You have me I have you

Chemistry, Privilege, Background, Sewer, Communication, Philosophy, Affirmation, Explanation, Hope, Order, Severance, Investment, Protest, Natural Elimination, Arteriosclerosis…

I believe that the above words can be understood by native Chinese speakers, but if Japanese people can understand them, even if the pronunciation is different from Chinese, they can fully understand the meaning of these words. Will everyone feel a little surprised! ? Most people should say that it is because the Japanese borrowed Chinese characters in the early years, so they can understand it. This is just common sense, what is there to talk about!

So if I say that these words are actually created by the Japanese, will there be more people who are surprised? However, I secretly placed a trap in it, and one of the words was "chemistry", which was only created in China more than 100 years ago in modern times.

In fact, I didn't write this article to test everyone, I just found it fun when I read the relevant materials and wanted to take notes. I just read the notes myself and feel boring, so I just rework them and publish them for everyone to see fresh.

Most Chinese characters in Japan are naturally passed down from China. In ancient times, Japanese intellectuals had to master Chinese characters in order to be regarded as having read and literate. After studying for a long time, they can not only write Chinese poems, but also invent new Chinese characters. The Chinese characters below were created by the Japanese themselves and have not become popular in China. It is normal for us to not understand them.

For example, let’s focus on the word Nagi, Hui, Chi, Tsuji, and Toge 👉. The pen name of the author of “Ghost Slayer” uses the word “Wujie Hu Shiqing”. Some Chinese dictionaries say that "峠" is the same as "ka" in ancient times, but no source is found, and the Kangxi dictionary and the Chinese dictionary do not include this word. Look carefully at this word. It consists of the three characters "up and down the mountain", which means that it starts to go down after this point when climbing. The Chinese meaning is "the highest point of the mountain road".

A large number of new words were created in modern times mainly in the late Qing Dynasty. At that time, Western powers were all over the world looking for overseas markets and colonies, and naturally they also looked to the Qing Dynasty with a large population. They successfully opened the door of a group of Asian countries headed by the Qing Dynasty with their strong ships and guns. If the Qing Dynasty, Japan and other countries cannot win against the Western powers, then learn the reasons for their power. If you want to learn the advanced technology of other countries, you must first know a foreign language, and this threshold is not easy to cross. (I have learned English for so many years, but I still can’t use it 😅) People with lofty ideals will naturally translate foreign languages into their own languages, but new technologies must be accompanied by new vocabulary, and it is difficult to find existing matching words in the native language. Had to invent new words myself.

China and Japan created various new words at roughly the same time, and after they spread and popularized each other, if they didn’t specifically check the source, Thai Ban would not think it was a foreign language, and intuitively regarded it as their own language.

The total number of loanwords used in Chinese since ancient times is about 10,000, of which about 1,000 are from Japanese, and most of them were introduced during the past century. The data comes from the "Chinese Loan Dictionary" published in 1984. One of the things that surprised me the most was that most of the ending words with the ability to create new words came from Japanese. Examples, transformation, style, inflammation, force, sex, nature, world, shape, sense, point, view, line, rate, method, degree, quality, person...about 23 words. See the screenshot below for an example.

In modern China, a small number of newly created terms were introduced to Japan. The Chinese name " Ding Weiliang " (American William Alexander Parsons Martin) was sent to China by the North American Presbyterian Church in 1850. Since then, he has lived in China for 62 years. He was the first to spell the Ningbo dialect in Latin letters, helping foreigners who came to China later to learn Ningbo dialect, opened the first English tuition class in China, Beijing Tongwen Museum , and was the first chief instructor of the predecessor of Peking University , the Jingshi University Hall, that is, the first president of Peking University. Among his many contributions, the most important contribution should be the translation of a large number of Western books, including the translation of Wheaton 's "Public Law of Nations", which created these new words, sovereignty, rights, responsibilities, courts, people, state system, Compensation, Autonomy, Restriction, Constitution, State, Politics, Election, Judicial, Dispute, Congress, Constitution, Consular, Interest, Jurisdiction, etc. Later, the Chinese translation of "The Public Law of the Nations" spread to Japan, which also made some of these new words into Japanese.

In another situation, China and Japan each created new words, and after the survival of the fittest, only the new words that were recognized by everyone survived.

Everyone now knows that "economics" translates into "economics" in Chinese, Yan Fu translates it into calculus , and Liang Qichao translates it into " Zishengxue " or " Fuguoxue " and "Equilibrium". The word “ levelling” comes from the “Historical Records”, when the price is cheap, the government buys it, and then sells it when the price rises, so as to stabilize the price. The Japanese borrowed the economics of economics that appeared in ancient Chinese books, and took out the word "economy" to give a new meaning, which is equivalent to economics. The original meaning of "Jing Shi Ji Min" was to govern the world and help the people. After the coup d'état in the late Qing Dynasty, the reform of the imperial examination system and the opening of the " Economic Special Section" followed the original meaning of "economics", but at this time there was still no modern "economics" semantics.

In the articles written by Liang Qichao, if any new words that were not known to the Chinese at that time were used, they would be specially marked and explained.

[The raw materials (that is, the natural products) of the products made by the people of the West...]

[The topography of Greece is also a peninsula (a peninsula is surrounded by the sea on three sides and the land on one side)]

The great translator Yan Fu also created many new words, mainly using words from ancient Chinese books. Physics is called Gezhixue; sociology is called Qunxue; metaphysics is called metaphysics.

Incidentally, the Korean intellectuals at that time also used Chinese characters, and I don’t know why they didn’t create new Chinese characters and new words. Personally, I guess, maybe China and Japan are a step ahead, and they have created new words. It is enough to use them, and the demand for their own creation will naturally decrease.

To sum up, the sources of newly created vocabulary common to China and Japan in modern times can be divided into three categories.

1. Since the Meiji period , the Japanese have created new words, which were introduced into China by students studying in Japan led by Liang Qichao, Lu Xun and others.
2. Chinese people (including foreigners in China) created them and exported them to Japan.
3. Borrowing terms from ancient Chinese books to give new meanings, people in both China and Japan are creating them.

The first point specifically emphasizes that since the Meiji period (1868~1912), the reason is that since Japan has learned Chinese characters, it has been creating Chinese characters, but before the Meiji, it was mainly to add Chinese characters to Japanese since ancient times, and the essence is still Japanese. For example, the Chinese meaning "fire", the Japanese word is "fire affairs"; the Chinese meaning "anger", the Japanese word "standing belly"; the unique concept system of Japan, the Chinese meaning "referring to the beheading of those who commit suicide by belly-cutting in the Japanese belly-cutting ceremony, so as to facilitate the belly-cutting. Acts that can die faster and reduce pain and suffering”, Japanese writing [Jiecuo].

Such Kanji words are difficult for native Chinese speakers to understand, so they are not widely spread outside of Japan.

The growth rate of loanwords in Japan is much faster than that of China, but unfortunately, the closer it is to the present, the more Europeanized the Japanese (the three words European and Americanization are actually Japanese, but we seem to be able to understand them. 🤣Chinese should be written in Westernization ) The deeper the degree, Foreign words have basically been imported by transliteration, that is, more and more new words in the form of katakana appear in Japanese. If Japan is still willing to use Chinese characters to name foreign languages by means of free translation, we should be able to expand and share the same vocabulary, so that you have me and I have you to go further. 😆

Superfluous, add. For the Japanese, Chinese characters are also one of their foreign languages, but after being used for thousands of years, Chinese characters have been internalized into Japanese, and they have long stopped treating Chinese characters as outsiders.

2022/04/20 posted.

Original link to Japan behind-the-scenes observation