The naissance of “飜譯” in the Japanese context

Abstract

This paper aims to compile evidence from various sources to outline how the Japanese equivalent of the English word “translation” has been written with Chinese characters. To be more specific, it will examine which combinations of Chinese characters have been chosen and preferred in dictionaries and actual texts, and what the possible reasons behind these choices might be in the Japanese context. The word of “hon-yaku” was originated in China and became widely used in Japan, but as the findings of this paper show, the combinations of Chinese characters were not exported to Japan exactly as used in China. While this is of primordial importance, it has never been discussed in any literature. Therefore, the author tries to explore what the facts collected for this paper can fundamentally mean for translation studies in Japan.