The pronunciations of "father" and "mother" come from Japan (with the same pronunciations), which is based on this title in the West, and most modern words in modern China also come from Japan.
1. China learned from Japan in Tang Dynasty and China learned from Japan in modern times.
In the history of cultural exchange between China and Japan, there are many interesting and meaningful things. Generally speaking, there are two periods that are particularly noticeable. One is the Tang Dynasty in China, and the other is modern times.
In the Tang Dynasty, it was the Japanese who greedily learned from China, and even the Yamato people encountered writing for the first time after contacting China culture, and then learned to write. Japanese "pseudonyms" (letters) are only variants of Chinese characters.
In modern times, it was China who tried to learn from the Japanese. Regardless of other aspects, only in terms of language and writing, Japan has become an exporter of Chinese in modern times. Japanese "Chinese" has impacted the language system of East Asian countries. Of course, it has also entered the Chinese language in China in large quantities and become an important part of the daily language of the people in China.
Second, Mr. Student and Mr. Student.
In chronological order, China came into contact with western culture much earlier than Japanese. As early as the 7th century, Christian monks came to China to preach. Since then, Kyle Poirot in the13rd century and Matteo Ricci in the16th century are famous messengers of ancient western culture. During Matteo Ricci's period, Chinese translation in the West had begun. As we all know, Xu Guangqi cooperated with Matteo Ricci in translating Euclid's Elements of Geometry. 1870, Protestant missionary Ma Lixun came to China. He translated the New Testament into Chinese, and the full version was published in 18 14. More importantly, he also compiled a Chinese-English dictionary. The first volume of this dictionary was published in 18 17, and the whole dictionary was published in 1823 with four volumes and 4595 pages.
1898 autumn, after the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898, Liang Qichao sneaked into the Japanese warship Oshima and fled to Japan. At this time, a large number of western nouns and terms entered Japanese, and naturally there were many such translations in The Adventures of Beauty and Negotiations with America, which were called "political novels". He easily introduced the words of democracy, science, politics, economy, freedom, law, philosophy and aesthetics to readers in China. While Liang Qichao translated and introduced Japanese political novels to China, he also opened up the "golden decade" in the history of modern Sino-Japanese relations mentioned in Mr. Rey's golden decade, and set off a nationwide upsurge of learning from Japan. Western works that have been translated into Japanese have also been translated into Chinese during this period, and even Japanese intermediate textbooks have been translated and used as teaching materials.
This also means that the introduction of Japanese "loanwords" into China started under the necessity.
Third, seeking truth and seeking easy and first-hand and second-hand
Originally, the Westernization Movement was to learn and understand the West, so it was necessary to translate Western works. However, once they moved to Japan as teachers, people's motivation to learn western languages decreased. Learning from Japan is nothing more than hoping to learn from the West indirectly by learning from Japan. At that time, the ruling and opposition parties generally believed that this could get twice the result with half the effort. However, Yan Fu, China's first translator in modern times, resolutely opposed this upsurge of learning from Japan. In the "Letter to the Host" published in the Diplomatic Journal, he wrote:
When I hear something academic, I must seek the first place and then get the truth. I will try my best to get what I saw in two rooms and the one above it. Secondly, the spirit of begging is spread through simple strategies and taught by teachers and friends. However, both are, and there is no doubt that the text that must be used for its original purpose is also. At the bottom is the translation of seeking, which is far from the truth. At present, there are few translators who have tasted science and technology in our country. In other words, what Japan has worked so hard for is just not what it has, and there is no need for my neighbors to avoid it. He has only been away for thirty years. Japan, from 2000 to 3000, has been seeking the academic achievements of Taixi, and it took 30 years of hard work to gain. Although there are translations, its name can be determined to be uneasy, and its textual research can be predicted to be unclear. Just because I am close to you, I attract scholars all over the world to follow. What about those who have no ambition and are not good at learning? The dwarf asked if he was taller than the repairman and believed it because they were more self-sufficient. What you do is different.
