續談傅建中的「中華民族」英譯

前一篇提到傅建中（在商週的筆名為聞亦道）在評馬英九總統的英文版就職演說時，提到一些翻譯不佳的地方。我自己對傅建中提出"Chinese nation"這種說法覺得十分意外。為了避免偏見，我還上usenet詢問了一下一般老美網友的意見。由於後續反應十分熱烈，因此我再接續這篇多聊一下。

傅建中先生是我之前相當佩服的一位駐美記者。我約莫高中及大學，甚至後來剛出社會工作時，常在中國時報看到他針對華府對台的態度發表一些評論，並就派駐華府的台灣外交人員作為做一品評。我瞭解他是一位英文底子十分深厚的駐外記者。

但為何他會認為「中華民族」應該翻做「Chinese nation」，是我覺得相當好奇的部分。純就他建議的英文說法，我認為反而是十分魚目混珠的用語，反倒是馬英九版本的說法比較能夠令人理解。

(從六月份商週撕下來的文章，點選可放大比較馬英九的版本與傅建中建議的版本。)

但這只是我的看法，以下針對我在usenet的發問，我舉出兩個比較具有代表性的外國人說法：

網友tony cooper:「美國對於印地安人有類似用法，比如 Sioux Nation，但這是唯一的例子，若講Chinese nation，我們其實不太懂你的意思，這如同你講俄國民族，不會說Russian nation，或德國民族不講German nation一樣。真要說比較類似的或許可用Russian diaspora...」

全原文：

"Evidently, you are using it as we see "community" used but on a world-wide basis.

We - in the US - refer to (American) Indian tribes as "nations". The Sioux Nation is all members of the Sioux tribe no matter where they are located. All of the Sioux are Americans, but members of the Sioux nation.

The term "Chinese nation" does not connote anything to this American because no other nationality group except American Indians is referred to as a "nation" in the sense that you are using it.

We wouldn't see "the Russian nation" used to mean Russians who live in Russia and Russians who now live in other countries or ethnic Russians. Same for Germans, Greeks, etc. We might see "The Russians, and the Russian diaspora, ...." used in your "nation" sense.

In short, if you used the term we would wonder what you mean. "

網友DC：「這種說法很少見。另一個比較相關的問題是：老外對於Chinese的理解究竟是什麼？我個人常會接觸來自中國與台灣兩國的學生；來自中國（PRC）的我會稱為Chinese，來自台灣的我則稱為Taiwanese；至於來自香港的，我還不確定怎麼稱呼。」

他在另一篇回文補充說：Chinese nation，我會覺得你是想說Chinese state，也就是中國。

另一位網友Peacenik回答對香港華人的英文稱法：Hong Kongers. Or Hongkies".


全原文：

I know what you're asking, but "Chinese nation" isn't a common collocation in English, and that basically means if anybody were to use it, it could mean whatever they chose to mean by it in that particular context (unlike, maybe, Sioux Nation or Woodstock Nation). A more pertinant question might be to ask what English-speakers understand by saying someone 'is Chinese'. Is this a description of the person's ethnicity, or does it only apply to people from the PRC? As someone who regularly deals with students from both countries, I use Chinese for people from the PRC and Taiwanese for folk from Taiwan. I'm still not sure about what to call people from Hong Kong.

我的結論：來自台灣的人民，還是稱自己是Taiwanese為妥，你可承認Taiwan擁有Chinese heritage，但別稱自己是Chinese，除非你很確定你想當Chinese。


(完整撕下來的頁面，放大可讀全文；這是我在我們村裡的會館書架上看到撕下來的，雖然不太道德，但一方面是過期蠻久了，二來覺得裡面說法太過誤導，一定得拿來查證一番，因此還是撕了，若有人剛好翻到這本，抱歉啦。)