏传教士所编汉语学习文献谈起

East Meets West through Language Interaction:Missionary Dictionaries at University of Illinoi Library

晚清至民国早期,西方传教士致力于汉英、英汉词典以及汉语读本的编纂、出版,用以帮助传教士和商人等西方来华人士学习汉语。这些语言学习文献不仅反映当时中外文化交流的诸多方面,同时也提供了研究当时中国社会、历史、语言等现象的第一手资料。伊利诺伊大学图书馆收藏有1911年之前出版的传教士汉英、英汉词典等语言学习文献,这些文献资料都具有非常重要的研究价值。

From late Qing Dynasty through the early period of Republic of China,Western missionaries were diligently engaged themselves in compiling and publishing Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionaries or Chinese language readers to help Westerners to learn Chinese.These language learning materials not only reflect many aspects in the exchange between Chinese and foreign cultures,but also provide the first-hand information of Chinese society,history,Chinese language,and other phenomena of the time.The author of this article intends to describe some of the missionary dictionaries from the collection of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library,discuss the features and impact of such publications in Chinese Study.