Are "revolution" and "economy" Japanese loanwords?
The word "revolution" in the "Tang-Wu Revolution" was not popular in China for thousands of years, but now it is recognized as an inherent vocabulary in Chinese all over the world. Even those who think that the word "revolution" in modern Chinese is a so-called "Japanese loan word" admit that the word "revolution" is an inherent vocabulary in Chinese. The academic debate about "Japanese loanwords" is all about who first created the word or used its new meaning; For another example, in the papers advocating "Japanese loanwords", words such as "TV Shinkansen", "Strait Shinkansen", "Old People" and "North Wanderers" are all popular in China, but words that are not popular or even exist in Japan are also classified as "Japanese loanwords". This is a loud slap in the face to the so-called "lost saint"! Is it feasible to talk nonsense with "which country is popular first"? ! The so-called "unholy" guy is just an unreasonable hooligan, just like "Niu Er" in Water Margin.
Ignoring the so-called "lost saint" Niu Er, let's change the topic and talk about whether "revolution" and "economy" are Japanese loanwords. Excuse me, can you explain those guys who are more uncomfortable mentioning Japan than digging their ancestral graves?
To be fair, I adopted the meanings of "revolution" and "economy" in modern Chinese as explained in Modern Chinese Dictionary 1980 and 1983 published by the Commercial Press, because there was no debate about "Japanese loanwords" in society at that time, and the interpretation of words would not be interfered by society. Moreover, it is compared with the 1984 version of China Dictionary of Loanwords, which shows that the years are close and the error in understanding the meaning is small.
The word "revolution" has these meanings in modern Chinese: 1. The oppressed class seized power by violence, destroyed the old decadent social system and established a new progressive social system. Revolution destroys old relations of production, establishes new relations of production, liberates productive forces and promotes social development; 2. Revolutionary thinking; 3. Fundamental reform: ideological revolution and technological revolution. (P370 ~ 37 1) Mao Zedong once said: "Revolution is not about inviting guests to dinner, making a fuss, or painting and embroidering. It can't be so elegant, so calm, so gentle and polite. Revolution is a riot, a violent action by a class to overthrow a class. " (Investigation Report on Hunan Peasant Movement, Selected Works of Mao Zedong 1992, P 17) This actually gives the definition of the word "revolution" in modern Chinese.
The meaning of the word "revolution" in Chinese loanwords Dictionary is as follows: the great changes that people have taken place in transforming nature and society are a leap from the old to the new. Originated in Japan. (P 1 16)
Judging from the above two dictionaries, the meaning of the word "revolution" is different, not the same. Chen Jianhua thinks that the word "revolution" is a foreign word in Japanese in his book "Modernization of Revolution —— Textual Research on Japanese Revolution", but he also admits that the meaning of the word "revolution" is different in the context of China and China. The word "revolution" in Japanese does not jump out of the meaning of "heaven and earth change at four times, and the Tang-Wu revolution depends on heaven and people" in Chinese. It refers to major social changes, such as the Meiji Restoration, which can also be called the Meiji Revolution. The book quotes Mr. Liang Qichao's understanding of the word "revolution" in Japanese: "Today's Japanese and the Meiji turn in Keio refer to the revolutionary era, the actions of respecting the king and abolishing the Sect refer to the revolutionary cause, and the ancestors of Fujita Donghu, Yoshida Shōin and Xixiang Zhou Nan refer to revolutionary figures." And think that "the word" revolution "used by Liang Qichao here has actually broken away from the traditional" revolution "context of regime change by violent means in China, and has a strong Japanese color". (P9) Thus, the meaning of "revolution" in Japanese is different from that in Chinese, and it should be "reform" or "improvement" in Chinese.
In fact, at the beginning of the 20th century, the great debate between the revolutionaries represented by Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing in China and the royalists represented by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao was the great debate between China and Japanese about the meaning of "revolution". Liang Qichao wrote a special article "Shi Ge", explaining the definition of the word "revolution" in Japanese, opposing the violent revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen to overthrow the rule of the Manchu Dynasty and advocating the Japanese revolution improved by "constitutional monarchy". However, the meaning of "revolution" in Chinese overwhelmed the meaning of "revolution" in Japanese, and the Xinhai Revolution of 19 1 1 finally overthrew the decadent Manchu feudal rule.
Why the word "revolution" is considered as "Japanese loanwords" is not explained by Chen Jianhua in his book Revolutionary Modernization-A Textual Research on the Revolution in China, nor by Wang Li's Historical Manuscripts of China and Gao and Gao's Study on Loanwords in Modern Chinese. In the History of Japanese Studying in China, Hideyoshi Saito said: The word "revolution" comes from the Chinese word "revolutionary destiny"; "Revolution" originally refers to destiny. However, in Japan after the reform, this word was used to refer to the revolution in which the people overthrew the old government. "But in fact," Tang Wu Revolution "also means" overthrowing the old government "in line with public opinion, and its meaning has not changed.
