Keywords: ethnicity, zuqun, terminology standardization
注:The meaning of “zuqun” is a new name of “community of people” created by some Chinese anthropologies.
Abstract: The universal law of evolution is that the community of people has evolved from clan to tribe and then to ethnicity. Since the development in the history of human society, the word “zuqun” has not appeared until the 1980s. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the word “zuqun” started to be widely used in anthropology and ethnology magazines, and this widespread use of “zuqun” has aroused general concern. The word “zuqun” has been used by Chinese scholars because some ethnologists do not understand the real meaning of “ethnic group” and thus they wrongly translate the English “ethnic group” into the Chinese “zuqun”. By conducting research on the meaning of “ethnic group”, I would like to point out in this paper that “ethnic group” does not mean “zuqun”, and therefore suggest that we should standardize our terminology.
(2)用英文nationality来表述我国民族一词问题
目前学术界有人把ethnic group译为“族群”,用nationality(国籍)来表述我国的民族,如:把民族大学译为university for nationalities。 外国人看起来,首先是很难理解,因为nationality是国籍,感到“国籍大学”不好懂,于是他会从另一方面理解,即有国家组织的人群。记得1979年我访问美国哈佛大学时,有一位学者送给一本书《苏联主要民族》,书中所有加盟共和国的主体民族均用nationality来表述,因为按照苏联宪法,加盟共和国是国家组织,而nationality有国家组织的意思。90年代初,苏联崩溃后,各加盟共和国都独立了,世界各国也承认了,在南斯拉夫阿尔巴尼亚人英文用ethnic Albanian,尽管阿尔巴尼亚人渴望独立,但欧盟迄今不承认塞尔维亚的阿尔巴尼亚人独立。当然,不承认还有其他原因,但民族名称的英文表述也是一个因素。记得80年代有一位英国学者,他友好地告诉我,“若用nationality来表述一个民族,我们会理解这个民族是有国家组织的民族。”为此,我认为民族大学应译为Ethnic University 或 Ethnicity University 或 University for Ethnicity。此外,在我国的学术著作中,也有人把ethnic译为“族裔”,还有把民族译为“ethno-national”。这些译法也是不恰当的。