Chinese Union Version
Encyclopedia
The Chinese Union Version (CUV) is the predominant Chinese language
translation of the Bible used by Chinese Protestants. It is considered by many to be the Chinese Protestant’s Bible.
The CUV was translated by a panel with members from many different Protestant denominations
, using the English Revised Version as a basis and original manuscripts for crosschecking. Work on the CUV began in 1890 and originally, three versions of the CUV were planned—two classical Chinese
versions and a vernacular Mandarin version. The CUV was completed in 1919, with one amalgamated classical Chinese translation and one vernacular Mandarin translation. With the onset of May Fourth Movement
, and the associated New Culture Movement
, the CUV is the first translated work to be published in Vernacular Chinese
.
The CUV in use today is the vernacular Mandarin
version, published in two slightly different editions—the Shen Edition (神版) and the Shangti Edition (上帝版)--differing in the way the word “God” is translated.
The vernacular Chinese language has changed a lot since 1919. Indeed, CUV’s language sounds stilted to modern readers. Furthermore, a lot of Chinese characters used in the CUV have fallen into disuse and cannot be found in commonly-available dictionaries today. As a result, work is underway to modernize the CUV.
The CUV is published in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Bible Society, a bible society
affiliated with the United Bible Societies
, in Taiwan by the Bible Society in Taiwan, also associated with the United Bible Societies, and in mainland China by Amity Printing Co., Ltd., of the Amity Foundation
in Nanjing, related to the China Christian Council
and also affiliated with the United Bible Societies
. However, the text of the CUV has fallen into the public domain
.
The CUV is currently available in both traditional and simplified Chinese.
Text in the Chinese Union Version is typeset generally vertically from right to left, with some captions for illustrations typeset horizontally from left to right. The typography is unusual, with many archaisms and some ad-hoc typographic devices.
The CUV employs old-style punctuation, setting most punctuation marks as if they were ruby. It uses the standard proper name mark
only for personal names, but an ad-hoc punctuation mark that can be described as a “double proper name mark” is used for geographical names; both of these are typeset on the right-hand side, instead of the currently-standard left. The book title mark is not used, and book titles are not marked in the CUV in any way. Chapter and section headings are typeset in sans serif type
.
Verse numbers are typeset on the right-hand side of the first word of each verse as ruby. They are also repeated in the margins.
New paragraphs start after chapter and section headings. Within each section, however, paragraph breaks are indicated by the traditional Chinese pilcrow
, a thin, sans-serif circle about the size of a Chinese character.
In the Shen Edition of the CUV, a full-width space is added before each word “God” so that the paging between the Shen and Shangti editions are identical; this extra space is interpreted as the traditional honorific marker.
Comments and notes are typeset as warichu
. Additionally, an ad-hoc punctuation mark that looks like a dashed underline is used to mark editorially-inserted words; like the two varieties of the proper name mark, this mark is also typeset on the right-hand side.
Typesetting the proper name mark on the right would have caused clashes with verse numbers and most punctuation marks. However, when clashes occur, the proper name and similar punctuation marks that cause the clash are partially truncated to avoid omitting any punctuation marks.
: xīn-biāodiǎn héhé-běn). Work on the CUVNP has been completed and the CUVNP has already been published.
This version with the Chinese characters written horizontally, printed by Amity Printing Company, Nanjing, and published by China Christian Council
, Shanghai, constitutes the largest majority of the Bibles available in the present-day China. Some wordings and proper nouns (people's names and place names) have been changed from the original 1919 version, in order to adapt to the modern use of the Chinese language
. which is clearly noted in the preface and addendum. A smaller number of copies of a bilingual Chinese-English edition, the Chinese Union Version combined with the New Revised Standard Version
, is also published by China Christian Council
.
does not contain all the characters needed to typeset the CUV. The SWORD Project
has free modules for the Union Version. It is also available for free reading on their online Bible Study website.
, the Lord's Prayer
as it is written in the Chinese Union Version and the Apostles' Creed
(not the Nicene Creed
) are usually used in the Protestant worship in the present-day China.
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
translation of the Bible used by Chinese Protestants. It is considered by many to be the Chinese Protestant’s Bible.
The CUV was translated by a panel with members from many different Protestant denominations
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...
, using the English Revised Version as a basis and original manuscripts for crosschecking. Work on the CUV began in 1890 and originally, three versions of the CUV were planned—two classical Chinese
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...
versions and a vernacular Mandarin version. The CUV was completed in 1919, with one amalgamated classical Chinese translation and one vernacular Mandarin translation. With the onset of May Fourth Movement
May Fourth Movement
The May Fourth Movement was an anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement growing out of student demonstrations in Beijing on May 4, 1919, protesting the Chinese government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles, especially the Shandong Problem...
, and the associated New Culture Movement
New Culture Movement
The New Culture Movement of the mid 1910s and 1920s sprang from the disillusionment with traditional Chinese culture following the failure of the Chinese Republic, founded in 1912 to address China’s problems. Scholars like Chen Duxiu, Cai Yuanpei, Li Dazhao, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, and Hu Shi, had...
