第一章：“Hankow到Hankou”

Chapter 1: “From Hankow to Hankou”

“全世界都知道，1927年的汉口是‘红色的汉口’”，这是美国记者安娜·斯特朗在她所著的《千千万万的中国人》（China’s millions）中的一句话。

Anna Strong, an American journalist, once wrote in her book China’s millions, “The city of Hankow in 1927, was known throughout the world as ‘Red Hankow’”. 

她和艾格尼丝·史沫特莱、埃德加·斯诺一起，向世界客观、公正地报道介绍了中国共产党及领导人、中国人民坚决抗战的实况，而被中国人民亲切的称为“3S”。

Together with another two American journalists, Agnes Smedley and Edgar Snow, she objectively reported to the world the real situation of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and its leaders, as well as the Chinese people’s resolute resistance against aggression. Therefore, they were affectionately called “3S” by the Chinese people.

她曾在1927年来到中国，见证记录了第一次国共合作下的国民大革命运动及最终结局。

When she visited China in 1927, Anna Strong documented the National Revolution under the first KMT-CPC cooperation and its end.

而如果你足够细心，就会发现她在文章中所写的汉口和现在的拼法并不一样。

If you are careful enough, you may find that in her article, the spelling of “Hankow” is different from that of now.

为什么一座城市会有两个拼法不同的名字？这是因为这两个词恰恰代表了这座城市的历史。

Why a city’s name has two different spellings? That is because these two words exactly represent the history of the city.

汉口（HANKOW）这个词其实来自威妥玛式拼音（Weda System），威妥玛（Thomes Francis Weda）是英国外交官，他在一八六七年出版了一部《语言自迩集》（Yü Yen Tzu rh Chi），是一本用罗马字母拼写汉语的教材，后来却成为很长一段时间中英文音译中国人名、地名和事物名称的一种主要拼法。

In fact, the word “HANKOW” comes from the Weda System, whose inventor, Thomes Francis Weda, was a British diplomat. In 1867, he published the Yü Yen Tzu rh Chi, a textbook which used Roman alphabets to spell Chinese. Later, this method became a principal way to transliterate the name of Chinese people, places or objects into English during a long time.

于是在汉口从1861年开埠以后，使用了威妥玛式拼音的汉口以及其他组合起来的词组如粤汉铁路（Canton-Hankow railway），汉口火车站（Hankow Chuo-Shatan），随着各类英文报道走向了世界。

Therefore, after the opening of Hankow port in 1861, the word Hankow spelt in Weda System and other Chinese phrases with “Hankow”, such as Canton-Hankow railway and Hankow Chuo-Shatan, were spread to the world with various English reports.

新中国建立后，中国政府在推广普通话、确立了汉语标准音的基础上，又推行了“汉语拼音方案”（Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet）。

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the government put the Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet into practice on the basis of promoting Putonghua (Mandarin) and establishing the Chinese standard pronunciation.

而最终在1977年联合国召开第三届地名标准化会议上，我国代表团提出的“采用汉语拼音作为中国地名罗马字母拼写法的国际标准”提案得到了通过。

Finally, at the Third Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names held by the United Nations in 1977, China’s proposal to “using the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet as the international standard to spell Chinese place names in Roman alphabets” was approved. 

于是，汉口一词也完成了两个时代的转变，以全新的面貌跟随汉口这座古老的城市一起，走向了改革开放的新时代。

Since then, the word Hankou has completed its transition between two eras. With its brand-new look, it has moved towards a new era of “reform and opening-up” with the ancient city of Hankow.

END