Yan Fu emphasized that in order to deeply understand western thoughts and academics, we must read the original works directly. With the help of translation, it is a last resort. With the help of translation, there will be more dust and further truth. He believes that Japan's translation of western concepts is inaccurate, so it cannot be borrowed unconditionally. For example, he opposed Japanese translation of "economy" and replaced it with "Ji Xue", and explained the reason in the translation example at the beginning of Fu Yuan: "Ji Xue, whose western name is Ye Konomi, is Greek. Yeke, the keynote speaker. Naomi, this statement is regular for Niemo's turning point. If you keep your promise, its meaning begins with managing the family. Quote and apply, expand and fill all the things stored by the material broker, and serve the country with raw food. Make its training sprout public, translate Japanese into economy and Chinese into financial management. If you look forward to it, the economy is too wide and financial management is too comfortable. If you do it yourself, you must learn from it. "
He believes that the original meaning of the word "economy" is broader than the western word "economy", so it is not suitable for translation. For another example, he refused to borrow the Japanese translation of "society", but insisted on translating the western translation of "society" into "group" and "sociology" into "group study". In addition, Das Kapital translates "capital" every day and strictly translates "mother wealth"; The Japanese translation of "evolution" is "evolution" and strict translation is "natural expression"; "Philosophy" translates Japanese "philosophy" and "Neo-Confucianism" in a strict sense; Metaphysics is translated as Metaphysics in Japan and Metaphysics in Japan. ...
Fourth, tangible quantity and intangible influence.
The number of Japanese "loanwords" in modern Chinese is amazing. According to statistics, 70% of the nouns and terms in the social and cultural fields we use today are imported from Japan. These are Japanese translations corresponding to western words, which have been firmly rooted in Chinese since they were introduced into China. Most of the concepts we use to speak loudly, think hard and say "East" and "West" every day are actually invented by the Japanese.
In fact, without Japanese "loanwords", we can hardly speak today. Even if I write this article about Japanese "loanwords", I must use a lot of Japanese "loanwords", otherwise I can't write it at all. In recent years, this issue has been discussed in different ways from time to time. For example, Mr. Rey wrote in the article "golden decade" introducing American scholar Ren Da's book "The New Deal Revolution and Japan":
These new words involve almost all kinds of subjects, either newly created in modern Japanese or endowed with new ideas by using old words. Now they have been borrowed by intellectuals in China, which greatly enriched Chinese vocabulary, promoted the changes of Chinese in many aspects, and laid a very important cornerstone for China's modernization movement. At present, some basic terms and vocabulary we commonly use are mostly imported from Japan. Such as service, organization, discipline, politics, revolution, government, political party, principle, policy, application, solution, theory, philosophy, principle, etc. In fact, they are all "foreign words" from Japanese, as well as things like economy, science, commerce, cadres, health, socialism, capitalism, law, feudalism, harmony and aesthetics.
Every time I think that 70% of the concepts we use to think, speak and write were created by the Japanese, I wonder: How did this matter really affect the thinking of China people in the past 65,438+000 years?
It can be said that the influx of Japanese "loanwords" has definitely influenced the thinking of China people, the culture of China and the historical process of China since 100. However, it is very difficult to think about this influence in modern Chinese as a whole. Because when thinking about the influence of Japanese "loanwords", we must use Japanese "loanwords", which is just like a snake biting its tail. -this should be an excellent topic for western sinologists.
Although we can't talk about the influence of Japanese "loanwords" as a whole, we can still give some concrete examples.
For decades, historians have been debating whether there was a sprout of "capitalism" in ancient China. But the struggle is essentially an ideological struggle, and the difference lies in the understanding of the concept of "capitalism". The same historical fact, some people think it can explain the germination of "capitalism", others think it can't. Whether there is a dispute about the budding of capitalism boils down to why it is a dispute about capitalism, and the words "capital" and "ism" were invented by the Japanese, who also used capitalism to translate capitalism in western languages. If "capitalism" is translated into another Chinese word, will this controversy still occur? Even if it happens, will the expression be different?