, the CUV is the first translated work to be published in Vernacular Chinese
Vernacular Chinese
Written Vernacular Chinese refers to forms of written Chinese based on the vernacular language, in contrast to Classical Chinese, the written standard used from the Spring and Autumn Period to the early twentieth century...
.
The CUV in use today is the vernacular Mandarin
Vernacular Chinese
Written Vernacular Chinese refers to forms of written Chinese based on the vernacular language, in contrast to Classical Chinese, the written standard used from the Spring and Autumn Period to the early twentieth century...
version, published in two slightly different editions—the Shen Edition (神版) and the Shangti Edition (上帝版)--differing in the way the word “God” is translated.
The vernacular Chinese language has changed a lot since 1919. Indeed, CUV’s language sounds stilted to modern readers. Furthermore, a lot of Chinese characters used in the CUV have fallen into disuse and cannot be found in commonly-available dictionaries today. As a result, work is underway to modernize the CUV.
The CUV is published in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Bible Society, a bible society
Bible society
A Bible society is a non-profit organization devoted to translating, publishing, distributing the Bible at affordable costs and advocating its credibility and trustworthiness in contemporary cultural life...
affiliated with the United Bible Societies
United Bible Societies
The United Bible Societies is a worldwide association of Bible societies. In 1946 delegates from 13 countries formed the UBS, as an effort to coordinate the activities of the bible societies. The first headquarters were London and in Geneva...
, in Taiwan by the Bible Society in Taiwan, also associated with the United Bible Societies, and in mainland China by Amity Printing Co., Ltd., of the Amity Foundation
Amity Foundation, China
The Amity Foundation is an independent Chinese voluntary organization. it is the largest charity in China. It was created in 1985 on the initiative of Christians in China, with the main objective of helping poor areas of the country to develop. Amity's headquarters are in Nanjing...
in Nanjing, related to the China Christian Council
China Christian Council
The China Christian Council or CCC was founded in 1980 as an umbrella organization for all Protestant churches in the People's Republic of China with Bishop K. H. Ting as its president. It works to provide theological education and the publication of Bibles , hymnals , and other religious...
and also affiliated with the United Bible Societies
United Bible Societies
The United Bible Societies is a worldwide association of Bible societies. In 1946 delegates from 13 countries formed the UBS, as an effort to coordinate the activities of the bible societies. The first headquarters were London and in Geneva...
. However, the text of the CUV has fallen into the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
.
The CUV is currently available in both traditional and simplified Chinese.
Typography of the Chinese Union Version
The CUV employs old-style punctuation, setting most punctuation marks as if they were ruby. It uses the standard proper name mark
Proper name mark
In Chinese writing, a proper name mark is an underline used to mark proper names, such as the names of people, places, dynasties, organizations...
only for personal names, but an ad-hoc punctuation mark that can be described as a “double proper name mark” is used for geographical names; both of these are typeset on the right-hand side, instead of the currently-standard left. The book title mark is not used, and book titles are not marked in the CUV in any way. Chapter and section headings are typeset in sans serif type
Japanese gothic typeface
Sans-serif typefaces are a type style characterised by strokes of even thickness, reduced curves, and lack of decorations, akin to sans serif styles in Western typography...
.
Verse numbers are typeset on the right-hand side of the first word of each verse as ruby. They are also repeated in the margins.
New paragraphs start after chapter and section headings. Within each section, however, paragraph breaks are indicated by the traditional Chinese pilcrow
Pilcrow
The pilcrow , also called the paragraph mark, paragraph sign, paraph, alinea , or blind P, is a typographical character commonly used to denote individual paragraphs...
, a thin, sans-serif circle about the size of a Chinese character.
In the Shen Edition of the CUV, a full-width space is added before each word “God” so that the paging between the Shen and Shangti editions are identical; this extra space is interpreted as the traditional honorific marker.
Comments and notes are typeset as warichu
Warichu
Warichū is the Japanese word for the traditional Chinese and Japanese typographic device of typesetting in small double lines editorial comments, notes, parenthetical comments, and other annotations that may or may not belong to the text proper...
. Additionally, an ad-hoc punctuation mark that looks like a dashed underline is used to mark editorially-inserted words; like the two varieties of the proper name mark, this mark is also typeset on the right-hand side.
Typesetting the proper name mark on the right would have caused clashes with verse numbers and most punctuation marks. However, when clashes occur, the proper name and similar punctuation marks that cause the clash are partially truncated to avoid omitting any punctuation marks.
Derivatives of the Chinese Union Version
Chinese Union Version with New Punctuation
Because of the old-style and ad-hoc punctuation used, the punctuation of the CUV thus looks both archaic and somewhat strange to the modern reader. The result of updating the CUV’s punctuation in line with modern usage is the Chinese Union Version with New Punctuation (CUVNP, or }, pinyinPinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
: xīn-biāodiǎn héhé-běn). Work on the CUVNP has been completed and the CUVNP has already been published.
