"Mencius" can be described as a very classic mistake in the Chinese translation world, because the translation name is extremely irregular and widely known, and even becomes an allusion in the future, specifically used to refer to the wrong translation name.

Of course, there are other strange translations that have been mistranslated, such as translating the English name "Sun Tzu" of "Sun Tzu" into "Sang Zu" and so on.

It's just that among these erroneous translations, it seems that the only example that can be cited alongside "Mencius" is "referring to Jiang Weichang".

It is worth mentioning that the translator of Mencius "Mencius" into "Mencius" was a professor at Shaojing University, and the person who translated "Jiang Moumou" into "Chang Moumou" was the deputy director of the history department of Tsinghua University.

Tsinghua University and Peking University are two top universities in China that have always competed with each other, and they have to compete even over classic translation errors, and they can't let each other compare themselves.

The direct cause of this error in the translation of personal names is the conflict between the Weituma Pinyin, which was created by foreigners trying to Latinize the square Chinese characters in the late Qing Dynasty, and the Chinese Pinyin, which is commonly used in China.

The generations who learned phonetic symbols and Hanyu Pinyin are not very clear and familiar with the Weituma Pinyin used before, so they frequently make jokes.

Of course, Weituma Pinyin itself is not complete and self-consistent, and there are often some errors of homophones or different sounds of the same words.

For example, "Chu" can represent the surname "Zhu", or it can be other surnames, such as "Qu" or "Chu".

The world-famous Tsingtao Beer, the previous place name is transcribed as "Tsingtao" according to the rules of Weituma Pinyin, just as Tsinghua University is not "QHU (QingHua University)" but "THU (TsingHua University)", Qing and Qing are transcribed as "Tsing" here.

However, in the translation of another place name, "Qinghai", "Chinghai" is used instead of "Tsinghai".

However, even if it is possible to cause the above mistakes, it is not a good translator, and it should be an excuse for one's own mistakes.

The reason why it is said that the translation error of "Mencius" is more classic than "referring to Chiang Weichang" is because there is a mistake in the original English book itself.

"Mencius' maxim 'There is only one sun under the whole heaven, and only one emperor above the people', can be applied to all the boundaries established by great empires."

The sentence quoted here corresponds to the classical Chinese, which should be "there are no two days in the sky, and there are no two kings in the people", and it did appear in "Mencius: Ten Thousand Chapters and Sentences".

It's just that the professor of Shao University doesn't even know that "Mencius" is Mencius, so how can he verify where this sentence appears?

More importantly, in "Mencius", there are three words in front of this sentence, that is, "Confucius said:".

In other words, this sentence is not what Mencius said at all, but the words of Confucius as paraphrased in Mencius.

This is not the fault of the translator, but the author of the full text mistakenly abbreviated "Mencius quoted Confucius as saying" as "Mencius's aphorism" when quoting the references, so it will be wrong when translating.

It's a pity that neither the translators nor the proofreaders even know that "Mencius" is Mencius, let alone that they can change it to the original author's citation.

Yan Fu, a famous translator in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, and the old president of Shaojing University, where the translator worked, once proposed that when translating, we should pay attention to "faith, reach, and elegance".

However, now it seems that his disciples and grandchildren have not been able to adhere to the requirements put forward by their predecessors.

In the pre-Qin period of China, there were basically only the English names of Confucius (Confucius) and Mencius, which ended with the suffix "-cius".

As for the others, most of them are directly named by transliteration, in addition to the above-mentioned Sun Tzu, there are also Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and Mo Tzu, Mo Tse, and so on.

The reason why Confucius and Mencius were not transliterated directly is that some people who were the first to translate their names into English knew that the status of Confucius and Mencius in China was similar to that of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in ancient Greece.

Therefore, out of respect, the translator translated the names of Confucius and Mencius into the ancient Greek style by adding "-ius" at the end, and through circulation became conventional.

As a result, the translator of that book would have taken it for granted that the two English names would be translated into the ancient Greek name "Mencius".

This kind of explanation is a little too taken for granted, and it makes the same mistake as Chen Muwu at the unveiling.

Chen Muwu saw the last four letters...... cius", which was first translated into Chinese in my heart...... Theseus", and then thought that the statue was a sage of the ancient Greek period.

But in fact, the true correspondence of the ancient Greek name of Theseus is "seus", which is not next to "cius".

The true origin of the two foreign names, "Confucius" and "Mencius", is derived from the missionaries of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, basically China has paid attention to ruling the world with Confucianism for thousands of years, so Confucius and Mencius were the most famous ancient thinkers in China at that time.

At that time, the European missionaries who came to China to preach were all from different European countries, and each of them spoke a different native language.

These missionaries who came to China could not speak in their own language, whether they talked to each other face-to-face, wrote letters, or reported their mission to the Holy See in Rome.

Just as in the early twentieth century, when Chen Muwu first came to Europe, the common aristocratic language in Europe was French, and in the days of missionaries, they also had their own common language to communicate with each other.

It's just that this language is not French, but the older Latin.

To this day, Latin is still the lingua franca of the Vatican, and even if you don't speak Italian, you can still speak Latin in the Holy See.

The two Chinese names, Confucius and Mencius, should be transliterated with the Latin alphabet "Confuci" and "Menci", respectively.

——Because in the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was still far from the appearance of Weituma Pinyin, so there is a big difference between the phonetic rules of Weituma Pinyin here.

Unlike English, Latin nouns are participle, with three types: "masculine", "neutral", and "feminine".

Because Confucius and Mencius were undoubtedly male, their names were followed by the Latin suffix "-us", which means masculine.

