What does 人人親其親, 長其長, 而天下平 mean?

Literary Chinese has a basic sentence structure of Subject-Verb or Subject-Verb-Object, so a character's position in a sentence usually determines rather it is the subject, verb, or object of that sentence. The following sentence is a clever example of how it works.

Sentence

人(인)人(인)親(친)其(기)親(친), 長(장)其(기)長(장), 而(이)天(천)下(하)平(평).

Vocabulary

• 人人 -- everyone
• 親 -- parents; to love
• 其 -- his, her, its, their
• 長 -- elders; to respect elders
• 而 -- then
• 天下 -- the world
• 平 -- level; peaceful

Translation

[If] everyone (人人) loved (親) his (其) parents (親) [and] respected (長) his (其) elders (長), then (而) the world (天下) would be peaceful (平).

Notes

The average Chinese character has multiple meanings, and many can function as a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb depending on its position in a sentence, even though it is the same character. In the above sentence 人 means "person," but two together means "everyone." When 親 is used as a noun, it means "parents," but when it is used as a verb, it means "to love." When 長 is used as a noun, it means "elder," but when used as a verb, it means "to respect elders." When you see 而 (then), you can usually assume it is an "if...then" sentence and, therefore, add the "if" to the front of the sentence when you translate it, if it is not already there. 天下 literally translates as "heaven's (天) under (下), but means "the world [under Heaven]."

How do you translate 其不善者 into English?

Here is a passage from the book I am writing on Literary Chinese. It is from a later chapter, so I consider it somewhat advanced.

Passage

(1) 某(모)人(인)問(문)曰(왈), 鄕(향)人(인)皆(개)好(호)之(지), 何(하)如(여). (2) 子(자)曰(왈), 未(미)可(가)也(야). (3) 鄕(향)人(인)皆(개)惡(오)之(지), 何(하)如(여). (4) 子(자)曰(왈), 未(미)可(가)也(야), (5) 不(불)如(여)鄕(향)人(인)之(지)善(선)者(자)好(호)之(지), 其(기)不(불)善(선)者(자)惡(오)之(지).

Translation

(1) A certain (某) person (人) asked (問), saying (曰), “[If] the villagers (鄕人) all (皆) love (好) him (之), what about that (何如)?” (2) The Master (子) replied (曰), “That is not enough (未可也).” (3) “[If] the villagers (鄕人) all (皆) hate (惡) him (之), what about that (何如)?” (4) The Master (子) replied (曰), “That is not enough (未可也). (5) [It is] not as good as (不如) those of the villagers who are virtuous (鄕人之善者) loving (好) him (之), [and] those of them who are not virtuous (其不善者) hating (惡) him (之).”

Notes

This passage is saying that it is better to be loved by those who are virtuous and hated by those who are not virtuous rather than to be loved by everyone. The reason, I assume, is that if those who are not virtuous love you, it may be because they think you are similar to them in some way.

(1) 某人 means “a certain (某) person (人)” or “someone” and is used when you do not know a person’s name or when you don’t need to mention the person’s name. 如 means “like,” and 何 means “what,” so 如何 means “is like (如) what (何)."  Here, however, 如何 seems to be an abbreviation of 如之何, which literally translates as "if (如) this/that (之), what (何)" since 如 can also mean "if." And "if this/that, what" can be rewritten as "what about this/that?" 如何 can also be written as 何如, which is how it was written here. In Korean, 何如 would be translated simply as "[이러면] 어떻습니까?" (2) Here 未可也 literally means “[That is] not yet (未) right (可也)” or “not yet suitable.” (3) When 惡 is used to mean “evil” or “bad,” it is pronounced 악 in Korean; but when it is used to mean “to dislike” or “to hate,” it is pronounced 오. (5) 不如 literally means “not (不) the same as (如),” but implies “not as good as.”

鄕人之善者 is a phrase that uses a common pattern expressed as “Noun + 之 + Verbal Phrase + 者,” which is used to specify a subgroup of a larger group. The noun before 之 is the larger group, and the "verbal phrase + 者" that comes after 之 is the smaller subgroup. This sentence can be explained in English, but it is easier to understand if explained in Korean. First, however, I will try to explain it from an English perspective.

The 善者 in the phrase can be translated as “virtuous (善) people (者)” or “those who are virtuous.” 鄕人 means “the village (鄕) people (人)” or “the villagers.” To understand in English the 之 in the pattern, you must think of it as being an apostrophe or an apostrophe + s (‘s), which is used to show possession, so 鄕人之善者 would literally translate in English as “the villagers’ (鄕人之) virtuous (善) people (者),” which sounds awkward enough that you would probably want to change it to something like “those [of the] villagers who are virtuous,” essentially translating 之 as “of.” That means that 鄕人之 would translate as “of the villagers,” but the problem with that is that you would be translating out of sequence, meaning that you would have to move the meaning of 之 to the front of the translated phrase. In other words, it does not flow smoothly.

Now here is the Korean perspective. If you translate 鄕人之善者 into Korean, it flows smoothly. In Korean, think of the 之 as meaning “중에” in this situation, which would mean 鄕人之善者 would translate into Korean as “마을 (鄕) 사람 (人) 중에 (之) 착한 (善) 사람들 (者), which doesn’t seem awkward at all and flows quite smoothly. Therefore, when you see the pattern “Noun + 之 + Verbal Phrase + 者,” it might be easier for you to understand the phrase if you first translate it into Korean, with 之 translated as 중에.

不善 means “[are] not virtuous,” so 不善者 can be translated as “those who are not virtuous” since 者 essentially translates as “those who.” Notice here that instead of writing 鄕人之 in front of 不善者, the 鄕人之 phrase was replaced with its possessive pronoun 其 to form 其不善者, so instead of “of the villagers" (鄕人之), we now have “of them.” That means 其不善者 translates as “those of them (其) who are not virtuous (不善者).” Remember that in this sentence 者 translates as “those...who.”