Today I would like to introduce a translator who is not very famous. You're certainly not familiar with it, because he's not a "famous translator" who has translated best-selling books like "The Little Prince" or "The Kite Chaser," and he may be completely uninterested in an area of focus—the U.S. Constitution. I'm not familiar with him either, and I haven't seen him except to flip through his books. He has translated not many books, and the translations that are titled separately are two.
But these two books have now become an indispensable reference for domestic research on the constitutional history of the United States.
His name is Yin Xuan
Born in 1942 in Guilin, Guangxi. He graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages of Central China Normal University (now Central China Normal University) in 1963, and taught Russian at Wuhan No. 1 Middle School in the same year, and then taught himself English and has been an English teacher ever since. In 1969, he was reported for commenting on current affairs, was marked as an active counter-revolutionary, and was rehabilitated in 1972.
How did he get on the path of translation? In recent years, He Fan, who has become famous for popularizing American legal culture, has done a combing -
In 1981, Yin Xuanchu became involved in translation, translating Elizabeth Bush's Introduction to Modern American Literature: 1919-1980. From 1982 to 1984, he translated the four volumes of Macmillan's Selected Readings of American Literature.
During this period, yin Xuan became acquainted with Professor Liu Xuyi of Wuhan University because of contact with the graduate school. Although he did not succeed in his examination, he was invited by Professor Liu Xuyi to participate in the translation of "American-style Democracy" and "The Difficult Course: A History of American Political Life from the 1940s to the Early 1980s", and gained a preliminary understanding of the American constitutional system.
In 1988, Yin Xuan successfully applied for a scholarship to major in sociology in the United States, and graduated from the Department of Sociology of the University of Illinois in 1991 with a master's degree in sociology. After graduation, Yin Xuan felt that his mathematical foundation was lacking, and it was difficult to get ahead in the American academic circles that attached importance to quantitative analysis, and he applied for a number of professional and technical licenses, and worked as a tutor Chinese in Connecticut for a period of time.
Then came 1995. Since August, Yin Xuan has been working as a news editor for the Overseas Chinese Daily, a Chinese newspaper in New York, translating news from major news agencies, newspapers and television into Chinese.
Compiled for half a year, I feel that legal content accounts for a considerable proportion of US press releases. The content of legal press releases often goes beyond the facts of the case itself and goes deep into the legal controversy caused by the case... Press releases often feature the original text of the Constitution, or phrases, or clauses, or full sentences cited by both sides. Over time, the articles, paragraphs, items, sentences, clauses, and phrases of the main text of the Constitution have been repeatedly quoted and applied repeatedly, and the Supreme Court always has to make an interpretation of these relevant constitutional provisions and make a judgment on whether the original ruling is "in line with the Constitution" or "unconstitutional".
Sometimes, the Supreme Court's practice of not accepting an appeal means that they are not sure of the balance. This process, which has lasted for more than two hundred years, has gradually deepened and broadened the public's awareness and understanding of the law, and the phenomenon of violations has gradually decreased from a large number of occurrences and everywhere; at the same time, new illegal contents and new forms of violations have emerged, posing new challenges to the law.
That being said, what does this have to do with a Chinese who is temporarily living in the United States?
In other words, a temporary resident like Yin Xuan only needs to understand some provisions that are closely related to him.
But what he has to do is something that most Americans have never done: to trace the roots and understand the roots of America's constitutional history.
It's a stupid effort.
In order to better understand American society and enhance my ability to cope with this society, in February 1996, I began to use my spare time to translate the U.S. Constitution, translate and revise, and by May, finish the text of the Federal Constitution and the 27 amendments up to 1992.
In this job, the total number of words is only 20,000 Chinese characters, but the original sentence structure is super complex, and the concept is very important, which is not an easy task. Starting from the translation of the US Constitution, Yin Xuan entered the big pit of US constitutional research. In the next step, he decided to translate the three-volume Compilation of the Minutes of the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, which was recognized by American historians, legal scholars, and book critics as "the authoritative reading of the constitutional process for studying the constitutional process" and the three-volume "Compilation of the Minutes of the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787", which came out in 1911.
Books are good books, they are too big. If translated into Chinese, it would be about two million words. No publishing house will accept this topic. Yin Xuan decided to translate the record of James Madison alone in the book. Even so, the book that followed was nearly nine hundred pages long.
This is The Debate: Minutes of the United States Constitutional Convention, published in 2003. Presumably not too many people will have read it, because it was only printed in five thousand copies. But those who have read Yi Zhongtian's "Philadelphia Storm: The Birth of the US Constitution and Our Reflections" are probably dozens of times more.
But did you know that Yi Zhongtian's book is just a popular rewrite of "Debate: Minutes of the American Constitutional Convention"?
Happily, in January 2003, the Liaoning Education Publishing House published the book "Debates: Proceedings of the U.S. Constitutional Convention" by James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" translated by Mr. Yin Xuan. Mr. Yin Xuan's translation is good and the annotations are extremely detailed, so it is not only cheerful and smooth to read, but also thrilling and beneficial.
So I can't resist telling this story again so that more people can share that feeling.
For those readers who "may not have the time and patience to read this 630,000-word tome", Yi Zhongtian, who has always believed that "good things should be shared by more people", decided to "change the way of expression". Of course, "writing as good as a detective novel or a TV series" is also a powerful skill, so Yi Zhongtian, who has this skill, has succeeded.
This rewrite was published by Shandong Pictorial Publishing House in August 2004, republished in 2005, transferred to the third edition of Guangxi Normal University Press in 2008, and transferred to Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House for the fourth edition in 2014. Over the years, the sales volume has also accumulated hundreds of thousands of copies.
