英文版《中国伊斯兰教词汇表》在英国伦敦出版

新书简讯

 

英国伦敦的寇尔松出版社于2001年下半年出版了中国社会科学院世界宗教研究所王建平博士（现在是上海师范大学哲学系宗教学教授）的英文著作《中国伊斯兰教词汇表》。全书共230多页，分为前言、鸣谢、拉丁语译音说明、导言：中国伊斯兰教、词汇表、参考书目、汉译词汇索引和阿拉伯语、波斯语词汇索引等八个部分。此外，著作还附有中国穆斯林人口分布和比例的地图和图表四幅。整个词汇表共汇集了近1300个中国穆斯林在日常生活和宗教生活中使用的阿拉伯语、波斯语和突厥语等词汇，其中渊源于波斯语的词汇将近200个（不包括许多阿拉伯语和波斯语兼用的宗教词汇）；渊源于突厥语的词汇近40个；还有个别乌尔都语和希伯莱语等词汇。该书在国内外学界中首次将中国穆斯林口语和汉译语体的伊斯兰词汇还原成阿拉伯语和波斯语，并作了标准的拉丁语注音，最后给予了英语解释。本成果对于研究中国穆斯林语言文化及其与之密切联系的社团生活有一定的价值，同时还可以有助于读者了解到中国穆斯林的语言与阿拉伯和波斯等伊斯兰世界的紧密文化联系，以及在中国文化影响下这些阿拉伯语和波斯语在语音、语义方面的保留和变迁的轨迹。该书对于语言学家、宗教研究者、历史学者、社会学者、人类学者和民俗学者就中国穆斯林的宗教、语言、历史、文化、教育和社团生活的研究是一本必不可少的工具书。尽管作者在过去10多年内在泛读中国伊斯兰教典籍、地方史志、历朝档案、唐以后的历代史记、清真寺碑刻资料、穆斯林学者出版的书籍、报纸和杂志以及穆斯林家谱的基础上做了几千张词汇卡片和收集、汇集伊斯兰教词汇的艰苦工作，但本词汇表仍然还是一项初步的工作，需要往后的继续搜集和补充。

 

New Book Information (revised)

 

A new book entitled a Glossary of Chinese Islamic Terms and composed  by Dr. Jianping Wang (currently a professor of Islamic studies, Dept. of Philosophy, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China) was published by the London-based Curzon Press in the latter part of 2001. Dr Wang, an associate researcher at the Institute of World Religions, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, completed this glossary with assistance from Mr. Gerald Jackson, editor-in-chief of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies in Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

The work, hard-bound and about 230 pages in extent, comprises the following eight sections: Preface, Acknowledgments, Note on Transcription, Islam in China: an Introduction, Glossary (the bulk of the book), Select Bibliography of Chinese Sources, Arabic Index and Chinese Index. In addition, the work has four maps showing places mentioned in the volume plus the distribution and density by provinces of China's Muslim population.

 

The glossary itself comprises a vocabulary of nearly 1300 Arabic, Persian and Turkic terms collected by the author and found in the oral and written usage of the Muslims in China in their daily and religious life. Much of the Islamic terminology originates from Arabia but the glossary also includes about 200 words originating from Persian, about 40 words of Turkic origin and a few words from Urdu and Hebrew. The Glossary is the first work both in China and elsewhere in the world to record the Islamic terms in Chinese script and in pinyin (oral transcription in Latin script) plus relate these terms to their counterparts in Arabic and Persian (given both in Arabic script and its Latin transcription). In addition, each term is defined in both English and Chinese, sometimes with lengthier background information.

 

Scholars will find the book quite valuable for research on the linguistic culture of the Muslims in China and its close connection with their community life. Moreover, it will help those working in phonetics and philology understanding the processes of preservation and change of this Arabic and Persian vocabulary in its adopted Chinese environment. In addition, the Glossary will help the readers towards an understanding of the long and unbroken cultural relations between the Muslims in China and their brethren in the Arabic and Persian Islamic world. As such, the Glossary of Chinese Islamic Terms is a vital research tool for linguists, religious scholars, historians, sociologists, anthropologists and ethnologists - indeed all those studying the religion, language, history, culture, education and community life of China's Muslims.

 

To compile his Glossary, the author spent more than a decade taking notes and completing several thousand catalogue cards for Islamic terms found in a multitude of sources - among others in Chinese Islamic classics, local gazetteers, imperial archives, dynastic chronicles since the Tang Dynasty, mosque monumental inscriptions, books, newspapers and magazines published by Muslims in China and the hand-copied genealogies of Muslim clans. By its very nature, however, such work can never be regarded as a finished. Despite the depth and breadth of his glossary, the author still regards it as preliminary work to be supplemented with the fruits of further hard work in the future.