Translation During the Christian Century in Japan
Christian Keywords in Japanese
abstract
This essay presents examples of translation of keywords of the Christian doctrine translated by Jesuit missionaries during the so-called ‘Christian century’, when Europeans undertook the conversion of the Japanese, between the second half of the 16th century and the first part of the following. The purpose is to highlight the difficulties of translation between very distant and different cultures, and the strategies that were devised in order to overcome the problems.
Keywords: Christian lexicon • Kirishitanban • Jesuit missionaries • Translation • Medieval Japan