Any time I read something in English about the premodern history of the Red River Delta and find an author saying that a work from that region mentions “China,” I immediately know that something is wrong.
“China” is a modern term that refers to a modern secular nation-state, and there is therefore no such term in premodern writings.
I was recently reading an article in English in which the author has the fourteenth-century scholar, Hồ Tông Thốc, mentioning “China” in a preface to one of his works. I know that Hồ Tông Thốc didn’t talk about “China,” so I checked to see what he actually wrote.
Hồ Tông Thốc’s text is no longer extant, but the preface from it is preserved in a nineteenth-century work by Phan Huy Chú. There it states the following:
“At the dawn of far antiquity, when all was obscure and had yet to be differentiated, there were still exaggerated tales in the Central Lands [Trung Thổ].” (太古之初，混茫未判，中土猶有漫茫之說)
I would never translate “Trung Thổ” (the “Central Land[s]”) as “China.” When we do so we take a word that is loaded with contemporary connotations and apply it to a concept that had other connotations. “China” is a modern secular nation-state. The term “Central Lands” has a sense of geomantic potency to it, and was used by people who believed that there was a “powerful center” in the world.
The author who has Hồ Tông Thốc mentioning “China” relied on the modern Vietnamese translation of this text. There instead of writing “Trung Thổ” the translator put “Trung Quốc,” the term that is now regularly used to refer to the modern secular nation-state of “China.”
When I was checking the original I saw another place where the English-language article I was reading and the modern Vietnamese translation differed from the original classical Chinese text. The translation and the article in English both have Hồ Tông Thốc mentioning “Hồng Bàng,” whereas that name is not in the original. In particular, the translation has a phrase that goes “from the time of the Hồng Bàng” (từ đời Hồng Bàng) whereas the original has “from the beginning of the time of chaos [hồng hoang 洪荒].” (自洪荒之始)
I’ve talked about all of this before, and I’m certain that I will talk about it again. Modern Vietnamese translations repeatedly give the sense that there has been this enduring awareness of difference and equality between “Vietnam” (in this case “Hồng Bàng”) and “China.”
Premodern writings don’t show that. Instead, they demonstrate a sense of belonging to a potent world, but a world in which that potency was not equally distributed. There were “Central Lands,” and there were places that, as this text states, were “at the end of Heaven/the heavens” (thiên mạt 天末). The modern Vietnamese translation expresses this term much more neutrally as “in a faraway region” [ở vào cõi xa]. Here again, I would argue that such a translation loses the connotations of the unequally distributed potency in the world that the original conveys.
The past that was recorded in classical Chinese cannot be accessed through the existing modern Vietnamese translations. We need better translations and more people who can read the originals.
This Post Has 6 Comments
Although I am not a fan of the word “original” that you used in this writing, I love its argument a lot!
I agree! Look at the images I provided, they are of “copies” of the Lich trieu hien chuong loai chi, because there is no “original.”
Good point!!
So it would be more accurate to say that we need more people who can read the “untranslated COPIES.” 🙂
Maybe, we can replace the word “oringinal” (gốc) by other word “source” (nguồn), can’t we? Of course, the target-text can not replace completely the source-text in many cases.
Yea, I like “source-text.”
But what are you calling a “target-text”? Is a translation of a “source-text” a “target-text”? If so, what is “target” referring to?
Yeah, i mean “target-text” as “translation”. “Target” is referring to the language whom is translated into.
Có dị bản của 《諭諸裨將檄文》 xuất hiện hai chữ Trung Quốc. Đối với hai chữ Trung Quốc này đã có ít nhất là hai cách hiểu khác nhau.
Bài “諭諸裨將檄文” trong sách “Giáo trình Hán văn thời Lý – Trần” (Nhà xuất bản Đại học Quốc gia Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, năm 2015) có đoạn như sau:
“為中國之將，侍立夷酋而無忿心”
Ở cuối trang có ghi chú là “Có bản chép là 邦國”.
Trong sách đó đoạn đó được dịch là:
“Làm tướng triều đình đứng hầu quân man mà không biết tức”
(為 → Làm
中國 → triều đình (朝廷)
之 → 0
將 → tướng
侍 → hầu
立 → đứng
夷 → man (蠻)
酋 → quân
而 → mà
無 → không biết
忿心 → tức)
Trong bài 《越南为什么自称“中华”》 trên trang 《澎湃》 ( http://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1432177 ) có một câu là:
“值得注意的是，正是在《檄将士文》中，第一次出现了越南自称中国的记载（“为中国之将侍立夷宿而无忿心”）”
Tác giả cho rằng Trung Quốc trong 《檄将士文》 là chỉ Việt Nam và trong 《檄将士文》 Việt Nam lần đầu tiên tự xưng là Trung Quốc.
Trong bài “諭諸裨將檄文” trong sách “Cơ sở ngữ văn Hán Nôm”, tập III (Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục, năm 1986) ( http://www.mediafire.com/file/9t2q74jxm9o2fnm/CSNVHN03.pdf ) đoạn văn đối ứng là:
“爲邦國之將侍立夷酋而無憤心”
Trong sách đoạn đó được dịch là:
“làm tướng quốc gia, đứng hầu tù trưởng mọi rợ mà không lòng giận”
(爲 → làm
邦國 → quốc gia
之 → 0
將 → tướng
侍 → hầu
立 → đứng
夷 → mọi rợ (蠻夷)
酋 → tù trưởng (酋長)
而 → mà
無 → không
憤 → giận
心 → lòng)
Trong sách “Giáo trình văn bản Hán văn Việt Nam” (Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục Việt Nam, năm 2013), bài “諭 諸 裨 將 檄 文” đoạn văn đối ứng là:
為 邦 國 之 將 侍 立 夷 酋 而 不 忿 心
(ghi nguyên văn theo cách trình bày trong sách này, trong sách này cứ sau mỗi chứ Hán lại cách ra một khoảng trắng)
Trong sách này hai chữ “邦 國” được chú thích là:
“bang quốc: nước láng giềng, ý khẳng định sự bình đẳng giữa ta và Tàu.”
Sách này không có bản dịch tiếng Việt cho tác phẩm.