利玛窦创译西洋术语及其引发的文化论争

Matteo Ricci's Translation of Occidental Terms and the Cultural Debates Caused by His Translation

明末入华耶稣会士利玛窦与中国士人结合,创译一批术语,确立了意译、音译并举,意译为主的范式,而在意译时又尽力借用汉语古典旧词,以便于中国人理解,这又引起围绕基督教至上神可否译作“上帝”、“天主”的论战,构成长达百年的“中国礼仪之争”的核心内容。

Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary who came to China at the end of the Ming Dynasty, translated a number of foreign terms into Chinese for the first time in collaboration with Chinese scholars. In his translation, he employed largely a free approach combined with occasional transliteration. To facilitate easy understanding, he borrowed as much as he could from classical Chinese. His way of translation gave rise to debates on whether the Christian God should be translated to “shangdi”or “tianzhu”in Chinese. Such debates constituted the core of the hundred-year long 'controversy over Chinese rites.