Types of Chinese loanwords and their ways of translation into Russian

Shen' Ina ORCID: 0009-0009-1123-9774 PhD in Philology Postgraduate student; Graduate School of Translation (Faculty); Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, Moscow, Leninskie gory, GSP-1, 1st academic building (1st GUM), 1, p. 51, room 1150 shenyina@mail.ru

Introduction

In the 21st century, loanwords are an important source of replenishment of Chinese neologisms. The pace of globalization has accelerated the process of loanwords, and thanks to loanwords, the Chinese language has become more colorful. In recent years, China has also regularly published many new dictionaries of neologisms and loanwords.

The term "borrowed word" is defined in the "Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary" as follows: "Borrowing is an element of a foreign language (word, morpheme, syntactic construction, etc.) transferred from one language to another as a result of language contacts, as well as the process of transition of elements from one language to another" ^{[1, pp. 158-159]}.

What we call borrowing refers to the elements of a foreign language, mainly vocabulary.

Chinese scientist Chen Yuan wrote in the book "Language and Man": "When two languages come into contact with each other, borrowings become the most common phenomenon. Borrowed words are actually not just a sociolinguistic phenomenon, but an inevitable consequence of mutual contact between similar and different social cultures" ^{[2, p. 98]}.

When foreign words enter other language systems, they obviously differ from the lexical units of other language systems, but eventually they can be assimilated. In other words, when borrowings fall into a certain language system, they adapt as much as possible to the rules of that language system. For example, the word "telephone" was first borrowed from Japanese, which is an English paraphrase of the Japanese language. With the increasing popularity of telephones and the increasing frequency of their use by the population, the word "telephone" has gradually adapted to the Chinese language system from a borrowed word and now it can be used as a root, as well as produce new words such as "telephone network; cord", "telephone booth", "telephone card", "A telephone bill", "a telephone meeting", "a telephone recording", etc.

The main part

In Russian and foreign linguistics, there are many ways to classify loanwords.

Based on the method of borrowing, E. Haugen classifies borrowed vocabulary into the following three categories:

– borrowing itself, while both the material form and the semantics of the source language are borrowed, however, phonomorphological and semantic changes are possible under the influence of the recipient language;

– semantic tracing paper, i.e. borrowing semantics without a material form or with partial morphemic substitution;

– hybrid formations, i.e. words partially consisting of foreign language elements ^{[3, pp. 344-383]}.

Thus, there are three types of borrowings: phonetic, semantic and phonetic-semantic.

Phonetic borrowings are the borrowing of lexical units while preserving their sound forms and at the same time converting them into the written form of the Chinese language. Until the beginning of the XXI century, phonetic loanwords mainly made up the majority of geographical and regional names, personal names and product names, such as "伦敦" [lún dūn] - London - London; "莫斯科" [mò sī kē] - Moscow - Moscow; "古驰" [gǔ chí] - GUCCI – Gucci. After the 21st century, phonetic borrowings tend to become more scientific, technical, and cultural vocabulary.

Semantic borrowings are lexical units that borrow only the semantics of a foreign word in order to give a new meaning to an existing word, which can be understood as new meanings of old words and relate to internal borrowings. For example, the word "menu" is Chinese. "菜单"[cài dān] comes from the French "menu", which originally meant a menu to indicate dishes. With the popularization of the use of computers, the semantics of the "menu" has expanded, and can also represent a computer menu bar and the value "computer menu" has been added.

After phonetic and semantic borrowings enter the Chinese language, they must be transformed accordingly in accordance with Chinese word formation and pronunciation habits. At the same time, some morphemes are original in Chinese, and the other part is borrowed by phonetic borrowing. For example, "信用用"[xìn yòng kǎ] – English credit card – Russian credit card. The first half of the given word "credit" is the semantic part, which is paraphrased in Chinese as "信用" [xìn yòng] (Russian credit), and the second half of "card" is transliterated as "卡" [kǎ] (Russian card).

