Mutual encounters and linguistic exchanges : A comparative approach to Ricci and Ruggieri’s Dicionário

The exploration of the Chinese language by missionaries is recognised as an important foundation of European Sinology. Previous studies on the history of Chinese missionary linguistics have focused on the early missionaries' contribution to the analysis of Chinese grammar, such as Martino Martini's (Wei Kuangguo 衛匡國, 1614-1661) Grammatica Sinica (漢語語法), Francisco Varo's (Wan Jiguo 萬濟國, 1627-1687) Arte de la lengua Mandarina (官話文典) and Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare's (Ma Ruose 馬若瑟, 1666-1736) Notitia Linguae Sinicae (漢語劄記). This notwithstanding, much less attention has been devoted to early missionaries' research of dialects, to determine the concept of "standard" Chinese. In this paper, I analyse some lexical features of the Dicionário Português-Chinês (Portuguese-Chinese Dictionary, 1583-1588), composed by Michele Ruggieri (Luo Mingjian 羅明堅, 1543-1607) and Matteo Ricci (Li Madou 利瑪竇, 1552-1610). I argue that both authors creatively and intelligently adapted Western rhetoric to their Chinese writings, to make Christianity more accessible to their different audiences in China. To conclude, I discuss some linguistic features of the Chinese style adopted by Ricci and Ruggieri in their Dicionário; as the first European-Chinese dictionary written, it can be considered the main instrument to show that rhetoric played a major role in the shaping of Jesuit' language and readers from late Ming to Qing China.