「野蠻」考源

Abstract

中國歷史上用「蠻夷戎狄」指稱周邊異族。十九世紀以後，新教傳教士在引介西方文明進化史觀使用「蠻野」、「野蠻」表達人類歷史發展一個階段的新義。傳教士著述中的「蠻野」、「野蠻」傳入日本，經過福澤諭吉的消化吸收定型為「野蠻」，並在二十世紀初回流中國，成為現代漢語詞彙體系中的一員。本文嘗試對「野蠻」一詞的形成、中日之間的交流、定型進行考察，以期從辭彙史的角度，詮釋與再現東方接受西方文野觀，促進社會近代轉型的歷史過程。

Historically, Chinese used the terms man, yi, rong, and di to refer to other races around China`s borders. After Protestant missionaries introduced the evolutionary ideas of Western history to China in the 19th century, words like ”uncivilized” (manye) and ”savage” (yeman) acquired a new meaning as descriptors of a particular stage of human historical development. These terms and the missionary writings that employed them made their way to Japan, where Fukuzawa Yukichi absorbed them and solidified their Japanese translation as yaban (or yema in Chinese), a word that returned to China at the start of the 20th century and became part of the modern Chinese vocabulary. This article investigates the formation and solidification of the word yeman and the related dialogues between China and Japan, with the goal of shedding light on the historical process by which the East accepted the civilized-versus-savage worldview of the West to hasten the transition to a modern society.