‘To Translate’ is (To Exchange’ 譯者言易也 — Linguistic Diversity and the Terms for Translation in Ancient China

It is estimated that more than 90% of the 6,000 or so languages spoken in the world today will become extinct during the next 100 years 2 . The global situation, where some 96% of these languages are spoken by only 4% of the world’s population, is closely mirrored in China, where the majority of Han people (93.3% in 1993) is speaking one language only (i.e. one variety of Chinese) 3 , while the members of the 55 official and of the 120 odd non-recognized minorities (6.7%) in peripheral regions are speaking a large number of non-sinitic languages. According to the thirteenth edition of the Ethnologue , the number of living non-sinitic languages spoken in China today is 191 4 , but more than 90% of these “minority languages” are severely endangered. Speakers of these languages are to a large extent bilinguals, occasionally even multilinguals, and the percentage of younger firstlanguage speakers of languages with less than 5,000 speakers is so rapidly dwindling that there is little hope for revitalisation.