Since 1980s, the so-called "ugliness appreciation" has appeared in the field of aesthetics in China. "Ugliness" is relative to "aesthetics". "Aesthetics" is Chomin Nakae's translation of "aesthetics" in western languages. But the original meaning of "aesthetics" is "sensibility". If there is no translation of "aesthetics" from the beginning and it is translated into other forms, such as "sensibility", can the so-called "ugliness" still be established?
Today, we call fictional works as short as hundreds to millions of words novels, but there is a difference between novels and short stories. The naming of novels and short stories only points out the difference of length, and the others are not explained. So there is a research and debate on whether there is an essential difference between novels and short stories in aesthetic sense. Some people say that it refers to different aesthetic ways, while others say that there are only differences in the number of words. In fact, the concept of "novel" we use today is the translation of English "novel" by Japanese modern writer Hirauchi Xiaoyao in The Essence of Novel, while English "novel" originally refers to a long work, while short works are expressed as "short stories". Two different names emphasize the difference. It should be said that the translation of "novel" with "novel" failed to fully convey the original intention. If we don't call novels and short stories "novels" but have different titles, will our understanding of them be different from the beginning? Will there still be a dispute between long stories and short stories?
Five, the old don't go, the new.
There are many other examples. Finally, I want to say: Because the western concepts we use are basically translated by the Japanese, there will always be a Japan between China and the West.
I don't know if this statement can be established.
Six, Japanese loanwords are divided into the following categories:
[1] modifier+modifier
(1) adjective+noun
Examples: human rights, treasury, privilege, philosophy, appearance, aesthetics, background, fossils, battlefield, environment, art, medicine, admission tickets, sewers, notaries, classification tables, imbeciles.
(2) Adverb+Verb
Examples: reciprocity, exclusion, communication, coercion, concession, denial, affirmation, voting, farewell, arbitration, delusion, probation, parole, suspended animation, hypothesis.
[2] Synonym complex examples:
Liberation, supply, explanation, method, * * * identity, ism, class, openness, * * * harmony, hope, law, activity, command, knowledge, synthesis, preaching, teaching, dissection and struggle.
[3] Verb+Object
Ex: breaking diplomatic relations, leaving the party, mobilizing, missing, voting, truce, fighting, investing, speculating, protesting, standardizing, moving, and sentencing.
[4] Compound words composed of the above words
Examples: socialism, liberalism, extraterritoriality, civil engineering, arts and crafts, natural science, natural elimination, offensive and defensive alliance, air defense exercise, political economy, historical materialism, arteriosclerosis, neurasthenia, enterprise consortium, public international law, ultimatum, economic panic.
Others are:
[verb]
Obey, review, support, distribute, overcome, dominate and ration.
[Basic concepts of natural science and social science]
Philosophy, psychology, ethics, ethnology, economics, finance, physics, hygiene, anatomy, pathology, hydraulic engineering, civil engineering, river engineering, electrical communication, architecture, mechanics, bookkeeping, metallurgy, gardening, acoustics and arts and crafts.
[conclusion]
(1): unification, diversification, generalization, automation, modernization, etc. (2): mobile, simple, equation, Japanese, new, etc.
