The word Confucius was not originally English, but Latin.
In the 16th century, Catholic Jesuits missionaries from Europe embarked on the Chinese territory of Ming China with the mission of spreading Catholicism to this great Eastern power. They quickly discovered that at that time the Chinese, at least those who were at the top of the society, Educated and even serving as a government official, all believed in the teachings of a "philosopher" who had been more than two thousand years old then and tried to apply his teachings to a series of matters ranging from running the country and tribe to living things go with.
The "learned and great philosopher" in the mouth of this Western missionary is Confucius.
In the face of Confucius and the dominant Confucianism of that time, the European missionaries from China, represented by Father Ricci of Italy, contacted and studied with a kind of respect and even enthusiasm. It was also under the lead of Matteo Ricci that Catholic missionaries from Europe began to study the complicated Chinese characters that were commonplace in China at the time and a "heavy burden" in their eyes.
At the same time, Western missionaries also started to introduce China to Europe. A very important aspect of this is the introduction of Confucianism that Confucius and the Chinese generally believed. Missionaries translated the ancient Confucian classics into European languages and spread them to Europe. In the course of this introduction and translation, it is inevitable to translate the name of Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, "the Most Holy Teacher."
The "official language" of the Roman Catholic Church has always been the Latin inherited from the Roman Empire. As time passed, the classical Latin used in ancient Rome evolved into "church Latin" in the medieval Catholic Church and has been Used to today. The Latin language in Europe at that time, especially in European academia, is also a common language to communicate different countries and cultures.
Jesuit missionaries such as Matteo Ricci, a Catholic priest, transcribe the Chinese classics and Chinese names and place names and introduce them to their European compatriots, using "Church Latin."
Matteo Ricci chose the more popular name for Confucius, "Confucius," and transliterated the name into Latin by transliteration. The difference between the pronunciation of the Mandarin Chinese in the Ming Dynasty and the pronunciation of Mandarin in the present day is not that great. The pronunciation of "Confucius" in the Ming dynasty is basically the same as that of today's kǒngfūzǐ.
Matteo Ricci use the pronunciation close to the Hanyu Pinyin kong con corresponding "hole", the use of fu corresponding "husband" word. As for the word "child", it is relatively difficult. Because there is a lack of Latin corresponding to the pronunciation of Chinese zi, ci, si. Ricci then used the ci combination. In church Latin, the letter c followed by the letter i or e is pronounced like a ch in English or a ts in English cats. Therefore ci (qi, similar to Mandarin, or "Chi" or "Ridge", pronounced in Taiwan) is used to translate "子".
At the same time, in Latin, a noun has the meaning of "negative", "positive" and "neutral". Generally "masculine" noun, especially the names, will end in -us. As a masculine Confucius, his Latin name will naturally bring a-us suffix.
So Confucius Confucius's Latin name was born.
In all European languages, Confucius's name comes from the Latin Confucius, but spellings remain unchanged in some languages, such as English and French, still written as Confucius.
In other languages, some changes have been made according to the spelling and pronunciation rules of these linguistic terms, such as Konfuzius in German, Confucius in Italian and Spanish, Konfucius in Swedish, Konfucjusz in Polish, As well as Конфyций (Konfucij) in Russian.
In fact, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Jesuit missionaries in Europe not only Latinized the name of Confucius, but also lauded the names of other more important figures in Chinese history along the lines above, such as Mencius's Latinization The name Mencius, which was incorrectly transliterated to Meusius when it was translated back into Chinese. As well as the Latin names Thienkius of Ming dynasty Apocalypse Emperor, Zungchinius of Chongzhen emperor, and Sungteius of Emperor Shunzhi of Qing Dynasty.