本帖最后由 choi 于 12-30-2017 12:58 编辑
How China Got Its Name, Plus Marco Polo
(1) etymology of the English word China:
(a) In modern time, the Italian name for the nation China is "la Cina."
(b)
(i) China. Online Etymology Dictionary, undated
https://www.etymonline.com/word/china
( "(n) Asian country name, 1550s (earliest European usage is in Italian, by Marco Polo), of uncertain origin, probably ultimately from Sanskrit Cina-s 'the Chinese,' perhaps from Qin dynasty, which ruled 3c BCE Latinized as Sina, hence Sinologist. The Chinese word for the country is Chung-kuo (Wade-Giles), Zhongguo (Pinyin)" )
* Chinas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinas
(a people mentioned in ancient Indian literature from the first millennium BC)
(ii) names of China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China
section 3 Names in non-Chinese records:
section 3.1 Chin, China: "The English name for 'China' itself is derived from Middle Persian (Chīnī چین). This modern word 'China' was first used by Europeans starting with Portuguese explorers of the 16th century – it was first recorded in 1516 in the [Portuguese-language] journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The journal was translated and published in England in 1555.
section 3.5 Cathay: "derives from [the word] Khitan 契丹 * * * In English and in several other European languages, the name 'Cathay' was used in the translations of the adventures of Marco Polo, which used this word for northern China. Words related to Khitay are still used in many Turkic and Slavic languages to refer to China [examples of modern languages presented].
(iii) Cathay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathay
("Originally, Catai was the name applied by Central and Western Asians and Europeans to northern China; the name was also used in Marco Polo's book on his travels in [Northern] China (he referred to southern China as Mangi 蠻子" / section 3 Identifying China as Cathay; 4 Etymological progression)
(2)
(a) Marco Polo (1254 – 1324; born and died in Venice) en.wikipedia.org
This is the spelling in English, Italian and Venetian.
(b) The Travels of Marco Polo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Travels_of_Marco_Polo
(title in modern Italian: Il Milione The Million; written down ['in Old French'] by Rustichello da Pisa ['a native of Pisa' while both were cellmates in a Genoa prison: en.wikipedia.org] from stories told by Marco Polo, describing Polo's travels through Asia between 1271 and 1295; Publication date c 1300l "The oldest surviving Polo manuscript is in Old French heavily flavoured with Italian")
(3) The original title of Marco Polo was, in Old French, Les voyages de Marco Polo de Venise. Whatever the Old French spelling for Cathay (I can not find it), Marco Polo's book referred to modern China as Catai and Mangi. "Catai is attested in Devisement du monde": from the Web.
(a) The Travels of Marco Polo. World Digital Library (WDL), US Library of Congress, undated
https://www.wdl.org/en/item/14300/
(Language: Old French (842-ca 1400); Title in Original Language: Les voyages de Marco Polo de Venise; Physical Description: 100 leaves : parchment ; 22.3 x 15.2 centimeters; Notes: [University of Oxford Bodleian Libraries] Shelfmark: M 304; Institution: National Library of Sweden)
(b) Manuscripts in Our Collections. Kungliga biblioteket, undated
http://www.kb.se/english/collections/manuscripts/
("Queen Christina purchased a large collection of manuscripts, including * * * a manuscript written by Marco Polo circa 1350 that once belonged to King Charles V of France [1338 – 1380; reign 1364-1380] ")
(i) Kungliga biblioteket
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Library_of_Sweden
(Swedish: Kungliga biblioteket, KB, meaning "the Royal Library")
The Swedish noun for king is kung.
