Reference News Network reported on January 8 that the website of the American monthly magazine "The Atlantic" published an article titled "Why the English word "Mandarin" does not come from Chinese" on January 4. The summary of the article is as follows:
Ever since a male mandarin duck unexpectedly appeared in Central Park in 2017, it has raised many questions: Where did it come from? Why is it so popular? Can this beautiful creature survive in our trashy world? For those obsessed with linguistics, where did Yuanyang get its name?
A pair of mandarin ducks chase each other in the pond in the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou. (Xinhua News Agency)
Yes, Mandarin Duck (literally translated as "Mandarin Duck" - Note from this website) originated from China, and Mandarin is the official language of China. But the origin of the term "Mandarin" is more convoluted. It does not come from Mandarin or Chinese, nor from other dialects of Chinese. It is derived from Portuguese.
This word sums up an entire period of colonial history. In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to come to China. Merchants and missionaries followed, settling in Macau on land leased from Ming rulers. The Portuguese called the Ming officials they met "mandarim," which comes from the Malay "menteri" and previously the Sanskrit "mantri," both meaning "minister" or "advisor." It makes sense that the Portuguese borrowed the word from Malay; they were also colonizing Malacca on the Malay Peninsula at the time.
Over time, the word "mandarin" coined by the Portuguese took on other meanings. Ming Dynasty officials wore yellow robes, which may be why "mandarin" was used to describe a type of citrus. "Mandarin" is also used to describe colorful animals originating from Asia but not seen by Europeans, such as wasps, snakes and, of course, ducks. The language spoken by Chinese officials became "Mandarin", which is why the English name of the language spoken by hundreds of millions of people in China still comes from Portuguese.
David Moser, author of "A Billion Voices: China's Search for a Public Language," says people collect hypothetical origin stories for words, and the Chinese sometimes give "mandarin" to trace a Chinese origin. The word is pronounced very much like "Mandaren", which means "important Manchu official". The rulers of China's last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, were from the Manchus, so it makes sense at a glance. "But that's not right," Moser said. "Mandarin" clearly has non-Mandarin origins.
On February 6, 1956, the State Council issued the "Instructions on Promoting Mandarin" to promote Mandarin nationwide. (Xinhua News Agency)
"Mandarin" is what linguists call a foreign language idiom, an external name for a place, person or language. Moreover, foreign language idioms often tell the history of how multiple cultures met, struggled, and integrated. Many cities on the continent have their English names derived not from the local language but from French - perhaps a legacy of the Norman Conquest. For example, both English and French use Cologne to refer to Cologne (Koln), Florence to refer to Firenze (Firenze), Prague to refer to Prague (Praha), and Belgrade to refer to Belgrade (Beograd) (the spellings of place names in brackets are all in the local language—— Note on this website).
In other cases, lexicographer Grant Barrett said, foreign language idioms emerged because the relationship between the two places predated the current national divide. Linguist Anatoly Lieberman adds that, for example, the English word Germany comes from the Latin Germania. In French, Germany (Allemagne) comes from a group of tribes called Alemanni; in Finnish, Germany (Saksa) comes from the Saxons (Saxons). Germany (Deutschland in German) did not become a unified country until 1871, long after other Europeans adopted their own place names based on the people who had lived there.
From the vantage point of an English speaker, many foreign language idioms from non-European regions and languages have penetrated through former colonial powers. For example, Bombay and Ceylon are both of Portuguese origin, and the Portuguese empire once spread across Asia. Of course, names imposed by the colonial power could be controversial; Bombay and Ceylon have since been officially renamed Mumbai and Sri Lanka. The term "Mandarin" is still used, perhaps because its origins are more obscure, or because China has better relations with Portugal than other European countries. As for the mandarin ducks, they also live in Portugal now.
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