Snakehead

[Paul Frank]

> I know that "snakehead" is routinely SAID to be a literal translation of a
> Chinese word for "people-smuggler". But it looks a little too sexy, and
> too
> reminiscent of English "wolf's-head" = "outlaw". Can it be verified that
> there is indeed an appropriate Chinese word? Googling with the likely fish
> name in Chinese I get references to fish. Googling with "snake head" in
> Chinese I find some references to the fish and also some references to
> "people-smugglers" but the latter only in news items from the US. Of
> course
> there are thousands of Google hits -- of which I could examine only a few
> -- and my incompetence in Chinese is a problem too.
>
> My thanks to anybody who can show me (in Chinese text) the original
> Chinese
> word meaning "people-smuggler" ... of which this "snakehead" is supposedly
> a calque.
>
> -- Doug Wilson

Shétóu is a Chinese word. Its literal meaning is "snake head." The Grand
Dictionnaire Ricci de la Langue Chinoise says, "Tête du serpent ;
serpent-tête : organisateur d'évasion clandestine ; passeur (on appelle les
clandestins jen2 she2 [rénshé], hommes serpents, car ils voyageaient souvent
au fond d'une cale serrés comme des serpents)." That is to say, snake head,
organizer of clandestine escapes; people smuggler (the clandestine
emigrants/immigrants used to be called snake people because they often
traveled in a ship's hold cramped in like snakes. Google yields tens of
thousands of Chinese pages for the Chinese binome shétóu (using the Chinese
characters). I thought Ricci had it wrong and that it ought to be shérén,
not rénshé. But the Hanyu Dacidian (in my opinion a greater lexicographic
achievement than the OED, by the way) says that shérén was a snake seller.
It does not list shétóu at all. Here's a webpage where you'll find shétóu
used in Chinese.



http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/overseas/2005-04/27/content_2885328.htm



Paul
_________________________________________
Paul Frank
English translation
from Chinese: humanities and the social sciences
from German, French, and Spanish: sinology
www.languagejottings.blogspot.com
e-mail: paulfrank at post.harvard.edu