is used to refer to the word "she" in the third person of a woman, and it is very familiar to us. But, do you know? The history of this character is actually not long. Like many modern Chinese words, the word "she" was also born during the May Fourth period when the new culture movement emerged. "Goddess Day" is here. Let's talk about the stories "she" has experienced.
Before "her"
Before modern times, third-person pronouns have never been distinguished from gender attributes in Chinese. In ancient texts, third-person as object is represented by the word "zhi". Later, when vernacular Chinese became popular, the word "he" was used as a third-person pronoun. Until modern times, China began to contact Western languages, especially English. Missionaries who came to China in the early 19th century encountered the problem of not knowing how to accurately translate the Bible and other texts. In 1814, a Protestant missionary, Robert Marleyson, was the first to try to solve this problem. He used the term "this woman" or "this woman" to translate the English she. Since then, he also tried to translate he, she, and it as "his man", "his woman" and "other things". This weird translation method is a helpless move without special gender distinction pronouns available.
Just when the missionaries were in trouble about she's translation, Guo Zansheng, a Guangzhou native who had studied in the UK, used "Yi" to translate she for the first time in a book "Early Grammar" in English grammar "Early Grammar" translated and published in 1878, translated it with "one" of "one", and translated it with the word "he" as the translation of he. Although this practice successfully avoided the embarrassment of phrase translation, since foreign languages have little influence in China and people do not care about the topic of female independence, the attempts of Guo Zansheng and others did not attract people's attention. Even Guo Zansheng himself often unconsciously translates she as "he" in the book. A situation like
did not turn around until the Republic of China period. In the early 20th century, the New Culture Movement was in full swing, and with a large number of new world literature works being translated into China, the question of how to accurately translate female third-person pronouns in foreign languages emerged again, and it caused widespread discussion.
The birth of the word "she"
When it comes to the word "she", we have to mention a person - Liu Bannong. There is a saying that Liu Bannong created the word "she". In fact, this is not the case. In ancient my country, the word "she" was already called mother in dialect. It is pronounced as jiě, which is an uncommon character and was later abandoned. The sound of tā appeared in the rise of the feminist movement in the 1920s, but Liu Bannong played a huge role in promoting the use of "her".
Since 1917, within the editorial circle of the progress magazine " New Youth " during the New Culture Movement, Liu Bannong, Zhou Zuoren and others have begun to discuss the translation of the word she. In this process, Liu Bannong proposed to create the word "she" as a female third-person pronoun. However, this suggestion was only an informal proposal and was mentioned within the editorial circle, with limited influence. On August 15, 1918, Zhou Zuoren published a translation explanation in "New Youth". The article pointed out that Liu Bannong once mentioned creating the character "She", but creating a new character requires a lot of new lead characters when printing, which is inconvenient, so it is not recommended for the time being. Instead, he decided to mark a small trumpet "Female" character in the lower right corner of the common character "He" at that time to represent a third-person pronoun for women. In the following issues of "New Youth" magazine, whenever a female third-person pronoun appears in the translation, the plan proposed by Zhou Zuoren will be used to add a small "female" character to the lower right corner of "he" to express it.
But this new word with awkward shape has also encountered many oppositions. Therefore, the cultural community launched a big discussion on the choice of third-person pronouns in Chinese women.
In February 1919, an article titled "A Discussion on the Translation of the English "she"" published by "New Youth" disclosed the conversation between linguist Qian Xuantong and Zhou Zuoren. The result of the conversation was that the two reached a consensus and used the relatively elegant and easy-to-print word "Yi" as a female third-person pronoun in Chinese.Many literati and scholars at that time began to use the word "Yi" as a female third-person pronoun in their articles. At the same time, the "she" proposed by Liu Bannong in the article was also known to more people, and unexpectedly favored by some people, and began to use it in his articles, including a young vernacular poet named Kang Baiqing.
