China in world languages
The different usages of
China in world
languages generally derives from two sources, according to how knowledge of China reached the culture, whether by:\n* the northern land-route traversing the length of
Asia\n** The "land of the Seres" became known in the
European Middle Ages as the "Empire of Cathay."\n* the southern
sea-route\n** The name has nearly always been some form of the name *[
tSina], such as
China,
Chin,
Sin, and
Sinoe.
Native names
Names used in Asia, especially East and Southeast Asia are usually derived directly from words in a language of China learned through the land-route. Those languages belong to a former dependency (tributary) or Chinese-influenced country have especially similar pronunciation with those of Chinese.
Cathay
This group of names derives from Khitan, an ethnic group that originated in Manchuria and conquered Northern China. Due to long domination of Northern China by non-Chinese conquerors, it was assosiated by northwestern people as the land of the Khitan. In English and in several other European languages, the name "Cathay" became widely used largely as a result of English translations of the adventures of Marco Polo, which used this word for China.
- Classical Mongolian: Kitad\n* English: Cathay \n* Kazan Tatar: Qıtay\n* Medieval Latin: Cataya, Kitai\n* Mongolian: Hyatad (Хятад)\n* Russian: Kitai (Китай)\n* Uygur: Hyty
There is no evidence that either in the 13th or 14th century officially, Cathayans,
i.e, Chinese, travelled to
Europe, but it is possible that some did, in unofficial capacity, at least in the 13th century. For, during the campaigns of
Hulagu (grandson of
Genghis Khan) in
Persia (
1256-
65), and the reigns of his successors, Chinese
engineers were employed on the banks of the
Tigris, and Chinese astrologers and
physicians could be consulted at
Tabriz. Many
diplomatic communications passed between the Hulaguid Ilkhans and the
Christian princes. The former, as the great khan's liegemen, still received from him their
sealss of state; and two of their letters which survive in the archives of
France exhibit the vermilion impressions of those seals in
Chinese characters -- perhaps affording the earliest specimen of that character which reached western Europe.
Zhongguo
Middle Kingdom (中國) in Mandarin
- Bahasa Indonesia: Tiongkok (from the Min-nan name for China)\n* Chinese: Zhongguo (中國； 中国)\n* Japanese: Chuugoku (中国)\n* Korean: Jungguk (중국; 中國)\n* Vietnamese: Trung-quốc
Zhonghua
Middle Prosperity (中華) in Mandarin, originally referred to the culturally rich
Henan.
- Bahasa Indonesia: Tiong-Hoa\n* Overseas Chinese: Hua (華 or 华)\n* Vietnamese: Trung-Hoa
Tabgach
"Tabgach" came from the metatheses of "
Tuoba" (*takbat), a dominant tribe of the
Xianbei. It referred to Northern China, which was dominated by half-Xianbei, half-Chinese people.
- Byzantine Greek: Taugats\n* Orhon Kok-Turk: Tabgach (variations Tamgach)
Mangi
From Chinese Manzi (southern barbarians). The long-lasting division of China weakened the dogma that China should be unified, and it became common to call the North and the South by different names. While Northern China was called Cathay, Southern China was referred to as Mangi. Manzi often appears in documents of the Mongol
Yuan Dynasty. The Chinese often label non-Chinese as "barbarian," but at that time they were called barbarian by the Mongol conquerors. The Mongols also called Southern Chinese as "Nangkiyas" or "Nangkiyad", which were derived from Nanjing, the southern base of the Mongols. As Marco Polo used it, the word "Manzi" reached to the western world as "Mangi".
- Chinese: Manzi (蠻子)\n*Latin: Mangi
Others
Western names
Those used in European languages have indirect names that came via the sea-route and bear little resemblance to what is used in China.
Chin
From Sanskrit Cin, possibly derives from the name of the
Qin Empire (
2nd century BC).
Marco Polo described China specifically as
Chin, which is the word used in
Persian, the main
lingua franca on his route. Barbosa (1516) and Garcia de Orta (1563) mentioned
China.
- Albanian: Kinë\n* Basque: Txina\n* Catalan: Xina\n* Czech: Čína (read chee-nah)\n* Danish: Kina\n* Dutch: China\n* English: China\n* Esperanto: Ĉinujo or Ĉinio or Ĥinujo\n* Estonian: Hiina\n* Farsi: Chin چين\n* Finnish: Kiina\n* French: Chine (read sheen)\n* German: China (read she-nah, in some southern dialects also key-nah)\n* Hebrew: Sin (סִין)\n* Hindi: Cheen\n* Hungarian: Kína \n* Irish: An tSín\n* Indonesian: Cina\n* Italian: Cina (read chee-na)\n* Japanese: Shina (支那)\n* Norwegian: Kina\n* Polish: Chiny\n* Portuguese: China\n* Romanian: China (read key-nah)\n* Serbian: Кина (read key-nah)\n* Slovak: Čína (read chee-nah)\n* Spanish: China (read chee-nah)\n* Swedish: Kina\n* Thai: Jiin (จีน)\n* Turkish: Çin\n* Tamil: Cheenaa\n* Welsh: Tsieina
The mention of the Chinas in ancient
Sanskrit literature, both in the Laws of Manu and in the Mahabhãrata, has often been supposed to prove the application of the name before the predominance of the Qin Dynasty. But the coupling of that name with the Daradas, still surviving as the people of Dardistan, on the
Indus River, suggests it as more probable that those Chinas were a kindred race of mountaineers, whose name as Shinas in fact likewise remains applied to a branch of the Dard ethnicity.
