Abstract:

Most of the library scientists and linguistics regard that the Chinese word “tú shū guǎn (library)” was borrowed from the Japanese word during the modernization period of the late Qing Dynasty.“Tú shū guǎn” first appeared in China in an article by Japanese ZhenJi on Shiwu Newspaper in 1896.
However, our discovery indicates its mistake. We found the Chinese word “tú shū guǎn” appeared in Huang Tingjian’s poetry in the Song Dynasty, as well as in Li Jian’s poetry during Emperor Qian Long’s reign in the Qing Dynasty. These two examples effectively falsify the previous assumption.

Key words: Library, Etymology, Japanese, Chinese