(3) Inflammation: pneumonia, gastritis, arthritis, bronchitis, dermatitis, etc. (4) Strength: productivity, motive power, imagination, labor force, memory, etc. (5) Sex: possibility, inevitability, contingency, periodicity, habit, etc. (6) Popularity, nationality, scientificity, absoluteness and openness. Standard type, experience type, etc. (9) Feeling: aesthetic feeling, good feeling, superiority, sensitivity, feeling after reading, etc. (10) point: key point, focus, viewpoint, starting point, blind spot, etc. (1 1) Viewpoint: subjective, objective, pessimistic, optimistic, and outlook on life. Warning line (13) rate: efficiency, productivity, growth rate, interest rate, frequency, etc. (14) methods: dialectical method, inductive method, deductive method, analytical method, constitutional law, civil law, criminal law, etc. (15) Degree: progress, depth, breadth, etc. Souvenirs, etc. (17): author, reader, translator, laborer, founder, advanced worker, etc. (18) Functions: assimilation, alienation, photosynthesis, psychological function, side effects, etc. (19) problems: population problems, social problems, ethnic problems and education problems. The (2 1) society in the old society: primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society, socialist society, international society, etc. (22) ism: humanism, humanism, wave slowness, realism, imperialism, xenophobia, etc. (23) Class: landlord class, bourgeoisie, middle class, proletariat, etc.
Author: New Physics Reply Date: 20: 22 September 20, 2004:16
Is it true?/You don't say.
expand one's horizon
@_@
Author: Hongcun reply date: September 20, 2004 2 1: 28: 19
at that time
He is really culturally advanced.
Lu Xun said he wanted to take it.
as expected
Author: trotters reply date: September 2, 200412: 20: 25
Isn't this an excerpt from Wang Binbin's article?
ZT Japan separating China from the West —— Japanese "loanwords" in modern Chinese
Author: Wang Binbin
one
In the history of cultural exchange between China and Japan, there are many interesting and meaningful things. Generally speaking, there are two periods that are particularly noticeable. One is the Tang Dynasty in China, and the other is modern times. In the Tang Dynasty, it was the Japanese who greedily learned from China, and even the Yamato people encountered writing for the first time after contacting China culture, and then learned to write. Japanese "pseudonyms" (letters) are only variants of Chinese characters. In modern times, it was China who tried to learn from the Japanese. Regardless of other aspects, only in terms of language and writing, Japan has become an exporter of Chinese in modern times. Japanese "Chinese" has impacted the language system of East Asian countries. Of course, it has also entered the Chinese language in China in large quantities and become an important part of the daily language of the people in China.
Chinese words introduced from Japan in modern times are called Japanese "loanwords", and this title is also borrowed here. "Loanwords" are quoted to distinguish them from loanwords (such as sofa, coffee, logic, etc. ) directly from the west. Because the two are somewhat different after all.
The number of Japanese "loanwords" in modern Chinese is amazing. According to statistics, 70% of the nouns and terms in the social and cultural fields we use today are imported from Japan. These are Japanese translations corresponding to western words, which have been firmly rooted in Chinese since they were introduced into China. Most of the concepts we use to speak, think hard and say "East" and "West" every day are made by the Japanese, and the thought of this layer makes my scalp tingle.
In fact, without Japanese "loanwords", we can hardly speak today. Even if I write this article about Japanese "loanwords", I must use a lot of Japanese "loanwords", otherwise I can't write it at all. In recent years, this issue has been discussed in different ways from time to time. For example, Mr. Rey wrote in the article "golden decade", which introduced the book "New Deal Revolution and Japan" by American scholar Ren Da, that a large number of Japanese words were integrated into modern Chinese through a large number of translation introductions. Interestingly, these words even quickly replaced most of the terms translated by Yan Fu. These new words involve almost all kinds of subjects, either newly created in modern Japanese or endowed with new ideas by using old words. Now they have been borrowed by intellectuals in China, which greatly enriched Chinese vocabulary, promoted the changes of Chinese in many aspects, and laid a very important cornerstone for China's modernization movement. At present, some basic terms and vocabulary we commonly use are mostly imported from Japan. Such as service, organization, discipline, politics, revolution, government, political party, principle, policy, application, solution, theory, philosophy, principle, etc. In fact, they are all "foreign words" from Japanese, as well as things like economy, science, commerce, cadres, health, socialism, capitalism, law, feudalism, harmony and aesthetics.
