Some “Old” News about Sina
alexyu_yxj
March 04, 2009, 05:25 PM posted in General Discussion在公共场合谈论政治是不对的，不过这个估计算是“老”新闻。
刚才在维基百科（Wiki）上看到一个评论百度百科的词条，里面说百度百科不慎开放，一些词条如“支那”被禁止创建，于是我好奇地在Wiki上搜了一下“支那”——尽管这个是对中国人来说十分熟悉的词汇。
虽然我知道China一词来源于“秦”，但我确实不知道原来China源于印度梵文，也不知道它到了罗马词汇里的发音是“Sina”，而Sina在日本语里的发音就是“支那”——也就是原来“支那”一词并非源自China，而是来自Sina。
Sina是“新浪”网的英文名称及域名。懂日语的人都知道，至少从19世纪末之后“支那”一词是对中国的极大侮辱，可是谁知道事情却会这么巧，身为现今中国最大网络传媒的新浪的名称却就是Sina。
changye
March 05, 2009, 01:01 AMHi alexyu_yxj
Here the copy of my comments on the 支那 issue posted in the thread 日本人的起源 last year.
http://chinesepod.com/lessons/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E4%BA%BA%E7%9A%84%E8%B5%B7%E6%BA%90/discussion
I always feel sorry that 支那, a traditional name for China, has degraded to kind of a derogatory term in Japan in the past one hundred years. Actually, the word 支那 was transcribed from a Sanskrit word that means "China" and exported to Japan through China several hundred years ago.
Interestingly, the Sanskrit word was a transcription of 秦 (qin2), the ancient dynasty that unified China for the first time in history. And the same goes for the English word "China", which is also believed to have come from 秦. I must say that 秦始皇 was really great in many ways.
There is another group of words that refers to China, namely "Kitai" in Russian, "Kitad" in Mongolian, and "Cathay" in English. They say that these names all came from 契丹 (qi4 dan4, Khitai), the people who established the dynasty called 辽 in northern China in the 10th century.
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The name 支那 itself is "innocent", and the problem probably lies in people who have been degrading the traditional name. Interestingly enough, the URL of 新浪网, a major portal site in China, is sina.com, and of course the "sina" is a transliteration of 支那. I hear there was a controversy among Chinese people as to whether the URL is appropriate.
I personally hope that the status of 支那 will gradually improve both in China and in Japan as China strengthens and its people regain self-confidence. Young Chinese guys, who usually learn English at school, would find some words like sinology, sinophilia and Sino-US relation, which generally doesn't connote negatively.
On the other hand, I worry about the fate of the name "China/中国", which regrettably seems to have already degenerated into a kind of derogatory word in a given context, mainly due to food safety/crime problems outside China. As I said at the beginning, the name "China/中国" itself is innocent, but some unscrupulous people are degrading it now.
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The term "中国" was sometimes used in ancient China mainly to indicate "中原" (central plain around the middle and lower part of 黄河). And some ancient countries referred themselves to as "中国" (central country), besides their official names, to show that they were (self-proclaimed) the most authentic states in China (= in the world).
That said, Chinese people basically called their countries by the name of dynasties, such as "大清" or "清国", up to the early twentieth century. Probably the use of the name "中国" started to gradually become popular after the establishment of "中华民国" in 1912. Most modern Japanese people regard "中国" as an abbreviation of 中华人民共和国.
P/S. The issue of 中国/支那 might be somewhat similar (?) to that of Holland/Dutch or Britain/England.