CHANGES IN CHINESE LANGUAGE
53
One of these is the change in literary style and sentence structure. Remarks to the effect that "this piece of writing reads like a translation", or "these sentences are so long and complicated that it is hard to grasp their full meaning”, illustrate how some Chinese react to the continuous process of westernization that has changed the structure of their language. These changes have been threefold: the adoption of the vernacular, or pai-hua, in place of the classical language; the adoption of some Western terms and sentence structures, as well as of punctuation; and an ever growing interest, particularly on the part of younger Chinese, in translating Western literature.
The vernacular proved not only more suitable than the classical style for modern usage, but also lent itself better to providing the grammatical patterns which Chinese intellectuals tried to derive from Western prototypes. The first Chinese grammar in the Western sense of the word, written by Ma Chien-ch'ung, was published in 1903. Ma tried to formulate a Chinese grammar based on Latin. His work exercised a predominant influence on all later attempts to formulate a Chinese grammar. On the other hand, translation of Western works into the vernacular necessarily imitated some of the stylistic and structural features of the original. For example, the use of “if” or “in spite of” or of a participle at the beginning of a sentence began in the course of such translation work. As the number of translations increased, the assimilation of Western style and sentence structure became naturally more common, and the use of punctuation marks according to Western practice became almost universal. The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war further advanced the westernization of the Chinese language by further disrupting cultural and literary traditions, and westernization now began to affect types of writing hitherto untouched, such as official documents and commercial correspondence. It is interesting to compare the style of early translations with that of more recent ones. For instance, Yen Fu's translation of Thomas Huxley's article on Evolution and Lin Shu's translation of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, adhered to a strictly traditional style showing little or no Western influence. But later translations, say, of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the early twenties already betray Western influence.
CHANGES IN CHINESE LANGUAGE
53
One of these is the change in literary style and sentence structure. Remarks to the effect that "this piece of writing reads like a translation", or "these sentences are so long and complicated that it is hard to grasp their full meaning”, illustrate how some Chinese react to the continuous process of westernization that has changed the structure of their language. These changes have been threefold: the adoption of the vernacular, or pai-hua, in place of the classical language; the adoption of some Western terms and sentence structures, as well as of punctuation; and an ever growing interest, particularly on the part of younger Chinese. in translating Western literature.
The vernacular proved not only more suitable than the classical style for modern usage, but also lent itself better to providing the grammatical patterns which Chinese intellectuals tried to derive from Western prototypes. The first Chinese grammar in the Western sense of the word, written by Ma Chien-ch'ung, was published in 1903. Ma tried to formulate a Chinese grammar based on Latin. His work exercised a predominant influence on all later attempts to formulate a Chinese grammar. On the other hand, translation of Western works into the vernacular necessarily imitated some of the stylistic and structural features of the original. For example, the use of “if” or “in spite of" or of a participle at the beginning of a sentence began in the course of such translation work. As the number of translations increased, the assimilation of Western style and sentence structure became naturally more common, and the use of punctuation marks according to Western practice became almost universal. The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war further advanced the westernization of the Chinese language by further disrupting cultural and literary traditions, and westernization now began to affect types of writing hitherto untouched, such as official documents and commercial correspondence. It is interesting to compare the style of early translations with that of more recent ones. For instance, Yen Fu's translation of Thomas Huxley's article on Evolution and Lin Shu's translation of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, adhered to a strictly traditional style showing little or no Western influence. But later translations, say, of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the early twenties already betray Western
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