Mr. Rey talked about the invasion of Japanese into Chinese in a positive tone. However, Mr. Li's article "The Trap of Chinese Characters", after making the same introduction as Mr. Li, wrote with regret: This is indeed a problem worth thinking about. The same western scientific term arrived in China and Japan and was translated into two words with completely different tastes. In the end, Chinese translation failed and Japanese translation succeeded. Why? Or to put it another way: Why didn't Yan Fu and Liang Qichao think of adopting the free and popular free translation method of Japanese scholars in the early Meiji period? Similarly, why didn't Japanese scholars in the early Meiji period adopt classical translation as mainland scholars did 20 years later? It is not appropriate to compare Liang Qichao and Yan Fu here, but the questions raised are really worth thinking about. Wang Dingding's original textual research on "economy" traces the original meaning of the word "economy" in Chinese, and actually involves the problem of "foreign words" in Japanese, because "economy" is also one of many "foreign words" in Japanese. Archaeologist Mr. Chen Xingcan's article "Archaeology is around us" advocates that China archaeology "establishes its own discourse system" because "the so-called concepts of state, civilization and private ownership are all imported from abroad", so it may not be appropriate to use them to explain the situation in ancient China. Although these concepts mentioned by Mr. Chen originated from the west, they were eventually translated into Chinese vocabulary by the Japanese. Reflection on these concepts will inevitably lead to doubts about the translation process.
The above are some articles about Japanese "loanwords" that I have been exposed to in recent years. These articles also aroused my interest in this issue.
Twenty years ago, when I began to learn Japanese, I was briefly surprised to find that there were so many Chinese characters in Japanese. Later, I learned that there were so many Japanese words in Chinese that I had to have a lasting surprise.
First, Chinese characters and Chinese vocabulary entered Japan, creating Japanese written language; When Japan met the west in modern times, it used a large number of Chinese characters and Chinese words to translate the corresponding western nouns and terms. These translations written by Japanese scholars flooded into China in the late Qing Dynasty. This process is very complicated and interesting. The information I have access to is very limited, and I can only say it roughly.
two
Words in a language can be divided into nouns, verbs and adjectives. The so-called Japanese "loanwords" in modern Chinese are basically nouns. But nouns themselves can also be divided into two categories. One is the naming of very specific things and scenes that can be seen, touched and touched, such as tables, chairs, grass, trees, mountains, Sichuan, the sun, the moon and so on; One category represents an abstract meaning, that is, so-called terms and concepts, such as politics, economy, democracy, freedom, science, culture and so on. The former can be called concrete nouns and the latter can be called abstract nouns.
In Japanese "loanwords", there are both concrete nouns and abstract nouns. If concrete terms are still used today, we can take the words "telephone" and "club" as examples. "Telephone" is a Chinese word coined by the Japanese to translate English telephone freely. At the beginning, people in China transliterated this English word and translated it into "morality and ethics". At one time, "telephone" and "telephone call" were two common names. But later, the term "moral discipline" finally disappeared. I found some interesting information about this translation. At the beginning of this century, a group of Shaoxing students studying in Japan jointly wrote a long letter to their hometown, in which Lu Xun was one of them. When talking about "telephone" in the letter, he deliberately commented: "It is not as good as telephone to convey words by electricity, which is translated as" telephone style "in China." Here, we can also see one of the ways in which Japanese was introduced into China. And "Club" is the Japanese transliteration of English club. These Chinese characters are excellent choices in sound, form and meaning, so they are still used in China. However, some Japanese-translated figurative nouns were eliminated after they entered China. For example, "Huliera" has been used in China for a long time, and now it has been replaced by "cholera".
The concrete nouns themselves may not be worth talking about, but I am interested in abstract nouns. But sometimes there is no clear boundary between figurative nouns and abstract nouns. Some nouns, which had no abstract meaning in ancient Chinese, were abstracted after being introduced into Japan.
