SPEAKING
FREELY The
end of translation By Thorsten
Pattberg
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BEIJING - Few people
realize that, quite frankly, the Bible discourages
people from studying foreign languages. The story
of the tower of Babel informs us that there is one
humanity (God's one), only that "our languages are
confused". From a European historical perspective,
that has always meant that, say, any German
philosopher could know exactly what the Chinese
people were thinking, only that he couldn't
understand them. So instead of learning the
foreign language, he demanded a translation.
Coincidentally, or maybe not quite so,
History with a capital 'H' followed the Bible. At
the time of the Holy Roman Empire of the
German nation, when
German scholars still spoke Latin, the German
logician Christian Wolff got his hands on a Latin
translation of the Confucian Classics. His
reaction, I think, is as funny as it is
disturbing: He reads Kongzi in Latin and
says something like "Great, that looks very
familiar, I have the feeling that I totally
understand this Confucius!".
Wolff was so
overjoyous with his new mental powers, that he
went on to lecture about the Chinese as if he was
the king of China. It's brilliant; if it wasn't so
comical. Among his unforgettable findings were
"The Motives of the Chinese", or "The Final
Purpose of the Chinese", and so on.
And,
of course, when somebody occasionally asked master
Wolff why he didn't visit China, the greatest
sinologist of all time played out his greatest
intellectual triumph. He replied that "the wisdom
of the Chinese was generally not so highly valued
that it was necessary to travel there for its
sake".
It's thus pretty much established,
I think, that "History" stopped with this Wolff,
or at least became too tired and too cynical. He
sufficiently demonstrated that just about any
European could become a "China expert" without
knowing a single Chinese terminology.
Since this was true for just about any
foreign language; so now we know why the German
philosopher Immanuel Kant could reasonably
announce the "End of All Things", and Georg Hegel
could proclaim the "End of History". Both learned
men knew very well that they hadn't mastered any
non-European language in their life-time; and they
simply assumed that History was a bit like that
too.
This attitude in the Western
hemisphere has not changed, with the effect that
we live in a crazy world today. Most American and
European scholars believe that the Chinese "speak
their languages", only that they "talk" in
Chinese. Take the case of "democracy" and "human
rights". You may have considered this, but those
are European words and do not exist in China at
all. Imagine China would return a favor and demand
from Europe more wenming and tian ren he
yi.
The European attitude is reflected
in its translations. Most Westerners simply
translate every Chinese key concept into
convenient biblical or philosophical terminology.
As a result, modern nation states, like Germany in
the year 2012, are virtually Chinese-free.
Translation, of course, is an old human
habit. That doesn't mean we shouldn't question it.
It was our habit to slay our opponents in battle,
but we don't do that any more (except in
Afghanistan and Iraq). Why do we still destroy
foreign key vocabulary? Well, we first do so, I
think, for sociological reasons. If Germany
censors all important foreign terminologies, the
German public is lead to think it alone knows
everything there is to be known in the world, and
- metaphorically speaking - behaves like it.
That's why Germany has produced so many "world
historians" and "philosophers", such as Georg
Hegel, Max Weber or Karl Marx. Academics call it
deutungshoheit - meaning having the
sovereignty over the definition of thought.
It might sound very depressing, but truth
must be told: the West knows little about China,
and cultural China has never become a truly global
phenomenon. Not a single percent of the educated
European citizenry, in my estimation, knows what
ruxue is, or a junzi or
shengren. And those are some of the most
important Chinese concepts there ever were.
To put it another way: have you ever
wondered why there are now "philosophers" and
"saints" all over the world, but that there has
never been a single shengren or buddha in
the West? Think about it, what is that
probability? Whose version of "History" are we
taught? The East has been preyed upon and is
bleeding out of its socio-cultural originality as
we speak.
I often feel embarrassed for
some Asian professors (who got their
"qualifications" in the West) when they open yet
another department of "Chinese philosophy" or
"Chinese religion" in China, often smiling into
the faces of Western businessmen, missionaries and
benefactors.
"Philosophy" is a
Greco-Hellenic concept that is syndicated by the
Judeo-Christian tradition. Rujiao, Fojiao, and
Daojiao are all jiao, teachings. As to
"religion" there is only one, the Western
conception: We all live in the year 2012 of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The so-called "freedom of
religion" has to be understood as: "in this
Christian world, you may believe whatever you
want". China is already evangelized precisely
because all "Chinese religions" follow
Judeo-Christian taxonomy.
China is not
alone. India, too, is slowly figuring out there is
something odd here. The Sanskrit-Hindu tradition
invented tens of thousands of unique non-European
concepts that are simply blocked out of History by
Western media and academia. As if billions of
Chinese and Indians in 3,000 years never invented
anything - as if they just stood there waiting to
be stripped of their intellectual property.
Some commentators have argued with me that
we need a "global language", and today's English
is the best candidate. To this I reply, are you
crazy, that's exactly what the Germans once did;
now it's the Anglo-Saxons who close their
"History" book and say "We already know you".
No, the true "global language" would be
radically different from today's English. It would
need to adopt the originality and the tens of
thousands of words provided by humankind's other
language traditions on top of it.
Every
language learner has this from time to time: a
subconscious certainty that something is lost in
translation, every time, without exception. Yet,
most of us are too fearful to follow our
gut-feeling through.
Maybe there is a
hidden flaw in the story of the tower of Babel - a
monstrous, frightening one. What if our languages
are not confused at all, but any single group of
human beings were just never enough in numbers to
explore all the world's possibilities? What if the
Chinese had invented things - and named them
daxue, datong, wenming,
tian ren he yi and so on - that no American
has ever thought of this way, just as it always
has been - I think we agree on this - the other
way round.
It is often said that language
is the key to understanding China's culture and
tradition. The question is, which one should it
be.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
Dr Thorsten Pattberg is a
German scholar at The Institute for Advanced
Humanistic Studies at Peking University. He is the
author of The East-West dichotomy (2009), Shengren
(2011), and Inside Peking University (2012)
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