Lecture: On the Origin of the Name “ Atlantic Ocean” in the Chinese Language
On the Origin of the Name “ Atlantic Ocean” in the Chinese Language
《汉文语境中的“大西洋”名称来源考》
Prof. Dr. LIU Yingsheng
Time: July 10, 6 pm
Room: Lecture hall VI, University of Bonn, Am Hof 1, 53113 Bonn
In cooperation with the Department of Sinology, Bonn University
Two of the names of the four oceans, Pacific and Indian Ocean are translated into Chinese from European languages. Meanwhile, Chinese are using a rather pure Chinese term to name the Atlantic Ocean, Daxiyang 大西洋. Some scholars believe that the Chinese name Daxiyang 大西洋 came from the term Xiyang 西洋 （“The Western Ocean“）, as at the beginning of the 14th century, Admiral Zheng He led a huge Ming fleet and reached the Red Sea and the coast of East Africa. They claim taht in order to differentiate it from the traditional term Xiyang 西洋, people then added Da 大 “big”. But it is a wrong explanation. The term Daxiyan came from the term Daxi 大西, which means the area more far than the traditional Xiyu 西域 “the Western Regions”, which was an old Chinese term, mainly used for Central Asia. As one of the results of the expansion of the Mongol-Yuan empire, East Asian people directly came in contact with Europe and the Mediterranean world, rather frequently during the 13th and 14th centuries. The term Daxi later was used specially for Europe and then used as an adjective to definite Yang 洋 （“Ocean“）through which, namely the Atlantic, European navigators sailed to Far East.