Some people think that the word "revolution" is regarded as a Japanese loan word because Feng Ziyou's article "The Origin of the Word Revolution" records: "He Wei failed in Guangzhou in September, and Sun Yat-sen, Sun Yat-sen and Zheng Zigang sailed to Japan. When they passed Kobe, they went ashore to buy Japanese newspapers, and there was a news titled" Leader of the Revolutionary Party of zhina ". In Zhongshan, the word "revolution" comes from the phrase "Tang Five Revolution" in the Book of Changes. It is of great significance for the Japanese to call our party a revolutionary party, and our party will also be called a revolutionary party in the future. " The Chronicle of Sun Yat-sen published in Taiwan Province Province also quoted this content. However, Professor Feng Tianyu of Wuhan University said, "Japanese scholar Akie Abe and others have made textual research. In June, 5438+0895, 165438+ 10, Japanese newspapers only made a brief report on the Guangzhou Uprising, without the words' Sun Yixian, the leader of China Revolutionary Party, arrived in Japan'. For example, Osaka Asahi Shimbun165438+1October 3, 5, 14, Osaka Daily News165438+1October 5, 9, Kobe Heart Daily165438. Kobe Heart Daily 165438+ 10/0 also called the Guangzhou Uprising "a conspiracy to overthrow the Manchu government", which was caused by a mob tycoon, while other newspapers called it a bandit conspiracy. Feng Tianyu himself visited Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Kobe, Japan on February 22nd, 200010, and saw the original newspaper Kobe Heart Daily in Meiji 28th year (1895)10, which was really only a brief report on the Guangzhou Uprising. (See Feng Tianyu: Revolution, "* * * and": The Formation of Political Core Concepts in Qing Dynasty) Chen Jianhua also believes that the Japanese people's impression of Dr. Sun Yat-sen changed from the leader of the "Four Thieves" to the leader of the "Revolution" after the publication of Miyazaki Hayao's "Dream of Thirty-three Years" in 1902. (P79) Therefore, it is generally believed that "Sun Yat-sen and other self-styled' revolutionary parties' were inspired by Japanese newspapers", and it is impossible to infer that the word "revolution" is a "Japanese loan word". On the contrary, zhina's post of 1896 called Sun Yat-sen and others "revolutionaries". Therefore, the meaning of the word "revolution" in modern Chinese is not borrowed from Japan, but originated from China, and the word "revolution" cannot be regarded as a Japanese loan.
To say the least, even if Dr. Sun Yat-sen saw the word "revolution" in Japan (not necessarily in newspapers), he was still open-minded. He suggested that the word "revolution" in modern Chinese to overthrow the old rule by violence could not be considered as a "Japanese loan word". It should be that Dr. Sun Yat-sen has given the word "revolution" a new meaning in modern Chinese, which has nothing to do with Japan.
The word "economy" has these meanings in modern Chinese: 1. In economics, it refers to the activities of social material production and reproduction; 2 beneficial or harmful to the national economy, such as economic crops and economic insects; 3. Personal living expenses; 4. Achieve greater results with less manpower, material resources and time; 5. Governing the country. (page 598)
The Chinese Dictionary of Loanwords gives the meaning of the word "economy" as follows: 1. The sum of production relations in a certain period in history; 2. The floorboard of the national economy. Originated in Japan. (P 163)
Judging from the above two dictionaries, the meaning of the word "economy" originated in Japan should be 1 of the word "economy" in modern Chinese, that is, the meaning of "economy" in the economic sense, the other four meanings have nothing to do with Japan, and the fifth one is the meaning of the word "economy" in ancient Chinese. Then, the word "economy" in modern Chinese still retains the meaning of the word "economy" in ancient Chinese, which should be the inheritance and development of ancient Chinese vocabulary and cannot be regarded as "Japanese loanwords". Again, there is "rounding" in arithmetic and "the minority is subordinate to the majority" in democracy. Why does an extended usage of Japanese completely overwhelm several usages of Chinese vocabulary itself, and Chinese inherent vocabulary becomes "Japanese loanwords"?
I said at the beginning of the article "Refutation" that China and Japan, as neighbors separated by a strip of water, have had very frequent cultural exchanges in history, and written exchanges between China and Japan are very common. However, some people politicize what should be normal. Although China's contact with the Western Regions (or the West) since the Han and Tang Dynasties, especially the cooperation with westerners in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, a large number of new words have been created, which are used by us today and introduced into Japan, becoming the vast majority of modern Japanese vocabulary today. They exaggerate and make great efforts to collect and sort out the so-called "Japanese loanwords". China people seem to be inseparable from the Japanese. Under such circumstances, I have to post a rebuttal in order to get to the bottom of it and return the truth to the people. It should be said that it is the dung slaves who are obsessed with Japan (someone used this term first) who insist on provocation for their own political purposes, which has caused such an argument. What I have expounded and demonstrated is only to express the truth and does not contain any political inclination.
Confucius said, "In a threesome, there must be a teacher." I have always advocated that China should learn from any country and nation in the world, learn from the strengths of others and learn from each other's strengths. Even countries that lag behind China still have something to learn. As the saying goes, "feet are shorter, inches are longer", so it is also a prejudice to emphasize learning "better than yourself". Of course, China has a lot to be proud of. We should neither be conceited nor belittle ourselves.
Some people say; "The education popularization rate and mass education level in China are not as good as those in Japan a few years ago", which should have been an old saying more than ten years ago and has not been proved. According to the statistics that more than 0/000 colleges and universities nationwide recruit millions of students every year, according to the enrollment expansion of colleges and universities at the beginning of this century, the number of people with college education or above in China has exceeded the total number of people in Japan, that is to say, all of them have college education or above, not as much as in China. How can it be called "not as high as Japan a few years ago"? I really don't know how to measure this "high level". Confucius' famous saying: "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you" hangs in the hall of the United Nations in new york. Mo Yan has also won many awards from Confucius Institutes in Nobel Prize in Literature and western countries to teach China culture. What can be pessimistic about? Such inferiority should not be our fault.