"Mapping the world through lexicography : a preliminary study on toponyms in Brollo’s 'Dictionarium sinico-latinum'" / Erica Cecchetti and Gabriele Tola

Published in Historiographia Linguistica - Volume 51, Issue 1-3, 2024 

Also available through Boston College Libraries

Abstract:

This article analyses the original contribution of the Franciscan missionary Basilio Brollo (Ye Zunxiao 葉尊孝 or Ye Zongxian 葉宗賢, Gemona, 1648–Xi’an, 1704) to the description of Chinese toponyms and geographically relevant terms included in his Dictionarium sinico-latinum (1694, 1699), regarded as one of the most noteworthy earliest dictionaries compiled by foreign missionaries in China. The article first provides an overview of the list of toponyms included in the dictionary, describing their Chinese, romanised, and Latin renditions. Secondly, it compares selected terms with the corresponding toponymic occurrences in the Chinese sources Brollo used as references when compiling the manuscript. The article concludes with a discussion of the lexicographical and lexicological efforts involved in this process, as well as the intercultural dialogue involved in them, highlighting Brollo’s personal and original contribution to the description of 17th-century Chinese geographical elements, with special reference to the terms related to the Chinese geographical regions where he lived and worked.