中国马铃薯历史札记

Notes on Chinese Potato History

摘要: 本文站在语文学的立场，试图澄清中国马铃薯历史中的若干问题。中国和日本都是在18世纪下半叶成功引种马铃薯的。日本的引种时间在1777~1786这十年间，地点是长崎，叫名为jagatala-imo。中国的最早记载是乾隆五十三年(1788)《房县志》的“洋芋”。豆科植物土圞儿(Apios fortunei Maxim.)梁汉人称为“黄独”，唐代称为“土芋”、“土卵”，昌平宋志称为“土豆”，元代嘉定一带人工种植的两个品种则称为“香芋”和“落花生”。有些中国学者把明代徐渭《土豆》诗所描写的对象视为马铃薯，并推断京津地区为亚洲最早见到马铃薯的地区之一。这跟 1813年日本学者栗本丹洲试图把汉语文献中的“香芋”跟马铃薯联系起来的性质是一样的，都是把豆科植物误当成茄科植物了。荷兰人史初一1650年造访台湾后所写的报告在物产中提到了potato。泰诺语指番薯的batata于16世纪借入欧洲各语言后有bataat, patata, pattattesen, piltata, potato等种种变异形式，一开始指的是番薯，但许多语言(如英语)后来也用这个词指随后引入的马铃薯。本文从时代背景、地理环境等方面断定史初一在台湾所见实为番薯，台湾迟至日本殖民时期(1895~1945)才开始种植马铃薯。最早出现“马铃薯”一词的文献是康熙三十九年(1700)的《松溪县志》，不过指的是黄独(Dioscorea bulbifera L.)。日本学者小野兰山误以为是马铃薯，于1808年引进日语，作为jagatala-imo的别名。这一误会带来了两个重要结果：一是使得中外许多学者都把《松溪县志》作为最早记载马铃薯的中文文献；一是首任驻日参赞黄遵宪把“马铃薯”从日语借回到汉语，并很快成为指称马铃薯的正式用词。对汉语而言，“马铃薯”是一个来自日语的“回归借词”而非“原语借词”。

Abstract: Standing in the position of philology, the author tries to clarify some issues in the history of Chinese potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) in this article. The potato was successfully introduced to both China and Japan in the last half of the 18th century. During the period of 1777 to 1786, the potato was introduced to Nagasaki, Japan, and was called jagatala-imo. The potato was first recorded in Chorography of Fang County in the 53rd year of Emperor Qianlong (1788) and was called “yangyu”. Tuluan’er (Apios fortunei Maxim) is a leguminous plant and people in Liang-han period called it “huangdu”; it was called “tuyu” or “tuluan” in Tang Dynasty. According to Changping Chorography of Song Dynasty, it was called “tudou”. In Yuan Dynasty, two varieties cultivated in Jiading were called “xiangyu” and “luohuasheng”. Some Chinese scholars regarded the object described in a poem written by Xuwei (Wanli era of Ming Dynasty) with the title “Tudou” as the potato and inferred that Beijing-Tianjing area was one of the areas in Asia that the potato was first found. This is the same as Kurimoto Tanshu, a Japanese scholar, who tried to connect “xiangyu” which was recorded in Chinese documents with the potato. They both mistook the leguminous plant for the nightshade plant. After visiting Taiwan in 1650, John Struys, a Dutch man, mentioned the potato in his report about the products there. After the European languages borrowed the Taino word batata which referred to the sweet potato in sixteenth century, it was changed into many different forms such as bataat, patata, pattattesen, piltata and potato. In the beginning, it was referred to the sweet potato but later many languages (such as English) also used this word to refer to the potato, a newly introduced plant. On the basis of historical background and geographical environment, the author concludes in this article that the plant Struys saw in Taiwan was actually the sweet potato. The potato wasn’t cultivated in Taiwan until the Japanese colonial period (1895- 1945). The word “malingshu” was first found in Chorography of Songxi County in the 39th year of Emperor Kangxi (1700). However, it referred to air potato (Dioscorea bulbifera L.). Ono Ranzan, a Japanese scholar, mistook it for the potato and introduced it into the Japanese language in 1808. It became another name for jagatala-imo. This misunderstanding brought two important results: the first was that many Chinese and foreign scholars regarded Chorography of Songxi County as the Chinese document which first recorded the potato; the second was that Huang Zunxian, the first councillor to Japan borrowed “bareisho” from Japanese into Chinese. This word quickly becomes the formal name of the potato. In Chinese, “malingshu” is a return graphic loan from Japanese not an original loan.