In May 1919, Kang Baiqing published a series of articles such as "The Forerunner of Men and Women's Social Affairs in Beijing" and "The First Prohibition of Women in Colleges" to explore the topic of women's liberation and advocate equality between men and women. His intentional use of "her" in his article undoubtedly gave this word more social meaning, and the use of "her" has since become a symbolic symbol that advocated gender equality at that time.
However, the influential writers at that time, such as Zhou Zuoren, Lu Xun, Mao Dun , Ye Shengtao, Li Dazhao, etc., had also begun to use the word "Yi", and the use of "her" seemed a bit "non-mainstream". Some radical feminist boycotts on the grounds that a woman is an insult. Although "she" had been used by some people at that time, she still faced various controversies and doubts.
Liu Bannong: Teach me how to not miss her
On August 9, 1920, "Current Affairs News•Xue Deng" published Liu Bannong's "The Problem of the Word "She". The necessary and practical possibilities of the word "she" were analyzed. He said: "In form, it is very similar to the word 'he', which is easy to identify, but it is obvious that it is not misidentified, so it can be used as much as possible." As for the word "Yi" that was used at that time, Liu Bannong thought it was spoken language, and it was difficult to use it in a small area, and it was difficult to popularize it, and it did not understand the word "she" in terms of women. At the end of the article "The Problem of the Word "She", Liu Bannong also proposed another new idea: in addition to "She", another word "It" should be created to replace no living things.
Then, Liu Bannong wrote the popular poem "Teaching Me How to Don't Miss Her" on September 4, 1920, and promoted the use of the word "her".
There are some slight clouds floating in the sky and some breeze blowing on the ground. Ah, the breeze blew my hair, teach me how to not miss her?
Eyes are in love with the ocean, and the ocean is in love with the eyes. Ah, this honey-like Yin Ye teaches me how to not miss her?
Flowers fall on the water surface and slowly flow, fish under the water swim slowly. Ah, Yanzi, what do you say and teach me how to not miss her?
The dead trees are shaking in the cold wind, and the wildfires are burning in the twilight. Ah, there are still some lingering clouds in the west. How can I not miss her?
Later, linguist Zhao Yuanren composed this poem into music, which was included in the "New Poetry Collection" published in 1925. It still inspires overseas wanderers to love their motherland.
The status of the word "she" was established
1921, the use of the word "she" began to gradually increase, and surpassed the use of the word "yi". Among the people who started using the word "her" at that time, they included writers with certain influence such as Zheng Zhenduo , Mao Dun, Xu Dishan . Especially well-known female writers such as Bing Xin and Lu Yin, they do not think that "she" contains the meaning of insulting women, but are willing to insist on using "she" in their articles. This behavior further strengthens the recognition of this new word. By the mid-20s, some famous writers such as Zhu Ziqing and Lu Xun also began to follow the trend and switch to "her". Especially in the novel "Blessings" published by Lu Xun in 1924, he successfully created the classic literary image of Xianglin Sao with a large number of words "her".
Among the many textbooks and authoritative dictionaries published by the government of the Republic of China, since 1923, the word "she" has been used as a third-person pronoun for women. However, these dictionaries and textbooks have some differences in the pronunciation of "she". Some books still label the pronunciation of "she" as yī, or yī or tā. In the actual teaching of primary and secondary schools at that time, it was almost always read as tā. It can be seen that after the mid-1930s, the character "she" and the pronunciation of tā have been basically accepted by the public, and the status of the character "she" as a third-person pronoun in Chinese women was established.
In addition, the victory of "her" has also promoted the trend of describing various beautiful things as female images in Chinese. People began to use "her" to refer to rivers, mountains, nature, hometown, etc. The most typical of this is perhaps the word "her" with the female attribute to refer to the motherland. This particularly delicate expression brings rich associations and resonance in people's thoughts and emotions, which may be the most sincere gift left to us today by the word "she".
Source: Dazhong.com·Poster News Editor Zhu Xiaoming Comprehensive Sohu, Zhihu, Baidu Encyclopedia and other
Source: Dazhong.com