In everyday life, for example, in newspapers, online articles and magazines, the original written form of a foreign word is sometimes quoted directly to ensure the accuracy of the vocabulary. Take for example familiar brands or software: Microsoft, Windows, App Store, etc. This kind of word can be called "original borrowing". Abbreviations consisting of abbreviations of the names of international companies, organizations and social groups also belong to this category. For example, MBA – master of Business administration – Master of Business Administration.

In addition, there is a special type of borrowing in Chinese neologisms, which is called letter borrowing (kit.字母词[zì mǔ cí]). It is a word written in Latin partially or completely to form a whole, including a combination of alphabetic words and morphemes written in Chinese characters and interspersed with numbers in these forms, as well as abbreviations consisting of the first letters of Chinese words copied into pinyin(Chinese). Most of the borrowings were of English origin due to the 1978 reform. At the same time, there were much fewer borrowings from the Chinese language, mainly technical terms such as "O型血" - –Russian blood type O". Such words also include abbreviations of the names of the above-mentioned international companies, organizations and social groups. A small part of letter borrowings refers to internal borrowings, and most of the rest refers to external borrowings.

The authors of the Dictionary of Neologisms of the Modern Chinese Language, published in Shanghai in 2009, identified three types of letter borrowings ^{[4, p. 3]}. Khamatova A.A. also figured out the types of letter borrowings, we choose several types, including the examples listed below:

– borrowed letter abbreviations ("WTO" – English World Trade Organization – rus. WTO; "PC" – English Personal Computer – Russian personal computer; "SMS" – English Short Message Service – Russian. SMS);

– foreign words in full spelling (Call – call; Style – style);

– abbreviations containing a digital component ("C2C" – English consumer to consumer – Russian consumer for consumer);

– alphabetic words in combination with Chinese morphemes ("it时时" – the Russian era of information technology (the era of IT); "3G手机" – "3G phone", third generation; "BP机" – Russian pager);

– abbreviations based on the material of the Pinyin phonetic alphabet (拼音) (this method is usually not used when borrowing) ^{[5, pp. 58-59]}.

Over time, more and more letter words appeared. It was necessary to collect and explain a large number of newly emerged letter borrowings, which were actively included in new dictionaries published in China, such as the "Dictionary of Letter Words of the Chinese Language" edited by Liu Yunquan ^[6], published in Shanghai and included 2,200 letter abbreviations, "Practical Dictionary of Letter Words" edited by Hou Meng ^[7], published in Beijing in 2014, included 5,000 letter words of all varieties.

When Chinese borrowings are integrated into the Russian language, appropriate translation strategies must be applied. According to the source and composition of Chinese borrowings, to summarize your translation strategy into Russian, you can roughly use transcription, transliteration, lexico-semantic substitutions, explication (or descriptive translation) and other translation strategies.

Transcription is one of the translation methods that is often used when translating foreign words into Russian. The method of transcription is mainly reflected in borrowings by phonetic borrowings, excluding original borrowings here. Neologisms denoting representing things unique to China are often chosen for transcription when they enter the Russian language, an example of which is the translation of the mascots of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing – 冰墩墩[bīng dūn dūn] – Bin Dun Dun and 雪融融[xuě róng róng] - Xue Rong Rong.

The successful bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing has attracted worldwide attention to Beijing, and a number of new words have also emerged. The two mascots attracted a lot of attention. When Bing Dun Dun is first mentioned in the news in Russian, the attributive word "panda" will be added before transcription, and Xue Rong Rong will add "(red) flashlight" before transcription.

Original: Panda Bing Dun Dun — an ice child, but with a warm heart — and the red flashlight Xue Rong Rong — perhaps the most recognizable symbol of Chinese culture — are ready to welcome guests ^[8].

