Chapter 523: I promise you

For an increasingly globalized modern society, where communication is paramount, especially in diplomacy, especially in diplomatic law, a single word difference can have huge consequences.

Roscoe Pound, the former dean of Harvard's law school, once told his students, "My first piece of advice to beginners in law is to ask them to buy a good dictionary and ask for it." ”

A qualified, preceding dictionary is of great significance.

However, in the early 90s, most of the legal dictionaries used by the Dragon Kingdom were derived from Dongying's translation of the Anglo-American Dictionary.

In 1993, 29-year-old Xue Bo was still a graduate student at the University of Political Science and Law.

However, the process of studying law was not so smooth, and when he read foreign books, bookstores and libraries could not find a good legal English reference book, so he barely used one.

Sometimes, however, we encounter some mistranslations that now seem ridiculous. An extreme example is "Asylum", a worldwide legal term for the right to political asylum, which was mistranslated as the right of abode in the 1954 constitution of the Dragon Kingdom, which was wrong for 30 years and was not noticed until 1985 when the constitution was amended in 1985.

The young Xue Bo realized the hidden risk of missing a basic legal English reference book, and whether the institutional edifice built on the basis of basic vocabulary and basic concepts would one day collapse due to the countless ant nests hidden in the foundation?

"A small mistake is a thousand miles wrong"

So Xue Bo, who was in school, found the director of the editorial department of the judicial department and put forward his own suggestions, hoping to reintegrate and compile a complete and accurate dictionary of Chinese law, preferably with multiple translations and explanations, but in the process of implementation, he encountered many problems, the translation of language and cultural contexts, and the late start of modern Chinese law, many professional words had to be reorganized.

To this end, Xue Bo was sent to assist in the compilation of the first large-scale Chinese-English legal dictionary of the Dragon Kingdom, which lasted two years for the publication of the "Chinese-English Legal Dictionary", which is a complete translation of foreign laws into Chinese, Xue Bo used reverse thinking, the 'Chinese-English' turned upside down into 'English-Chinese', and the 'Chinese-English' put the legal terminology of the Dragon Kingdom into the Western context for compilation, and the terminology was translated in one direction.

Xue Bo wanted to do a reverse translation, so that the two interpretations and translations could ensure more initiative, so the concept of 'English-Chinese' was based on Western legal terminology and translated into the legal context of the Dragon Kingdom.

Aside from the complete unfamiliarity with the laws of English-speaking countries, the content of the English materials collected is also very different, the same English literature, but there are from the United States, England, Malaysia, India, and even African countries, resulting in the same word in different contexts to express completely different meanings, and in another context, you will always see words that cannot be seen in other contexts.

This is a huge amount of work, because in the early 90s, there was still very little knowledge of Western common law in China, and it was naturally difficult for Xue Bo to know the division between "civil law system" and "common law system", let alone what kind of materials were representative and authoritative in Western countries.

After the repositioning, almost all of the initial drafts were overturned, and a considerable number of entries that did not belong to the content of common law were discarded, reorganized, and started anew.

Xue Bo's contract with the foreign language publishing house had to be extended again and again, and the cost of dictionaries also increased uncontrollably. Funds are scarce, work is in an embarrassment, and at the end of the month, it is often the phone that is shut down and then raised a little money to restart.

Because there was no official funding, Xue Bo had to figure out the funding problem by himself, and he and the director who supported him at that time raised money everywhere, from more famous enterprises, law firms, scientific research institutions, to auction companies to fight for the auction naming rights, to the British Embassy, the Australian Embassy, foreign foundations, and even wrote a letter to the then US President Clinton to seek support.

However, society has shown indifference to the dictionary, and almost all efforts have been lost.

After all, for the dragon society at that time, law was still a very unfamiliar word.

In the end, the "Beijing Youth Daily" obtained a donation of more than 200,000 yuan for them, a donation of 1 million yuan from foundations such as Meidi Ford, and an advance payment of more than 40 yuan from the Foreign Languages Publishing House. By the time the dictionary was published, Xue Bo had borrowed more than 400,000 yuan in his personal name.

In the nineties, this was undoubtedly a huge amount of money.

The work is in a simple office of the University of Political Science and Law of less than 10 square meters, pushing the door in, four walls of books, neutral bookshelves, and the bookshelf is next to the desk, leaving two aisles Although it can only accommodate one person to shuttle, it can reach every position in the room.

