Buddhist Impact on Chinese Language

Abstract

The Buddhist impact on Chinese language is enormous. This is mainly due to the translation and introduction of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit and other Indic languages. The translation of Buddhist scriptures lasted for more than a thousand years in China and there are about 173 known translators who had translated 1700 more scriptures in about 6000 more Chinese scrolls. As the Indian ways of thinking are different from Chinese, so their ways of expression are also different from Chinese. Therefore, the translators of Buddhist scriptures had to invent and introduce many new words in order to express the highly abstract ideas and concepts in Buddhism apart from finding similar words and concepts in Chinese language. Thus these new words and concepts gradually have been integrated into Chinese language and some of them even become part of their daily conversation. The translation of Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit and other Indic languages greatly influenced the semantic and syntax of mediaeval Chinese as well as enriched the literary genres and rhetoric techniques. The Sanskrit phonetics brought along with Buddhist translation raised the awareness of Chinese people about phonetics in their own language. This triggered an unprecedented interest in linguistic studies, in particular the description and analysis of the phonetic values of Chinese characters. The result is the compilation of numerous rhyme dictionaries which are of great value for the reconstructions of the different stages of the phonetic systems of Middle Chinese.