Chinese journal reaches English audience

Journal of Chinese Humanities will help English readers better understand China through its culture and history. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Foreign readers may soon be able to read an influential Chinese academic journal on literature, history and philosophy in English online.

The journal has entered into a partnership with academic publisher Brill to "introduce China's social sciences to people across the world".

According to editors at the Journal of Chinese Humanities, the first issue will concentrate on the development of Chinese society, from the time the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) unified China to the Revolution of 1911. It features papers from six Chinese and three foreign scholars.

The journal's next issue will focus on the dialogue between Confucianism and Christian civilization. And there will be discussions on concepts like Taoism in future issues.

The journal is planned to have a semi-annual print run for the first two years. After three years it will change into a quarterly publication. The English version is only available in electronic formats outside China.

However, it's still unclear how much the electronic journal will cost per view and how it will be accessed. The publisher Brill, which is based in Leiden, the Netherlands, is adding more Asian academic titles to its stable. It finished its first round of promotion of the Chinese journal in Singapore on July 17.

But for the editors of the journal, the biggest problem is translation.

"We have lots of difficulties in accurately translating our culture into other languages," says Wang Xuedian, chief editor of the journal, explaining that many things in Chinese culture and history do not exist in the Western world.

To solve the problem of translation, the journal hired foreign scholars visiting China to research Chinese studies to help them translate Chinese papers into English.