Missionary Translators

Exploring the history of missionary translation of Christian texts in East Asia, Missionary Translators offers a comparative perspective between the features of East Asian languages and the historical context of the translation. Focusing on the Bible and Christian theological works, it looks at the intersection of linguistics, translation studies and history. This book discusses the real-life challenges faced by missionary translators in producing Christian texts in East Asian languages. Students, historians, scholars and those interested in the study of East Asian cultures or translation will find this book to be an insightful and invaluable resource.

Jieun Kiaer is an Associate Professor of Korean Language and Linguistics at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include the formation of translingual/transcultural words and dynamic lexicons. She is particularly interested in the role of social media in the global lexicon. Kiaer is the series editor for Routledge Studies in East Asian Translation. Alessandro Bianchi is the manager of the Bodleian Japanese Library and curator of the Bodleian historic collection of Japanese rare books and manuscripts. After receiving his PhD from the University of Cambridge, he worked at the British Library and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, and taught at Haverford College. Giulia Falato is a Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford. Her main research interest lies in the history of Sino-Western cultural relations, with a particular focus on exchanges in the fields of pedagogy, moral philosophy and lexical innovation. She also works educational theories and practices between the Han and the Tang periods. Pia Jolliffe is a Fellow at Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford. She teaches early modern and modern Japanese history. Her research interests include the history of Christianity in Japan, especially children and childhood during the transition from Sengoku to Tokugawa Japan. Kazue Mino is an assistant professor at Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University. Her research interest lies on the history of Christianity in Taiwan during Japanese colonial era, with particular focus on the interaction between the missiological works of a Scottish Presbyterian missionary Campbell N. Moody (1865-1940) and the Taiwanese Church autonomy movements in the late 1920s and 1930s. Kyungmin Yu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Korean Language Education of Jeonju University, Korea. She received research grants from National Research Foundation of Korea in 2012 and 2020. These projects examined the vocabulary and style in the Korean Bible translation. She has published five books that explore the linguistic and translational features of the Korean Bible.

Contents Preface by M. Antoni J. Ucerler, S.J. Acknowledgement Chapter 1. Language learning and negotiation: the experience of Jesuit translators in late imperial China - Giulia Falato Chapter 2. Jesuit translation practices in sixteenth-century Japan, Sanctos no gosagueo no uchi nuqigaqi and Luis de Granada - Pia Jolliffe and Alessandro Bianchi Chapter 3. The Making of the Korean Bible: A Case Study of James S. Gale's New Testament and Genesis Translations - Jieun Kiaer and Kyungmin Yu Chapter 4. A Translation Designed to Guide: Campbell N. Moody's Pe-h-oe-ji or Romanized Minnan Taiwanese New Vernacular Translation of and Commentary on Romans I-VIII (1908) - Kazue Mino Index