This version with the Chinese characters written horizontally, printed by Amity Printing Company, Nanjing, and published by China Christian Council
China Christian Council
The China Christian Council or CCC was founded in 1980 as an umbrella organization for all Protestant churches in the People's Republic of China with Bishop K. H. Ting as its president. It works to provide theological education and the publication of Bibles , hymnals , and other religious...
, Shanghai, constitutes the largest majority of the Bibles available in the present-day China. Some wordings and proper nouns (people's names and place names) have been changed from the original 1919 version, in order to adapt to the modern use of the Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
. which is clearly noted in the preface and addendum. A smaller number of copies of a bilingual Chinese-English edition, the Chinese Union Version combined with the New Revised Standard Version
New Revised Standard Version
The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible is an English translation of the Bible released in 1989 in the USA. It is a thorough revision of the Revised Standard Version .There are three editions of the NRSV:...
, is also published by China Christian Council
China Christian Council
The China Christian Council or CCC was founded in 1980 as an umbrella organization for all Protestant churches in the People's Republic of China with Bishop K. H. Ting as its president. It works to provide theological education and the publication of Bibles , hymnals , and other religious...
.
Revised Chinese Union Version
On 2010, work on the Revised Chinese Union Version (RCUV) (和合本修訂版, pinyin: héhé-běn xiūdìng-bǎn) has been completed to update the language of the CUV while keeping the original CUV translation as intact as possible. The revision to the New Testament was completed in 2006, and to the entire Bible in 2010. This version was consecrated on 27 September 2010.Other derivatives
After the text of the CUV had fallen into public domain, publishers began publishing slight variations of the CUV without identifying that these are different versions.Online versions
The CUV is readily available online, due to its public domain status. The text in the online versions, however, is slightly different because Big5Big5
Big-5 or Big5 is a character encoding method used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau for Traditional Chinese characters.Mainland China, which uses Simplified Chinese Characters, uses the GB instead.- Organization :...
does not contain all the characters needed to typeset the CUV. The SWORD Project
The Sword Project
The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible Society's free Bible software project. Its purpose is to create cross-platform open source tools—covered by the GNU General Public License—that allow programmers and Bible societies to write new Bible software more quickly and easily.-Overview:The core of...
has free modules for the Union Version. It is also available for free reading on their online Bible Study website.
Protestant Worship in China
The Chinese Union Version of the Bible, the Chinese New HymnalChinese New Hymnal
The Chinese New Hymnal was published during the early 1980s and is the predominantly most used hymn book at the worship of the Protestant churches in the present-day China.-Chinese New Hymnal:...
, the Lord's Prayer
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...
as it is written in the Chinese Union Version and the Apostles' Creed
Apostles' Creed
The Apostles' Creed , sometimes titled Symbol of the Apostles, is an early statement of Christian belief, a creed or "symbol"...
(not the Nicene Creed
Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed is the creed or profession of faith that is most widely used in Christian liturgy. It is called Nicene because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea by the first ecumenical council, which met there in the year 325.The Nicene Creed has been normative to the...
) are usually used in the Protestant worship in the present-day China.
See also
- Chinese Bible TranslationsChinese Bible TranslationsChinese Bible translations mean all works on translating whole or parts of the Bible into the many dialects of Chinese language. The creation of Chinese Bible Translations began in the nineteenth century, but availability only became widespread in the early twentieth century.-Catholic translation...
- New Chinese VersionNew Chinese VersionThe Chinese New Version is a Chinese language Bible translation that was completed in 1992 by the Worldwide Bible Society with the assistance of the Lockman Foundation. It was formerly known as the "New Chinese Version" , but the English name and abbreviation was changed to avoid confusion with...
- Studium Biblicum VersionStudium Biblicum VersionThe Studium Biblicum Version is the predominant Chinese language translation of the Bible used by Chinese Catholics. It is considered by many to be the Chinese Catholic Bible....
- Today's Chinese VersionToday's Chinese VersionThe Today's Chinese Version is a recent translation of the Bible into modern Chinese. The New Testament was first published in 1975 and the entire bible was published in 1979. It is produced to the Bible Society and uses simple, easy to read Chinese.TCV is published in two different versions to...
- List of Bible translations
- Protestantism in ChinaProtestantism in ChinaProtestant Christianity entered China in the early 19th century, taking root in a significant way during the Qing Dynasty. Some historians consider the Taiping Rebellion to have been influenced by Protestant Christian teachings. Since the mid-20th century, there has been an increase in the number...
- Chinese New HymnalChinese New HymnalThe Chinese New Hymnal was published during the early 1980s and is the predominantly most used hymn book at the worship of the Protestant churches in the present-day China.-Chinese New Hymnal:...
- Amity Printing Company
- China Christian CouncilChina Christian CouncilThe China Christian Council or CCC was founded in 1980 as an umbrella organization for all Protestant churches in the People's Republic of China with Bishop K. H. Ting as its president. It works to provide theological education and the publication of Bibles , hymnals , and other religious...