I was reading the Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư for the year 618 and found that it mentions Qiu He, the governor of Giao/Jiao Region (交州太守丘和). This did not make any sense to me, because governors (太守, thái thú) at that time ruled over commanderies (郡, quận), not regions (州, châu).
I looked at the quốc ngữ translation, and it had the exact same information, “Thái thú Giao Châu là Khâu Hòa.” Sometimes translators will indicate when a text is incorrect, but in this instance the translators did not.
I then checked the original Chinese sources, and the Old History of the Tang and the New History of the Tang both have biographies of Qiu He and they both list him as “governor of Giao Chỉ.” Giao Chỉ was a commandery under Giao Region. It thus makes perfect sense that Qiu He would have been the governor of Giao Chỉ Commandery.
So the Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư was wrong, which did not surprise me because it is filled with mistakes. So I expect to see mistakes in that text. Unfortunately I also expect to find mistakes in quốc ngữ translations, and many of those mistakes come from cases like this.
When Vietnamese “translate” from Chinese, in many cases they do not actually “translate” in the sense of transferring the meaning of a text in one language into another. Instead, they just “transliterate” the characters into Vietnamese, put the words in Vietnamese order, and add the verb “to be.” So “交州太守丘和/Giao Châu Thái thú Khâu Hòa” becomes “Thái thú Giao Châu là Khâu Hòa.”
This does not require that someone actually understand what the Chinese characters really mean. However, to really translate this simple statement, one has to understand how the Chinese government worked at that time. If someone knows this, then it becomes obvious that this statement is incorrect, and a “khoa học” translation would indicate that this is incorrect.
Is this such a big deal? Let me put it this way, think of how people would respond to the following sentence: “Before Barack Obama became president, he served in the Congress as a governor of Illinois.”
That sentence looks really stupid, because everyone knows that governors are the top officials in states. They do not serve in Congress, senators and representatives do.
The same degree of obviousness is present in the error of Qiu He serving as the governor of a region.
Again, I think the problem stems from the fact that when Vietnamese translate from classical Chinese, it is often the case that they don’t really understand the text that they are translating, and they do not know all of the background information that they need in order to understand the text they are translating. Unfortunately, when they find themselves in such a situation, there is an easy way out – they can just transliterate the characters into Vietnamese. It is a very un-khoa học way of engaging in khoa học, but it is very common and can be found in countless “translations.”
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Một thế kỉ dùng chữ “Quốc ngữ,” người Việt Nam tuyên bố chữ Hán thành “tử ngữ” (dead language) ở Việt Nam. Nhưng người Việt Nam không bỏ chữ Hán, họ chắc là chỉ “mù chữ Hán” đi thôi!!! 可惨的一张！
very good point
hope to read more about mistakes found in ĐVSKTT and especially in the translation
tks
First of all, I cannot read Chinese.
It seems to me that our language is plagued with transliteration disease, which makes it strange. “The Public Works Ministry will raise the “tĩnh không” so trucks could go through under the overpass”. Xã hội phúc lợi for social sevvices.
This situation makes me think about the wrong friends (faux amis) between English and French. Photographe in French is a camera man, a photographer ; but photogragh in English a picture. Editeur in Fr is not editor but publisher in E. Souvenir in Fr cannot stand for reminiscence, it’s only on object, a reminder of memory.
So it’s good to be profoundly literate in chữ Hán, especially in case of historians.
Yes, what you say is true, but there are plenty of ways to be mistaken in reading Han as well. It’s important to be able to do so, but it can be easy to make mistakes too.
Trong 《大越史記全書‧本紀‧卷之三》 có một câu như thế này:
“進封興道王國峻為國公，節制統領天下諸軍，使擇軍校有將才者分統部伍”
Trong bản dịch tiếng Việt câu đó đã được dịch là:
“Tiến phong Hưng Đạo Vương Quốc Tuấn làm Quốc công tiết chế, thống lĩnh quân đội toàn quốc, sai chọn các quân hiệu có tài chỉ huy, chia đi nắm giữ các đơn vị.”
(“進封” dịch thành “Tiến phong”
進封興道王國峻 → Hưng Đạo Vương Quốc Tuấn
為 → làm
國公節制 → Quốc công tiết chế,
統領 → thống lĩnh
天下諸軍 → quân đội toàn quốc,
使 → sai
擇 → chọn
軍校 → các quân hiệu
將才者 → có tài chỉ huy,
分 → chia đi
統部伍 → nắm giữ các đơn vị.)
Người dịch đoán rằng bốn chữ “國公節制” là tên của một chức vị nào đó (rõ ràng người này không hề biết đó là chức vụ như thế nào) nên đã dịch “國公節制” sang tiếng Việt là “Quốc công tiết chế” (chỉ là ghi ra âm Hán Việt của bốn chữ Hán đó). Do bản dịch tiếng Việt sai mà ở rất nhiều nơi người ta đã ghi cho Trần Hưng Đạo cái chức vụ “Quốc công tiết chế”, một chức vụ mà ông chưa bao giờ được phong.