Translation: 冰墩墩，热心的冰娃娃，和也许是中国文化最知名的象征雪融融--准备迎接客人。

But elsewhere in the same press release, the words "panda" and "(red) oonarik" are omitted, translated by direct transcription.

The original: Those who produce Bin Dun Dun were also on vacation and could not eliminate the deficit ^[9].

Translation: A产 冰墩墩 a人 A人 A在 A，A，A。A

Transliteration means that on the basis of fidelity to the original text, the translation retains the form and style of the original text as much as possible. Loanwords in Chinese can be translated directly according to their literal meaning to achieve mutual results. Chinese neologisms, translated transliteration include 数字人民币 – digital yuan, 白色清单 – white list 全息媒体 holographic media 新时代– new era, 共享汽车– car sharing etc.

Due to the differences between Chinese and Russian languages and cultures, some Chinese neologisms easily cause lexical deviations during transliteration, which leads to a distortion of understanding, and sometimes we use a lexico-semantic substitution method to avoid misunderstandings.

In recent years, many figurative neologisms have appeared, such as "内卷" , which denotes irrational competition between the internal aspects of various industries and can be translated as "irrational internal competition".

«吃瓜群众»[chī guā qún zhòng] – a new 2016 term in China – means ordinary people. It was originally an Internet word, but since then it has become a frequently used neologism in media texts. "watermelon–eating crowd" is a literal translation, but this translation can easily cause misunderstandings after reading, will point "吃瓜群众" to people who eat watermelons. It does not fully understand the meaning of the source text. If translated as "the public" and expands the semantics, you can try to rephrase it accordingly and translate it as "the uninformed masses". "Uninformed" means uninformed, insufficiently informed. The "uninformed masses" refer to people who do not know the truth.

"杠精"[gāng jīng], one of the neologisms of 2018 in China, denotes a person who likes to find fault, strives to fight back and strives to raise the bar. Russian Russian for "picky" means "inclined to find fault", It is the same semantically as the Chinese word "杠精" , so this word can be expressed in Russian as "picky people".

"锦鲤"[jǐn lǐ] is also a 2018 neologism, originally denoting a popular high–grade ornamental fish. Later, thanks to an online lottery during the Day of Formation of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 2018, it began to mean everything related to luck, and in the Russian-language news release of the Internet version, "People's Daily" was translated as "Koi Carp or a symbol of luck." "Koi carp" is a literal translation, and "good luck symbol" is a paraphrase that is more understandable when these two options are combined.

For neologisms that have the same referent and can be directly equivalent, from the point of view of specific translation strategies, fully equivalent terms can be translated using equivalent methods, and approximately equivalent ones using the explication method (descriptive translation).

Analyzed on specific examples: "战疫" [zhàn yì] - the war of man (people) against coronavirus. This word is derived from the Chinese word "战役" [zhàn yì] (battle), denoting the fight against the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Initially, this word was used together with the word "疫" in quotation marks, but gradually the double quotes were removed with regular use. There are also similar expressions in the Russian language comparing epidemics with wars and enemies, for example, "crown-war". In the news media, it can be noticed that when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, the predicate uses verbs like how to attack, attack, close borders, break through borders indicating an invasion.

Therefore, the paraphrase "fighting coronavirus" can be used to describe "战疫", but "the war of man (people) against coronavirus" is also a way of translation.

Conclusions

In general, Chinese borrowings, as an important part of neologisms, record in their unique way the process of integrating the Chinese language with the languages of various countries and peoples around the world, and also intuitively reflect the development and changes in various fields. There are various classifications of Chinese borrowings. We basically divide them into three categories of borrowings – phonetic, semantic and phonetic-semantic borrowings, and also consider a special category of letter borrowings in the Chinese language. We can translate borrowings using strategies such as transcription, transliteration, lexico-semantic substitutions, explication (or descriptive translation), etc., in order to more accurately convey the meaning of Chinese borrowings and further enrich the study of Chinese borrowings.