The difficulties of translating meaning, over a simple word on word translation, is one that is well appreciated by interpreters across various professions. The discipline of history, especially in relation to Intellectual History, suffers most acutely from this ailment. Not only does the historian have to interpret and translate the original text in its own right, they must consider the implications of previous interpretations made in the past. This conundrum and indeed, feature of semantics in history, can both be incredibly intriguing, and irritating at the same time. The vocabulary of politics and religion in particular, where the semantics of a single translation can have severe ontological and epistemological implications, as well as an impact on its efficacy.
The semantic translation employed and propagated by the Taiping Revolution regarding the word \u2018God\u201d provides a particularity interesting example that we can examine. Jean Basset, a Catholic missionary based in Sichuan, attempted a translation of the New Testament from the Catholic perspective. Thomas Reilly, described Basset\u2019s translational choice for the word \u201cGod\u201d as being \u201ctotally original and wholly puzzling\u201d. Indeed, Basset opted to use the term \u201cShen (\u795e)\u201d rather than the Vatican endorsed \u201cTianzhu (\u5929\u4e3b) or the forbidden \u201cShangdi (\u4e0a\u5e1d)\u201d. The term \u201cShangdi\u201d has obvious connotations to the position of the Emperor, \u201cHuangdi (\u7687\u5e1d)\u201d which explains explicit ban on its usage. [1] However, the choice of \u201cShen\u201d made by Basset, does not necessarily evoke the imagery of \u2018God Almighty\u2019, from the Christian perspective. Instead, \u201cShen\u201d can be used to refer to a generic spirit or \u2018god\u2019, in the animist sense, where a \u2018god\u2019 can inhabit a stream or a particular geographic feature. To utilize a semantically generic term for \u201cGod\u201d seems demeaning, if understood in terms of status.
This problem is emblematic of why attempts to translate meaning between European languages and Chinese is challenging. The pre-existing connotations attached to certain words precludes their usage. This may have its roots in the fundamental differences in the understanding of religion and faith in East Asia, especially regarding differences in attitude towards mono and multi-theism. [2] There are very few philosophical or religious belief systems that have an omnipotent \u2018God\u2019 figure. The philosophy that perhaps has the most similar reverence for a single figure is Buddhism, where Shakyamuni Buddha, is revered. Yet, the state of \u2018Buddhahood\u2019 that Shakyamuni achieved is promoted to be available to all. Whereas the position of \u2018God\u2019 is intangible, unreachable, and to a significant degree, mysterious. [3]<\/p>\r\n
[1] Reilly, Thomas H., The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and Blasphemy of Empire., <\/em>Seattle, 2004, pp 34 The difficulties of translating meaning, over a simple word on word translation, is one that is well appreciated by interpreters across various professions. The discipline of history, especially in relation to Intellectual History, suffers most acutely from this ailment. Not only does the historian have to interpret and translate the original text in its own … Continue reading “The “God” as a Word, and the Word of God: The Problem of Semantics, Translation and Localisation in Chinese”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[112,113,5],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-god","tag-semantics","tag-taiping"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":766,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions\/766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
[2] Gethin, Robert, The Foundations of Buddhism, <\/em>Oxford, 1998, pp9<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"