John Fryer, Xu Shou and the principles of the Huaxue cailiao Zhong Xi mingmu biao 化學材料中西名目表

My paper has a double goal. First, it aims to underline some basic principles underlying the Huaxue cailiao Zhong Xi mingmu biao 化學材料中西名目表, the Vocabulary of names of chemical substances, created by Fryer and Xu Shou, its differences with their previous works, such as Huaxue jianyuan 化學鑑原, its contribution to modern Chinese lexicon and some problems rising within the work itself. Second, but not less important, I hope my paper will give the due consideration to such a great figure as Fryer and to his commitment to the cause of translation, casting a new light on a period of ferment in the field of translation - the one just before Chinese students went to Japan and had access to a bigger variety of up-to-date translations in a language more accessible for them - often considered as just transitional and whose influence on modern Chinese technical nomenclature can hardly be overestimated. John Fryer had already spent more than 20 years of his life in China and more than 15 years working for the Jiangnan Arsenal by the time the Vocabulary was finally published in 1885. As one of the goals he clearly stated to be pursued for the good of the cause of translation in China at the end of the 19th century, the Vocabulary can be considered as a fundamental step in Fryer's and his colleague Xu Shou's work up to that point in translating scientific texts in Chinese. Nonetheless, the Vocabulary, one of the few systematic works in the field of chemistry before the end of the 19th century, is often underrated, with the bias against it basically due to a a massive resort to transliteration.