The second volume is full of glory and splendor in the capital, and the spirit is full of vitality in the foggy city. Chapter 196: Vernacular (Part 1)
Subtitle of this chapter: Finally, we naturally have to argue about the "base" of vernacular Chinese
After our Master Yuan toasted Chen Yinke, he stood up and filled Tang Yongtong's cup, and Master Tang also stood up .
Yuan Yan suddenly patted the man's shoulder and said with emotion: "Brother Xiyu, you are a kind person..."
In fact, Tang Yongtong, one of the three Harvard scholars, is much less famous than Wu Mi and Chen Yinke, two top-notch masters. Of course, his book "History of Buddhism in the Han, Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties" alone is enough to put him among the top masters.
This is because he was a low-key person, focused on academics, avoided scandals, and stayed out of politics. Furthermore, his "luck" was much better than Wu and Chen's. In the original timeline, he would have passed away in 1964, narrowly avoiding that incident.
You know...so some people who mentioned that thing only talked about Wu Mi and Chen Yinke who were treated badly, and omitted Tang Yongtong.
Qian Mu's evaluation of Tang Yongtong is that Xi Yu's respect for the elders and loving care for the young, his harmonious family, his daily life, his eating, sleeping, and resting, all make him a typical dull scholar. He is so harmonious that it is difficult to understand him by reading his books, and it is also difficult to understand his learning by making friends with him. He is truly like Liuxia Hui.
Upon returning to China in 1922, Master Tang first worked with Wu Mi at National Southeast University. In 1926, he moved to Nankai University as the head of the philosophy department. He then began teaching at Peking University in 1930 until his retirement due to illness in 1954.
Because of his honest character and profound knowledge, he enjoys a high reputation in these three famous universities.
In 1948, when Peking fell... Before liberation, Hu Shi left Peking University, leaving it without a president. The professors formed their own university council and elected Tang Yongtong as its chairperson, demonstrating his considerable popularity.
Such a benevolent gentleman naturally would not let the situation become too awkward, so he personally came out to flatter our Master Yuan... Actually, it wasn't really flattery to be honest, with Yuan Yanshu's writing "level", it could only be considered as telling the truth.
In any case, his words calmed the previous quarrel and prevented everyone from leaving in a bad mood. Everyone present, including Master Yuan, was like a blind man eating dumplings - they knew what was going on.
Therefore, Master Yuan came over to toast him to express his gratitude: "Come, brother, let me toast you a glass!"
The two smiled at each other and drank it all in one gulp.
"Brother Hongjian, speaking of your novels, we'd all like to read your latest masterpiece, the one Mr. Einstein praised so highly... well, science fiction."
That’s right, at that time, Seres did not have the exclusive term “science fiction”, but directly translated Science Fiction as “science fiction”.
Our Master Yuan immediately acted pretentiously and said, "Brother Xiyu, I call these novels of mine 'science fiction'..."
"After all, what Westerners call science fiction, including what I write, can't be considered real science. It's fantasy literature based on science. So, brother, I think it should be translated as science fiction."
After a moment's hesitation, everyone nodded and praised him. Thus, he became the "Father of Chinese Science Fiction."
Although Seres' first true science fiction novel was "A Novel of the Moon Colony," published in "Illustrated Novels" in 1904 by an "unknown author," which tells the story of the protagonist's adventures after he landed on the moon in a balloon, the book was discontinued.
However, in this timeline, from now on, when talking about SF, the first thing that comes to mind for the Seres is the "Grey Knight". After all, even the name "science fiction" was coined by him.
"Science fiction—very fitting, a good name!" Tang Yongtong, also a book lover, said with twinkling eyes, "I wonder if Brother Hongjian would be willing to give it to me?"
"Brother Xiyu, what's the point of saying it's a gift? That's really too much." Yuan Yan suddenly laughed and said, "You three are the humanities experts at Harvard University. I'm flattered that you're willing to read a novel written by an outsider like me."
He turned to the crowd and said loudly, "Well, we're almost done with dinner. Since we're in New York, let's do as the locals do and have a drink after dinner, as is customary in Western countries!"
The advantage of a big house is that the group of people came out of the big restaurant and entered a very spacious smoking room.
Our Master Yuan apologized and said, "Everyone, I have to leave you for a while..."
As soon as he walked out of the smoking room, he shouted in his heart: "Master Ball, let's start!"
"Host, what do you want to print?"
"Master Ball, of course, those science fiction novels I wrote, and I want the Chinese version too. Oh, and the Chinese version needs to use this format..."
Soon, he came back with a stack of manuscripts and distributed them to everyone present.
These manuscripts are not collections, but individual volumes, but each volume consists of two editions, Chinese and English, bound together.
Not to mention the three Harvard masters, even his three poker partners and Mr. Huang were very excited and opened the booklets with a bit of piety.
Then again, these four were well-informed intellectuals, and naturally they were very curious about a novel that was praised so highly by the greatest scientist of the 20th century.
Some of the people first flipped through the English version, while most people went straight to the Chinese version...
"Hey, how could this be?!"
When everyone had just read one question, someone exclaimed in surprise.
Yuan Yan took a quick look and saw that it was indeed...
He immediately asked with concern: "Brother Heshou, is there anything wrong?"
"That's not right, that's absolutely not right!" Chen Yinke raised the booklet in his hand and said, "Brother Hongjian, why is your book written in horizontal format ?"
That’s right, the Chinese versions of novels printed by our Master Yuan using the Master Ball are all horizontal versions like those in later generations.
Indeed, our Master Chen hated books in simplified horizontal format the most. He once explicitly stated that his works must be in traditional vertical format, otherwise he would rather not publish them. Since then, all publications of Chen Yinke's collected works have followed his wishes and used traditional vertical format.
For example, the book "Wu Mi and Chen Yinke" written by Wu Xuezhao (Master Wu's daughter) is in the commonly used horizontal simplified Chinese characters, but all the poems and articles about Chen Yinke are printed in traditional Chinese characters..
Of course, later on, some mainland publishers published his works in simplified horizontal format in order to cater to readers' reading habits.
It’s even more correct that our Master Yuan did this on purpose to disgust people… No, no, no, it should be said that he was trying to save our Master Chen.
"Brother Heshou, what are you talking about..." Yuan Yan suddenly said as if it was a matter of course, "Brother, I think science fiction, as a new thing, should have a new look. Besides, vertical typesetting is inconvenient for printing Western scientific formulas, so why not just switch to horizontal typesetting? What's the problem with that?"
Chen Yinke shook his head and said, "Brother Hongjian, this is a serious problem..."
