韓中日飜譯詞‘衛生’的成立及容受

Abstract

Based on the theory of contact linguistics, this paper aims to examine the original meaning of ‘Weisheng’ and the process of translating ‘hygiene’ from western language into Japanese, and also how the Japanese words were translated into Korean. The Chinese character ‘Weisheng’ appeared in Chinese classic literature in the 1600s, and at that time, it meant ‘to save or protect one's life ’, and it was always used as a verbal form. At this time, it was used with the same meaning in Korea and Japan. During the Eastward Transmission of Western Sciences, many new concepts came from the West to the East, and to study and accep the new concept, they were translated into Chinese characters in Japan, so the word ‘hygiene’ was a new concept during this time. At the beginning, ‘hygiene’ had been translated by ‘Shesheng’, ‘Sheyang’, ‘Yangsheng’, ‘Jiankang’, ‘Baoshen’ and so on. After using the word ‘Weisheng’ mixed with these words, finally ‘Weisheng’ was used as the translated word for western ‘hygiene’ by Nagayo Sensai in Japan. From 1887, the word ‘Weisheng’ appearred in the Official Government Newspaper, magazines and textbooks, and this represented that this word was officially established and used in Japan. The word ‘Weisheng’ was first introduced to Korea in the middle of the 1880s, but the modern concept was not accepted or used widely, and even a lot of people did not know what the real meaning was. Back in the 1910s, ‘Weisheng’ was emphasized and often appeared in various kinds of newspapers and magazines. Many terms were derived from 'Weisheng' during this time, for example “health department”, “medic”, “sanitary police” and so on. The word was firstly addedd to the 『The New Korean English Dictionary』 in 1928, which means this word was settled during this time in Korea.