Cin in Sanskrit was brought back to China, and then to Japan, with Buddhist literature. It was transcribed in various forms including 支那 (zhi1 na4), 脂那 (zhi1 na4) and 至那 (zhi4 na4). When
Arai Hakuseki, a Japanese politician, interrogated a Italian missionary Sidotti in 1708, he noticed that "Cina", which Sidotti referred to China as, was identical to Shina, the Japanese pronunciation of 支那. Then he began to use this word for China regardless of dynasty. Since the
Meiji Era, Shina had been widely used as the translation of western "China". For instance, "Sinology" was translated into "Shinagaku" (支那学).
However, many Chinese regard the term as derogatory because it was used extensively during Japanese imperialism in China. It had no political connotations until China's loss in the first
Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). Japan then forced other countries to adopt the term to refer to China, causing great protest from
overseas Chinese. For example, in 1908, Chinese nationals in Indonesia protested against the Dutch's adoption of the term, and more protests followed during the signing of
Treaty of Versailles and the subsequent
May Fourth Movement. An exception was a Buddhist school called Zhina Neixueyuan (支那内学院) established as late as in 1922 in Nanjing . The Japanese denied any negative connotations, pointing out that extra adjectives (e.g. 暴虐なる支那兵,
brutal Chinese soldier[s]) or other terms (e.g. ちゃんころ, "chankoro";) were used for explicit degration.
The new
Republic of China government requested that Japan not use Shina to refer to China but its request was denied. From 1913 to 1930, Japan officially used the term
Shina Kyowakoku (支那共和国), which is a translation of the "Republic of China" (as "Shina" was most commonly used in Japanese to refer to China), instead of
Chuka Minkoku (中華民国), the official
Chinese characters used by the ROC. Japan's actions can possibly be interpreted as allowing itself equal footing with Western powers - while China called on the Mongolians to use
dumdadu ulus instead of
kitad, it did not call on the Western powers to use "Middle Country." However, unlike in the west, the same set of Chinese characters could be provided for in the Japanese language.
In 1930 Japan agreed to use
Chuka Minkoku, but Shina remained the popular term for China among the Japanese throughout the 1930s and 1940s. For example, many called the invasion into China the "Shina Incident." The practice was ordered abolished in June 1946 by the ROC government. Today Shina is used primarily by right-wing nationalists and radical
Taiwanese independence supporters, which enhances its derogatory nature. Some have said that
Sun Yat-sen used the term "Shina" in various functions in 1899 and 1903. Before the early 20th Century,
Zhongguo was not yet widely popular within China itself. However, Sun never used the term anymore from 1905 because he believed that Shina meant an obsolete, imperial China. In the non-political sense, the term is slightly more common. For example, the
East China Sea is called
Higashi Shina Kai in Japanese. Some scholars also use it for their academic papers. Nonetheless, any usage of the latter term is surely to provoke anger among Chinese nationals.
Sin
\nA name possibly of origin separate from "Chin"\n* Arabic: Sin صين\n* Latin/Greek: Sinæ\n* English adjectives: (i.e. Sino-American)
The name probably came to Europe through the Arabs, who made the China of the farther east into
Sin, and perhaps sometimes into
Thin. Hence the Thin of the author of the
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, who appears to be the first extant writer to employ the name in this form; hence also the Sinæ and Thinae of
Ptolemy.
Some denied that the Sinæ of Ptolemy really represented the Chinese. But if we compare the statement of Marcianus of Heraclea (a mere condenser of Ptolemy), when he tells us that the "nations of the Sinae lie at the extremity of the habitable world, and adjoin the eastern Terra Incognita," with that of Cosmas, who says, in speaking of Tzinista, a name of which no one can question the application to China, that "beyond this there is neither habitation nor navigation" -- we cannot doubt the same region to be meant by both. The fundamental error of Ptolemy's conception of the Indian Sea as a closed basin rendered it impossible but that he should misplace the Chinese coast. But most scholar still believe Sinæ is China, because:\n* the name of Sina come down among the Arabs from time immemorial as applied to the Chinese\n* in the work of Ptolemy, this name certainly represented the farthest known East\n* Ptolemy's configurations and longitudes are inaccurate, and yet he described India as well, whose coordination was faulty, like that of Sinæ.
Ser
\nAn earlier usage than Sin, possibly related.
This may be a back formation from
serikos (
σηρικος), "made of
silk", from
sêr (
σηρ), "silkworm," in which case
Seres is "the land where silk comes from."
Others
