黄帝内经 into English and Spanish -  translations, interpretations or rewritings

Liljana Arsovska
El Colegio de México

Eventually, the knowledge transfer among Indo-European languages, which were borne and are developing in a similar religious (Jewish / Christian) and cultural (Greco / Roman) context might, and only might, be considered a linguistic task. There is a tremendous amount of words, concepts and ideas absent in Western thought and the Western world that are present in China.  Hence, the knowledge transfer between Chinese and any Western Language involves a lot of different areas of knowledge and becomes a task for cultural translation.  Chinese Traditional Medicine (CTM) is a clear example for this.  The theory of CTM is based on   道，阴阳 and 五行，concepts which are totally absent in the Western World.  The recent discussion on how to translate Chinese medical Classics (using modern medicine vocabulary or using common language vocabulary) reflects different positions on the basic question: Is CTM a science or it is only an alternative healing procedure? 

A simple comparison between  Ilza Veith´s  English Translation  (1972) and Roberto Gonzalez´s Spanish translation (1993) of Huangdi Neijing 黄帝内经，can clearly show that behind the translation there are multiple factors related to the politics and cultural and historical prestige of the source text  and translated text, the personal involvement and interest of the translator, etc. 

《黄帝内经》的英译本与西班牙语译本：翻译、阐释与重写

丽莉亚娜
墨西哥学院

最终，由于所有印欧语言都是在一个相似宗教（犹太教/基督教）与文化（希腊/罗马）语境里产生与发展，它们之间的知识转移可能——只是可能——被认为是一个语言任 务。由于汉语中包含大量西方思维与世界观所缺乏的词汇、概念与观点，因此汉语与任何西方语言之间的知识转移涉及多种不同知识领域，并成为了文化翻译的一个 任务。中国传统医学便是一个清楚的例证。中医（CTM）理论建立在“道”、“阴阳”与“五行”之上，西方世界完全没有这些概念。最近，关于如何翻译中国医学典籍的讨论（使用现代医学词汇或使用通俗语言词汇）反映了在这个基本问题上的不同立场，即CTM究竟是一门科学，还是仅仅是一种可供选择的治疗程序。

通过对伊尔扎·威斯女士（Ilza Veith）的《黄帝内经》英译本（1972年）与罗伯托·冈萨雷斯（Roberto Gonzalez）西班牙语译本（1993年）的简单比较，可以清楚地看出翻译背后存在着多重因素，这些因素与源文本（ST）和翻译文本（TT）各自的政治、文化与历史声誉相关，也同译者的个人参与及兴趣等相关。