ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes Ricci and his friends’ missionary role in the evolution of the Chinese lexicon, including five perspectives: effect on vocabulary, influence on Chinese syllables, influence on word-making methods, effect on word meaning, and effect on the Chinese morpheme. First, this chapter exhaustively counts the new terms coined by Ricci and his friends (209 in total); these terms prove that they have contributed to the new (especially disyllabic) terminology in modern Chinese. This chapter further refutes misconceptions about the Chinese lexicon listed in Chapter 1. Second, this chapter demonstrates that Ricci and his friends created 86 polysyllabic terms, which shows that they actually Europeanized Chinese in terms of the number of syllables. Third, this chapter demonstrates that Ricci and his friends invented a number of word-making methods and pioneered the method of analogical construction. Fourth, this chapter shows how Ricci and his friends filled the conceptual gaps in various disciplines and brought about new concepts. Finally, regarding and his friends’ effect on the Chinese morpheme, this chapter shows that he provided a large number of foreign morphemes to contribute to the construction of new words. As the chapter will demonstrate, Ricci and his friends’ influence on the Chinese language has been tremendous.
