Looking For The Origin Of 魔鬼 Mo Gui Devil

[PhilipLean]

I am working on translation of short story from another - non Chinese language, an Australian language and the word Mokuy appears as spirit, ghost.

I seems to match the Cantonese pronunciation of 魔鬼 as "mo kuy" (mo gui - devil/ghost in Mandarin). I am pretty sure the word was brought in to the other language from Chinese through traders in contact China or Chinese traders, and with Australia and the Chinese. But I need to be certain of the direction of transfer.

Does anyone know how long the word 魔鬼 devil /ghost has been used in China ? Where would I find the information ? My Chinese is only beginning, not good enough to research this by myself.

[Shi Tong]

Well.. in Chinese 魔鬼 means "devil ghost", but is translated as Devil. I dont know if it is, but why do you assume that this was translated from another language, out of curiosity??

[PhilipLean]

Hi

I am assuming it came from Chinese into the Australian language I am looking at. A number of other words came in directly from the Makassan( Macassan) language or the Malay language.

I just want to find the history of the word to be sure where it came from before I make a comment on the translation I am doing. So if I can find the Chinese word has been used in China for a long time then China will mostly like be the origin of the word. Of course there are always a few words that have traveled from other places into a language and then gone into other languages at a later date, for example a few words from India and Arabia to China and onwards but the further back that sort of travel occurred the harder it is to determine the origin.

I suppose I have been conditioned by the history English to look at the origin of words that are of interest to me, but are for most people they are simply words in common use. Examples of these are the names of the days of the week in English, from 3 different pre-christian origins.

[caldur]

As far as I know, 鬼 appears really early, while 魔 is a derived character in translation of Buddhism terms. Ancient Chinese word is usually single character, at least for literal uses...

[889]

Why not first figure out how long the word's been around in English? In particular, was it much used, if used at all, prior to 1984 and Gremlins?

A quick look at Google Books shows at least a couple uses in the 1940s, both China related:

"'Mogui! Mogui!' they began screeching. Evil spirits! Evil spirits! The red-and-green thing was a new species of evil dragon, come to destroy the village."

"'Mogui! Mogui!' The soldiers all looked up and laughed at Ching. It was only a courier plane from Chinese headquarters . . . "

[PhilipLean]

I need to clarify that the translation I am working on is not English, it is an Aboriginal language, one of the Australian languages. As far as I know the use of the word "mokuy" meaning spirit or ghost predates contact with Europeans. It stands out as having a different sound pattern from most of the words in the language.

[Shi Tong]

Is this any use?

Seems like on the same page there is an older Chinese character for mo2 on there, no idea how old (but this should give you an idea, if you can tell what era that caligraphy comes from), and there are some links on the page to tell you about how it's used, and I think even possibly some relation to how old the word is?

This would mean you can stipulate from that?

[PhilipLean]

Thank you, that Chinese Etymology site is very useful. It appears that the - 魔 - from - 魔鬼 Mo Gui ghost Devil goes back at least as far as Seal Characters, so at least as far as the 200's BC.

The character for ghost - 鬼 gui - goes back to oracle characters.

[Shi Tong]

Yep.. thought it was probably at least 2000 years old, but was worried about saying it outloud when I dont really know enough about classical Chinese to comment.

It is quite an interesting site- was pretty easy to find too!

Glad it was useful!!

[tooironic]

Now you just need to find out if that word was indeed pronunced anything like móguǐ all those years ago. Eek. Good luck with that.

[PhilipLean]

Fortunately I don't think I have to go back further than 1,000 years. The trade with the North of Australia appears to have started less than 1,000 years ago, more likely less than 500 years ago and was focused on trade in exchange for camping and processing fish on the shore and fishing rights near shore. The Macassans were collecting Trepang - sea cucumber - 海参 hai shen - for sale to China. There is still the potential question, did any contact predate that period, I don't think anyone knows the answer to that yet.

[trien27]

I need to clarify that the translation I am working on is not English, it is an Aboriginal language, one of the Australian languages. As far as I know the use of the word "mokuy" meaning spirit or ghost predates contact with Europeans. It stands out as having a different sound pattern from most of the words in the language.

Perhaps it's true that the eunuch Admiral Zheng He / Cheng Ho did travel to many places and one of them might have been Australia?! Perhaps that's where the Chinese term originated?! Or perhaps it was borrowed from Ceylon [sri Lanka], Malacca [Malaysia] or other places where this term have been in use by Zheng He and his fleet and so was borrowed and somehow got to the Australian Aborigines' language perhaps via Arabic traders, etc...

[fengyixiao]

Perhaps it's true that the eunuch Admiral Zheng He / Cheng Ho did travel to many places and one of them might have been Australia?! Perhaps that's where the Chinese term originated?! Or perhaps it was borrowed from Ceylon [sri Lanka], Malacca [Malaysia] or other places where this term have been in use by Zheng He and his fleet and so was borrowed and somehow got to the Australian Aborigines' language perhaps via Arabic traders, etc...

If 魔 and magic，神 and saint have the same originatioan in the acient times ?

[trien27]

If 魔 and magic，神 and saint have the same originatioan in the acient times ?

魔 is derived from Buddhism and the basic meaning is "evil". It is from the introduction of fairytales into Chinese that the meaning of 魔 = magic: 魔鏡 /魔镜 = "magic mirror" from the story of "Cinderella".

神 and saint do not have the same meaning.

Saint = from French which in Chinese = 聖/圣 or 聖人/圣人[modern usage]. In ancient Chinese usage, 聖人/圣人 = a sage or a very knowledgeable person. It is only from English to Chinese, that Saint is translated as 聖人/圣人.

[Hofmann]

Hmm...王力古漢語字典 says 魔 is short for 魔羅, which is a transliteration of मार (maara), meaning "disturbance," "destroying," "hindrance." It appears to be related to a demon and a goddess. 魔鬼 might refer to the demon.