(ii) Christina, Queen of Sweden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina,_Queen_of_Sweden
(1626 – 1689; reign 1632- 1654; caused a scandal when she decided not to marry; abdicate at 28). became a Catholic -- but not a nun -- and moved to Vatican)
(4) The alternate (unofficial) title in Old French is Le devisament (or devisement) dou monde. For the former spelling, see
Peter Jackson, Marco Polo and His 'Travels.' University of London: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 61: 82-101 (1998) at page 99
https://www.amherst.edu/system/f ... 0Marco%2520Polo.pdf
("The year 1998 marks the seven-hundredth anniversary of the initial composition of the book associated with Marco Polo, Le devisament dou monde. As the first European to claim that he had been to China and back (not to mention that he had travelled extensively elsewhere in Asia), Polo has become a household name")
(f) title: Le devisement dou monde
(i) Sharon Kinoshita, Chapter 3 Marco Polo's Le Devisement dou monde and the Tributary East. In Suzanne Comklin Abbari and Amilcare Iannucci (eds), Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West. University of Toronto Press, 2008, at page 60
books.google.com/books?id=vRsc5fa0SRYC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=%22old+french%22+Livres+des+Merveilles+du+Monde&source=bl&ots=LivZcX-Esg&sig=uFpoRSKvNx_zPJt5djr4rMjhTUc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjsnY6phLLYAhUINd8KHadzAHIQ6AEIYzAO#v=onepage&q=%22old%20french%22%20Livres%20des%20Merveilles%20du%20Monde&f=false
("The Old French version of Marco Polo's Le Devisement dou monde is best known in magnificent manuscript versions from the turn of the fifteenth century. * * * The most famous of these [manuscript versions] is the so-called Livre des Merveilles du Monde (BNF fr 2810), commissioned in 1412 as a gift for Jean by his nephew John, Duke of Burgundy (Polo, Livre des Merveilles). * * * Since its emergence as a literary language in the mid-twelfth century, Old French has become the vehicle for (among other things) the representation of Latin Europe's contact with the cultures of the Mediterranean and west Asia. From its [it = French, specifically Old French] inception, vernacular French constituted an alternative to Latinate traditions of the representations of the other ['the other' to be explained next]. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, chansons de geste, for all their violence, displayed toward the Saracen 'other' a variety of attitudes ranging from brutal intransigence (as in Roland's famous war-cry, 'Pagans are wrong and Christians are right!') through fascination, desire, accomodationism, and outright cooperation (Kinoshita, Medieval Boundaries). In the thirteenth century, the eruption of Mongol power in the East vastly extend the scope of the European imagination: takes of the Mongol conquest of the Russian steppes and of Baghdad became inextricably linked with legends of Prester John [a fictional figure, of vague time and location] and tapped into the Plinian tradition of the 'monstrous races,' derived from Greek antiquity and transmitted to the medieval West through encyclopedia compilations like those of Isidore of Seville. In contrast, my thought experiment locates the Devisement in a vernacular tradition elaborated by and for a francophone nobility actively engaged in conquest and expansion, and , increasingly, for a Mediterranean commercial elite for whom the true 'marvels of the East' were less the monstrous races traditionally taken to populate farthest Asia than the great tributary empires controllofabuous emporia like those of Baghdad, Samarcand, and Khanbaliq")
(ii) Kinoshita 木下 is a Japanese surname.
(iv) Le Devisement dou monde is literally translated into English as (The) Description of the World. (chat, gossip of the word)
(v) Old French
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_French
("was the language spoken in Northern France from the 8th century to the 14th century. In the 14th century, these dialects came to be collectively known as the langue d'oïl, contrasting with the langue d'oc or Occitan language in the south of France")
There is no English translation for langue d'oïl. Click the Wiki link above, and at section 1 Meanings and disambiguation, you will learn the Old French word oïl (meaning yes) becomes in modern French oui, which also means yes.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oui
(etymology)
(A) The English verbs devise and divide share the same Latin root (the latter directly, but devise through Old French). See devise
www.etymonline.com/word/devise
("early 13c, 'to form, fashion;' c 1300, 'to plan, contrive,' from Old French deviser 'dispose in portions, arrange, plan, contrive' (in modern French, 'to chat, gossip'), from Vulgar Latin *divisare, frequentative of Latin dividere 'to divide' (see divide (v)). Modern sense is from 'to arrange a division' (especially via a will), a meaning present in the Old French word. Related: Devised; devising")
(B) In Old French, dou/du are contraction of "de le."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/du#Old_French
(For this reason, the title is sometimes written as Le Devisement du monde. The dou is obsolete, but du remain in use.)
(vi) The "BnF fr 2810" is the inventory number for the 1410-1412 manuscript in BnF. See Marco Polo, Le Livre des merveilles; Odoric de Pordenone, Itinerarium... Gallica, BnF, undated.
gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52000858n
(displaying cover only)
(A) BNF
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNF
(may refer to: "Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), the French national library in Paris")
(B) Latin-English dictionary:
* gallicus (adjective masculine; feminine: gallica):
"1: Gallic (of the Gauls), Gaulish
2: French"
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gallicus
(C) modern French-English dictionary:
* livre (noun masculine; from Old French livre, borrowed as a semi-learned term from Latin [noun masculine] liber, librum [nook]): "book"
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/livre
* merveille (noun feminine; plural: merveilles; from Latin [adj] mirabilia [plural form of adjective mīrābilis wonderful, marvelous]): "wonder, marvel"
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/merveille
(vii) chansons de geste
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanson_de_geste
(origin and events depicted under dabate)
(viii) Saracen (n)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Saracen
(ix) Isidore of Seville
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isidore_of_Seville
(c 560 –636; His fame after his death was based on his Etymologiae, an etymological encyclopedia which assembled extracts of many books from classical antiquity that would have otherwise been lost; section 2 Work, section 2.1 Etymologiae)
(x)
(A) Samarkand 撒马尔罕
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarkand
("or Samarcand, is a city in modern-day Uzbekistan")
(B) Khanbaliq 汗八里
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanbaliq
(= 中都 in Jurchen [女真] Jin dynasty [大金; 1115–1234; 亡于元]; = 大都, capital of Yuan dynasty) |
发表于 12-30-2017 12:29:10
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