Decoding the Translations of Political Terms in the Nineteenth-Century Chinese–English Dictionaries – Lobscheid and his Chinese–English Dictionary

Abstract

ABSTRACT German missionary Wilhelm Lobscheid (罗存德, 1822–1893) played a vital role in English–Chinese translations. His English–Chinese Dictionary (英华字典, 1866–1869) was the first comprehensive bilingual dictionary published in Hong Kong with both Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations. Regarding his dictionary as the bridge between two languages, political terms previously nonexisting in the Chinese diction are shaped and shared during China’s crucial political transformation from the Qing Empire to the Republic of China. With selected examples, this paper emphasizes Lobschied’s contribution in sharing political knowledge through his dictionary.