Before meeting Chinese characters, the Yamato people didn't have their own characters, but they had their own language system. In the original Japanese, concrete nouns are abundant, various concrete things are named accurately, and abstract nouns are extremely underdeveloped. This is not surprising. When a nation does not have its own writing, it is impossible to have developed abstract thinking, so there will be no large number of concepts. After contact with Chinese, many abstract nouns in Chinese entered the Japanese original. Various specific nouns in Chinese, such as mountain, Sichuan, grass, wood, sun, moon, cloud, fog, etc. , also introduced to Japan, but the Japanese can read these Chinese characters according to their original pronunciation. However, abstract nouns such as nature, morality, politics, economy, romance and literature in Chinese can only be read by imitating Chinese pronunciation because there is no equivalent in Japanese. When Yamato people meet Chinese, abstract nouns in Chinese are unfamiliar to them in sound, form and meaning.
When modern Japan met with western languages, Chinese abstract nouns were widely used to translate western concepts, such as economy, nature and literature. As China people, we should know that these words used by the Japanese to translate the West were originally introduced from China, but we should also know that many meanings of these Chinese words have changed to varying degrees since they were introduced into Japan. Abstract nouns cannot always be original when they are introduced from one nation to another. Even between two nations with similar cultural development stages, misreading and misunderstanding may occur, not to mention the disparity in cultural development stages between Japan and China at that time. After a large number of abstract nouns rooted in China culture are transplanted to Japan, if they really take root and grow in Japanese culture, they will inevitably break away from the original Chinese meaning in some way. Modern Japanese academic circles have also done a lot of research on the original intention of these Chinese words in ancient Chinese and the changes of their meanings after they were introduced into Japan. For example, in ancient Chinese, the word "economy" means "managing the world to help the common people" and "governing the country to level the world", but after it was introduced into Japan, its meaning became narrow, specifically referring to financial management and financial measures. Another example is the word "nature", which in ancient Chinese refers to the phenomenon that people do not rely on manpower or are powerless to manpower. However, after being introduced into Japan, it has the meanings of "accident", "in case" and "accident".
Other words, originally used in very specific situations in Chinese, have no obvious abstract meaning, but after being introduced into Japan, their meanings gradually develop in the abstract direction. For example, the word "society" in modern Chinese is already an abstract noun and one of the "foreign words" in Japanese. This is the translation of western "society" by Japanese scholars. However, in ancient Chinese, "she" is basically a figurative noun, especially in the spring and autumn of each year in rural schools to worship the land god. Ci Hai quoted a passage from Tokyo Dream Autumn Meeting to illustrate the word: "Autumn Meeting in August ... Mr. Shi Xue raised all the money for the society in advance, so he hired those who answered and sat and sang in vain. When they go home, they will each bring a basket of flowers, fruits, food and social cakes. The same is true for Chunshe, Chongwu and Chongjiu. " But after the word was introduced into Japan, it gradually became different. According to osamu suzuki, a Japanese scholar, at the end of Edo, Japan had called the religious order and sects centered on the church "society", which made the word abstract to a certain extent.
three
I have always been interested in the process of modern Japanese scholars translating western concepts with Chinese words. In this process, there are bound to be various trade-offs, such as the distress of not finding a suitable target language, the joy of racking one's brains to finally "sing" a translated language, and of course the regret of having to use an unsuitable translation. Due to the limitation of information, I still don't know much about this process. However, it can be concluded that modern Japanese scholars have the following ways to translate western concepts.
