Sunday, March 23, 2014

德国小伙子批评中国人错误地翻译了“龙”

Thorsten Pattberg是一个年轻的德国人,生于1977年,在中国、日本和美国学习和研究东方文化多年,他有一个中文名字“裴德思”。[14] 他在2012年龙年年初写了一篇文章“Long into the West's dragon business[15],登在China Daily(中国日报)上。文章说: 
Had Siegfried or Beowulf not slain a European dragon but a Chinese long, those heroes would have committed an extraordinary crime. That's because the Chinese long is essentially a force of the good.(如果(欧洲古代英雄)齐格费里德或贝奥武甫杀死的不是欧洲的dragon,而是中国的龙,这些英雄们就犯下了滔天大罪。这是因为中国的龙代表了好的力量。)
The long of China has a history (and etymology) of several thousand years and there are, according to linguist Michael Carr, more than 100 classical ones. Linguistically, it's a tragedy that many Chinese people, I mean the well-educated, English-speaking ones, are so readily prepared to call the long "dragons" - that's like voluntarily abandoning one's culture.(中国的龙有几千年的历史。很多中国人——我指受过良好的教育、会说英语的中国人——欣然接受把龙称为“dragon”,这是一场灾难,这等于是自愿地放弃了自己的文化。)
A long is a long, maybe even a tianlong, but please, please do not use "dragon". That kind of linguistic imperialism happened to your unique Sichuan xiongmao once, remember? Now it's a Western "panda".(龙就是龙,甚至是天龙,但千万别使用“dragon”这个词。这种语言学中的帝国主义已经在你们的四川熊猫身上发生过一次了,还记得吗?中国的xiongmao(熊猫)现在已经成了西方人的“panda”。)
Western caricaturists love to depict China as the European-style dragon: huge and red (of course), clumsy and pear-bodied, fierce, with tiny wings and a small flame. That clueless beast virtually sits there on the cover of some magazine waiting to be slain by journalist Siegfried Weischenberg, the World Trade Organization or the Barack Obama administration.(西方的漫画家喜欢把中国描绘为欧洲式的dragon:庞大,红色,笨拙,梨形的肥硕身躯,凶狠,有着细小的翅膀,喷着小火苗。在一些杂志的封面上,这种傻头傻脑的怪兽坐在哪里,等待着被新闻界的齐格费里德[16]、世界贸易组织或奥巴马政府杀死。)  
The truth is, the Chinese long are majestic, divine creatures, snake-bodied (snake is often called a xiaolong (xiao means "little" or small") and embody happiness, wisdom and virtue. In the West, on the other hand, it's a virtue to slay the dragon for a happy ending.(但实际情况是,中国的龙是威严的,神圣的生物,有蛇一样的身体,象征幸福、智慧和美德。而在西方,杀死dragon才是美德,才会得到美满的结局。)
As long as Westerners call the Chinese long a "dragon", they will project their own cultural ideas on China. Yet, if they used the correct word, long, it would remind them that they are facing something culturally new.(只要西方人还称中国龙为“dragon”,他们就会把自己的文化观念移植到中国身上。然而,如果他们使用正确的词汇“long”,这将提醒他们:他们正面对一种文化上的新事物。)
You must protect your traditions. This is true for all people. English as a global language is fine but, ideally, only if it accommodates all concepts and all cultures ever produced.(你们一定要保护你们自己的传统。对所有人来说都是这样。只有在英语能够容纳所有文化的所有概念时,它作为一种全球性的语言才是好的。)
Embrace the differences and varieties of cultures and value those concepts that matter the most. Protect them. The long is precious.(我们应该容纳文化差异和文化多样性,应该珍惜那些最重要的观念,保护它们。龙是宝贵的。) 
linguistic imperialism”(语言学中的帝国主义)这个词组真是发聋振聩啊!很多坚持把龙译为dragon的中国人该醒醒了,不要自己已经被帝国主义蹂躏了还不知道,还找出种种稀奇古怪、匪夷所思、似是而非的理由为语言帝国主义者辩护“

来源:网络来源|360毕业论文网:关于“龙”的翻译等问题的新发现和新观点 (黄佶,著

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