Thinking in Many Tongues: Language(s) and Late Imperial China’s Science

A society and scholarly culture united in its use of one language dominates the general view of Late Imperial China’s sciences. Recent studies have suggested, however, that in the past, as in the present, multilingual practices might have been the norm. Asian-language historians have shown that Chin...

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Veröffentlicht in:Isis 2017-09, Vol.108 (3), p.621-628
1. Verfasser: Schäfer, Dagmar
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description A society and scholarly culture united in its use of one language dominates the general view of Late Imperial China’s sciences. Recent studies have suggested, however, that in the past, as in the present, multilingual practices might have been the norm. Asian-language historians have shown that Chinese script embraced many tongues, intonating the characters in different dialects and giving them new meanings in Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese. Rather than assuming that a hegemonic approach to language was a given in historical China, this essay suggests that we should ask why—or even if—this was the case, given that scientific knowledge was continuously transmitted to China from other learned traditions (Persian, Indian, European) and that new objects and practices entered Chinese learned discourse from diverse vernacular cultures that flourished on the local level throughout the empire. The essay discusses how to understand scientific and technological developments against changing views of Late Imperial China as a culture enmeshed in plurilingual practices.
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subjects Chinese languages
Cultural differences
Culture
Dialects
Discourse analysis
Focus: Linguistic Hegemony and the History of Science
Historians
Japanese language
Knowledge
Korean language
Language
Meaning
Multilingualism
Persian language
Science
Traditions
Vietnamese
title Thinking in Many Tongues: Language(s) and Late Imperial China’s Science
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