The first way is to learn from China. In chronological order, China came into contact with western culture much earlier than Japanese. As early as the 7th century, Christian monks came to China to preach. Since then, Kyle Poirot in the13rd century and Matteo Ricci in the16th century are famous messengers of ancient western culture. During Matteo Ricci's period, Chinese translation in the West had begun. As we all know, Xu Guangqi cooperated with Matteo Ricci in translating Euclid's Elements of Geometry. 1870, Protestant missionary Ma Lixun came to China. He translated the New Testament into Chinese, and the full version was published in 18 14. More importantly, he also compiled a Chinese-English dictionary. The first volume of this dictionary was published in 18 17, and the whole dictionary was published in 1823 with four volumes and 4595 pages. The western translation work of missionaries and China collaborators, especially the compilation of Chinese-English dictionaries, provided reference for modern Japanese scholars to translate western concepts. They may not copy the translation methods of missionaries and China collaborators too much, but they will undoubtedly get a lot of inspiration from the pioneers of this kind of translation. Modern Japanese scholars often don't forget to mention Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi when talking about their modern translation work. Reference provided by pioneers such as Morrison. Some nouns and terms we use today are just translations created by missionaries and collaborators in China. It is difficult to give a complete list of these translated names, but according to Japanese scholars' research, at least such examples as "Mathematics", "Theory", "Banking", "Insurance", "Criticism" and "Electricity" belong to the existing translated names of China by modern Japanese scholars. When people talk about Japanese "loanwords" in modern Chinese, they often include them, which is incorrect.
The second method is to transform the original meaning of Chinese vocabulary to make it suitable for the translation of western concepts. There are many translation languages produced in this way. For example, revolution, art, culture, civilization, literature, feudalism, class, state, speech, democracy, freedom, economy, society and so on all belong to this category. As mentioned earlier, after some Chinese words were introduced into Japan, their meanings naturally changed, such as "economy" and "society". Japanese scholars should not hesitate too much when choosing this Chinese word to translate the corresponding western concepts such as "economy" and "society". More often, Japanese scholars must consciously process the original meanings of Chinese words in order to choose a universally suitable target language for a western concept. Chinese word meaning is a method for Japanese scholars to transform Chinese word meaning. For example, the word "class" in Chinese originally refers to the level of steps and official positions, which has little abstract significance. When Japanese scholars regard "class" as a western translation, they have greatly abstracted the word. Another method is to narrow the original meaning of Chinese words, that is, to take part of their original meaning to translate western concepts. For example, the word "literature" has a very wide Chinese meaning, and all books and documents in written form belong to "literature". During the Han and Tang dynasties, "literature" was still an official position. When Japanese scholars use "literature" to translate "literature" in western languages, they only take part of its meaning. There is another way, that is, to forge Chinese words completely without taking their meaning, or even to give them meanings completely opposite to the original Chinese meaning. For example, the word "democracy" originally meant "the master of ordinary people" in Chinese, but when Japanese scholars used it to translate the word "democracy" in the west, it made it express the opposite meaning to the original Chinese meaning.
The third method is to create new Chinese vocabulary. Faced with the concept of western languages, Japanese scholars use Chinese characters to form new words when there are no corresponding words in the existing Chinese vocabulary for translation. There are quite a few western translations produced in this way. Among the specific nouns, the "telephone" mentioned above belongs to this category. In abstract nouns, individual, nationality, religion, science, technology, philosophy, aesthetics, etc. Chinese characters created by Japanese scholars. For example, the word "philosophy" was coined by the Western Zhou people who made outstanding contributions to the spread of western languages to the east, and was used to translate the "philosophy" of western languages; Aesthetics was founded by Chomin Nakae, who is known as "Rousseau of the East", to translate "aesthetics" in western languages.
The above methods have been mentioned by modern Japanese scholars. However, I also found another situation, that is, the words selected by modern Japanese scholars from China's books for western translation did not constitute a word in Chinese. For example, the word "ism" did not exist in ancient Chinese. When studying the etymology of "Doctrine", modern Japanese scholars claimed that the word "Doctrine" was originally owned by China's books, and quoted the phrase "Dare to do something" in the Preface of Historical Records, which means that modern Japanese scholars still find the existing "Doctrine" from China's books to translate English.