서양 선교사 조슈아 마시맨(Joshua Marshman)의 중국어 연구와 번역에 대한 기초적 고찰

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the characteristics and significance of the British Protestant missionary Joshua Marshman’s research on Chinese written language, his English translation of Chinese classics, and his Chinese translation of the Bible. By focusing on the accomplishments of Western missionaries, who were mediators of Sino-western cultural exchanges in the modern era, this study identified patterns of bibliographical exchanges between China and the West, as well as the foundation of Chinese studies in the Western hemisphere. Marshman put a great effort into missionary work in China while being based in Bengal, India. First, Marshman’s The Works of Confucius(1809) is a translation of the Analects, which differed from existing translations in that Marshman explained the meaning and the principle behind the creation of each Chinese character from the original work. He anticipated that the readers of his translation learn not only Confucius’s philosophy but also the Chinese language. Afterward, he published a book on Chinese grammar, A Grammar of the Chinese Language(1815), which included a translation of Great Learning as an appendix. This book concerns the Chinese characters, the spoken language, and the Chinese syntax, and its syntactical explanations are primarily based on the written language. Marshman focused on the fact that the Chinese written language was used in neighboring countries that used different spoken languages, such as Japan and Vietnam, and that even people with different dialects from China were able to communicate with each other through written language. Marshman argued that the Chinese written language was the origin of Sanskrit, which was why he translated the Bible into the Chinese written language. Acknowledging its significance in Chinese society, Marshman perceived the written language to be the universal and original language.