Of course, in order to be faithful to history, I cannot but quote a large number of materials from the book "Debate", but it is limited to the style, and cannot be indicated one by one, but can only make a general note here, that is, all the speeches of the constitutional representative are quoted from yin's translation of the book "Debate".
Moreover, in order to facilitate the reader's reading, many have been rewritten, but only to convey their meaning. If you are writing a research paper, please still cite yin's translation, and do not rely on this book.
I hope this does not infringe on Mr. Yin Xuan's copyright. Moreover, I would like to take this opportunity to express my highest respect to Mr. Yin Xuan and the Liaoning Education Publishing House for translating and publishing this wonderful book for us.
Whether it infringes the copyright is not something that a layman like me can judge. Speaking of the passage of time, Yi Zhongtian's book is still on sale, indicating that it has not caused any lawsuits, and objectively, it has indeed played a great role in academic popularization.
But Yin Xuan spent two whole years translating this book, and the thought and energy he spent could not be counted. For example, he made more than six hundred notes.
These footnotes are the result of my research and condensation. If you add editing and collation, you can write a separate book.
He did think about writing another abbreviated book.
I'm slow and like to think. I didn't expect that Mr. Yi Zhongtian was a fast hand, and he didn't call him. He wrote "The Birth of the U.S. Constitution."
This is embarrassing.
It took me two days to read Mr. Yi Zhongtian's "The Birth of the U.S. Constitution." The more I read it, the more I felt that the contents of the book were too familiar: the translations I had repeatedly deliberated, the notes I had written carefully, had now changed into Mr. Yi Zhongtian's writings.
A rough estimate is that The Birth of the U.S. Constitution is 60 to 70 percent long, copied from Debate: Minutes of the U.S. Constitutional Convention, including translations and notes. However, there is no time, let's just say more than half.
People just write for two years, you go from seeing the book to getting started and then looking for a publishing house and finally going public, I don't know if there is a year. If nothing else, the comments of the word chicken thief cannot be run away.
What is needed to do translation is "stupid", and smart people can rewrite it, but they can't translate it. But we all like smart people, don't we?
Yin Xuan returned to China in 2001 and settled in Wuhan. At the end of 2006, Yilin Publishing House asked him to re-translate "The Theory of Federation".
This "Federalism Theory" is the "Federalist Party Anthology" in the Commercial Press's "Chinese Translation of World Academic Masterpieces". Yan Fu said, "One standing, ten days hesitant", whether to call "Federalist" or "Federalism", Yin Xuan wrote an article to discuss.
He started to work stupidly again.
In December 2006, mail order for an original Dell computer and a matching printer began researching and translating, sending translations and notes to responsible editors via email as they translated. By 10:30 p.m. on December 31, 2007, all 85 translations and more than 300 notes had been sent by email. It lasted 13 months. Every day, 24/7, there is no distraction to do this one thing.
……
85 articles, each of which was printed out several times. Modifying the printed text is much better than modifying the text on the computer screen. Finally, keep both pursuits. First, understand as words; second, Chinese sentence reading, Chinese phonological beauty.
In the multiple modifications of English, how many "of" characters and several "zigzag" characters are used in Chinese, or do they try to delete them as much as possible? Too many buts, and, and Chinese are translated into "but", "but", or "but", or simply not; "peace and quiet", "ambition and greed" in the "and "character" and "character" words, can not be omitted? All of this depends on the musical sense of each specific sentence being recited repeatedly.
...... The Chinese translation of the "Federalism", madison and Jay's text, has been revised no less than three or five times, and many of Hamilton's paragraphs and sentences have been revised no less than ten times. His first one was revised no less than twenty times.
In order to find a sense of harmony in the phonology of the translation, he hired two college students to regularly recite "Ancient Literature Guanzhi" and "Dream of the Red Chamber" for him.
In May 2010, "On federalism" was published, and in the case of the commercial edition of the "Federalist Papers" that has been popular for more than thirty years, it has gradually become a definitive version. Unfortunately, when the book was published, the author of Lekou wrote such a sentence: "In January 2009, he had a heart attack and died in Wuhan. ”
In this way, a not-so-famous translator suddenly left the world, and the few readers who had heard his name did not know the news much later. This translator has translated very few books, each worthy of himself and of history. But until his death, he did not gain a corresponding reputation. Today, you type his name on a search engine and get very few results. In this age of information explosion, this is simply incredible.
I haven't seen him either. I have a good friend with whom he has a close relationship, and he is the curator and editor of both of his translations. But I only occasionally heard him talk about this person, but I didn't want to get to know him. Until I started reading his books. I can't help but ask my friend, why is "Debate" such a good book no longer published? He was surprised and said that it had been republished, and that I had edited it. I'm a book lover, but I don't know. The inconspicuousness of his people and his books can be seen.
Friends told me that Yin Xuan's family has also had unfortunate experiences in recent years. When it comes to privacy, I won't say it. It's impressive.
Yin Xuan chose a field that is not very popular in China. The U.S. Constitution? We haven't even read our own constitution. You may not be interested in the history of the Constitution of the United States, but you have certainly enjoyed the fruits of the United States Constitution. Are you concerned about trump and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign? On the GRE exam? Did you go to the cinema to see Warcraft?
They cannot exist without the U.S. Constitution.
What Yin Xuan shows us is a representative work created by human intellect. If we have progressive self-demands, we must draw nourishment from them. It doesn't even have anything to do with your political leanings. Such work is immeasurable.
So I think you must not know that there was a translator who was not very famous, his name was Yin Xuan.