Odysseus, the protagonist of Homer's epic poem mentioned above, has a similar naming convention to "Mencius".

"-us" is a suffix for masculinity, and the preceding "Odysse", with the letter "y", becomes the name of the second part of Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey.

It's just that because the pronunciation of "-cius" and "-seus" is similar, they are all called "Xiusi" after being translated into Chinese.

The period of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties coincided with the heyday of European missionary activities in China.

Correspondingly, the penultimate emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youxiao, was given the name "Thienkius" (Tianqi +-us) in European literature, and the last emperor Zhu Youzhen was "Zungchinius" (Chongzhen+-us).

The first emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Aixin Jueluo Fulin, was translated as "Sungteius" (Shunzhi +-us).

The style of translation of these names is similar to that of Confucius and Mencius.

As for why the English names of sages such as Laozi, Zhuangzi and Mozi are not translated as names ending in "-us", it is purely because they went abroad relatively late, before and after the invention of the Weituma phonetic method in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.

At that time, because Britain became an empire on which the sun never set, English became the common language of the world, and missionaries were not the only profession to communicate between the East and the West.

After Chen Muwu laughed at the oolong he had committed in his heart, he did not restrain the smile on his face.

He turned his head and thanked the Crown Prince of Sweden for donating the statue of Confucius to the Prince's College.

"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, I didn't expect you to really study the traditional culture of China, and even the old man Confucius of the Ten Thousand Worlds was invited."

After hearing Professor Chen's praise, the Swedish crown prince unconsciously boasted to himself: "Chen, I'm afraid that as long as you know a little about Chinese culture, Europeans can know how much respect Confucius is in China......

Hearing what the Swedish crown prince said, Chen Muwu had a smile on his face, but he had another idea in his heart.

His "good friend" Hu Shi in China was the first to put forward the idea of "bringing down the Confucian family" in the New Culture Movement more than ten years ago.

Many of the teachers who are now coming to Europe are leaders of the New Culture Movement, and the students are also influenced by the New Culture Movement to a greater or lesser extent.

Thanks to Stockholm, this is Sweden's territory.

If the Prince's College is built on the land of China, and a statue of Confucius is erected on the campus of the school, I am afraid that this matter is somewhat unpleasant.

He did not tell the rector of the Prince's College what he was thinking, but listened to the Swedish crown prince continue with a smile: "I wanted to hire craftsmen in Europe at first, but when I made a request, no matter which craftsman it was, I politely refused.

This is because, after all, Confucius was a Chinese sage, and he was not well known in Europe, so the craftsmen did not know how to carve.

"So I'm going to ask the Swedish diplomats in China to ......."

Hearing this, Chen Muwu was shocked.

This Swedish crown prince really paid a lot of money, could it be that this statue of Confucius was carved from China and then sent over?

Not to mention how much money is spent on carving, the freight cost along the way is already an astronomical amount!

Chen Muwu wanted to express his amazement, but unfortunately the Swedish crown prince didn't give him a chance to interject, and still gushed out: "...... Ask them to look for the statue of Confucius in China, and then take photos from various angles and send them back to Sweden, and then ask craftsmen to carve them according to the image on the photos.

"Originally, I wanted to go to Xiandongfu, the Confucian Temple in Confucius's hometown, but because it was in time for the civil war between the north and the south in your country, for the sake of safety, I couldn't make the trip.

"This statue is carved from the Confucius Temple on the banks of the Qinhuai River in Beijing, which I have visited, and the statue in the Jiading Confucian Temple near the sea.

"Dr. Chen, how about this Chinese statue carved by European craftsmen?"

The explanation given by the Swedish crown prince is much more reasonable than Chen Muwu imagined.

His idea just now is indeed a bit naïve, and it is not like the Statue of Liberty, a gift from one country to another, but just a sculpture at the beginning of the school year, is it necessary to go to such great lengths?

Although the crown prince of Sweden said that he is the superintendent of the school, he has the obligation to make the school better.

But Chen Muwu knew that this statue of Confucius was mainly coming for himself, and he had to express his gratitude.

The two of them exchanged a few polite words before breaking up at the school gate.

Although there is an office of the Crown Prince of Sweden in the prince's college, you can't really expect the school chancellor to live in the school every day, right?

The calendar for February 4, 1929 has been removed from the desk calendar.

Newspapers in Stockholm and around the world published and reproduced in full or selectively the opening ceremony of the Prince's College and the speeches made at the ceremony.

Those who wait to see what Chen Muwu said will probably be disappointed, because although the newspaper marked the full text, Chen Muwu's speech is only a few lines, and there is a parenthesis in it - (here is a Chinese song, omitted).

News travelled from Stockholm to the rest of the world along telegraph lines or wireless telegraph signals, and many telegrams were sent back to Stockholm along telegraph lines or wireless telegraph signals.

Telegrams from universities and research institutes in Europe, the Americas, and East Asia all congratulated the official opening of the Prince's College.

These telegrams contain basically no substantive information except for polite words.

- Except for a telegram from New York, USA, the sender of which was Robert Oppenheimer, a professor of physics at the University of Chicago.

Chen Muwu, who received Oppenheimer's telegram, was a little surprised.

It wasn't Oppenheimer who sent him a telegram celebrating the opening of the Prince's College—wasn't that rightfully so——, it wasn't Oppenheimer who didn't write "Love from New York City" on the telegram.

Chen Muwu just didn't understand why Oppenheimer was not in Illinois, where the University of Chicago is located, but sent this telegram to himself from New York.

Could it be that he quit his job?

(End of chapter)