As for the ledge, the bookshelves can be used where they are not idle, nail a nail can hang a catalog, memos, paste a strip can also guide the way, the function of these strips is like the door number in a large office building, but the departments in the office building are compressed into this 10 square meters. Fill up the remaining space to accommodate up to 10 people working at the same time. Standing in it, you can see at a glance that it is obviously not an overnight effort to make full use of the space.

In this 4.6 million words, as many as 450 million entries are included, which is three times more than the "Anglo-American Dictionary" published by Dongying, and the final proof of the dictionary has been completed.

With no official support, no financial support, no flowers and applause, and not even a regular office, the Yuan Zhao Anglo-American Dictionary was finally due to be published in 2003.

Behind this work is the painstaking work of two generations of scholars who have gone through nine years of cold and summer in obscurity.

In that room, which is less than a dozen square meters, more than 280 people have been left working at the desk in front of and behind the studio.

Except for some legal experts, most of the others are recruited from law schools such as the University of Political Science and Law, Peking University, and Renmin University to work part-time. They are so engrossed that they forget to sleep and eat, sometimes they forget the time because of their work, the door is locked, and they have to jump out of the window on the second floor, and sometimes they simply sleep at the desk for a night.

A Minister of Justice once commented on this: "It is strange that a dictionary with international authority is indeed compiled by a group of old people and students who have no job, no power and no money, and they have done what the education system of judicial administration wants to do but cannot do." ”

During that time, Xue Bo smiled and described it as 'eating wind and rain'.

But Wang Yao knew that behind his light smile at this time was the shocking tenacity of Chinese jurisprudence and his silent dedication to the motherland.

In addition to these young people, there is another special group of old people, that is, the old people of Soochow led by Mr. Zhou Fang, whose average age is over eighty-four.

When Xue Bo couldn't find a suitable reviewer, under the guidance of Mr. Pan Handian, a professor at Longguo University of Political Science and Law and the chief reviewer of this dictionary, Xue Bo went to Mingzhu and knocked on the doors of these old people who had received systematic Anglo-American law education at Soochow University Law School one by one.

Their names are:

Sheng Zhenwei, Doctor of Law, Northwest University, former president and dean of the School of Law of Soochow University;

Zhou Wei, Doctor of Law, University of Leuven, Belgium, 1939;

Lu Jun, J.D., Harvard University, 1933;

Wang Mingyang, Ph.D., University of Paris, France, 1953;

Cai Jin, Bachelor of Laws, Soochow University, 1933;

Xu Zhisen, Bachelor of Laws, Soochow University, 1934;

Lu Shengzu, Bachelor of Laws, Soochow University, 1934;

Xu Kaishu, Bachelor of Laws, Soochow University, 1940;

Wang Yuhua, J.D., Indiana University, United States of America, 1949;

Yu Weiyi, Bachelor of Laws, Soochow University, 1944;

Guo Nianzu, Bachelor of Laws, Soochow University, 1946;

Chen Zhongzhong, Bachelor of Laws, Soochow University, 1947;

Zhou Chengwen, Bachelor of Laws, Soochow University, 1944;

Gao Wenbin, Bachelor of Laws, Soochow University, 1945;

However, the situation of the old man in his later years deeply shocked Xue Bo. After Soochow University was abolished, the relationship with Soochow Law School became a sin for Soochow teachers and students.

Mr. Zhou Wei, known as the "living dictionary of Roman law", lived in a small room of more than ten square meters in a dilapidated and gloomy wooden building in his later years, and the only valuable belongings were a black and white TV and a single-door refrigerator.

He was over 90 years old, his hands were trembling so much that he could only entrust his wife, who was in her 80s, to transcribe the corrected manuscript.

Dr. Lu Jun from Harvard University is the former dean of the Central University Law School. The only electrical appliance in his home is a palm-sized fan, and he is in his 90s, blind, and wears glasses that are glued to the side of an old envelope to review manuscripts.

worked hard, but repeatedly told Xue Bo not to sign his name, and even the meager review fee of 600 yuan was donated to the editorial department.

In Mr. Lu Jun's hut, Xue Bo said his request, and Mr. Lu sat up tremblingly, leaning back on the old rattan chair, Xue Bo said, "For whatever reason, the world may forget you, and it does now." ”

The old man's hearing had been severely weakened, and Xue Bo could only half-kneel on the ground and whisper in his ear, "But you not only have profound knowledge, you are also a symbol of the academic peak of the times, please be sure to participate in our work." ”

The old man listened quietly, muddy tears flowing from his eyes, "I promise you. ”

For a while, Xue Tao's tears rained down.