ABSTRACT
As translation history inquires into language dynamics, exchange and historical strategies policies, it also starts to understand the theory of modern linguistics as a contingent entity. The individual choices taken by translators became an institutional act and a state activity. Intended to enable knowledge circulation and exchange, translation changed power relations, generally to the detriment of the recipient. Rather than generating nationalism, sophisticated regional histories of languages enrich historical understandings of translation practices and ways of coping with a multilingual world. When nation building became paramount for several states across the globe, translation became both the means and the challenge of constructing new power relations. Critical issue is the focus of translation studies and history on 'China' as a discrete entity. States create national histories that rarely cohere with language boundaries. Historians examining such translation efforts in the sciences have highlighted the importance that Chinese and foreign actors gave to individual terms and terminological classification methods.
