![]() one Chinese syllable contains on average ‘more meaning’ than one English syllable. Length of the nameĪs Veritasium once pointed out, Chinese languages have a higher information density than (generally speaking) European languages, i.e. And that’s not even taking tones into question. The takeaway: when transliterating a foreign name into Chinese, regardless of which variety, expect it to sound totally different. At the same time, extra vowels are necessitated because of the extra syllables. That’s because Mandarin lacks the k and m finals in syllables, and in order not to lose these sounds, they have to use extra syllables to supplement them. You notice that they use four characters instead. What about Mandarin? Since this language has relatively limited options for finals (end of syllables), they call him 貝克漢姆 bèi kè hàn mǔ instead. Besides, even though we can pronounce bek1, our character-based writing system has no character for that, so we have to resort to bik1. it sounds like you eat the ‘k’), the two characters retain the original consonants pretty well. ![]() Even though we use an unreleased stop (i.e. In Cantonese, we call him 碧咸 bik1 haam4, using two syllables. Take the classic example of David Beckham: the surname consists principally of six sounds, b-e-k-h-a-m. The degree of distortion depends on the variety of Chinese. And obviously, tonal names like Mao Zedong lose all their tones in English.Īnd in Chinese languages, languages based on syllables with limited combinations of consonants, the situation is amplified. Russian, a language that lacks the H and R sounds in English, renders Hillary Clinton as Хиллари Клинтон, substituting those sounds with the guttural ‘ch’ and rolling R instead. Problem with sound systemsĪs mentioned above, differences in sound systems in different languages pose an intrinsic limitation in transliteration of names: the sounds are bound to be distorted in some way. When Westerners like, say, Theresa May receive their Chinese names, usually to fit the purposes of Chinese-speaking media or daily discussion, we do the exact opposite of the Mao Zedong case: we take the sounds, and try to represent it as closely as possible within our sound systems. Transliteration seldom happens between languages that use the same script: even though the Polish name Agnieszka looks slightly foreign to English speakers, we wouldn’t transliterate it to Agnyeshka, because it uses basically the same script. For instance, 毛澤東 is a name completely foreign to English-speaking cultures hence, to represent the foreign name in an English context like this article, one would say Mao Zedong, so that readers of the alphabet can recognise and approximately pronounce the name. A more common example comes from European first names based on saints: ‘Katarzyna’ would be a translation of ‘Catherine’, since strictly speaking, they are names native to different cultures with the same meaning (in this case, reference to the original Catherine).Ī transliteration of a name (音譯 jam1 jik6 sound translation), in contrast, is a transfer of sounds across scripts. But we never call Jacob ‘Supplanter’ Jacob is just Jacob, or rather, יַעֲקֹב with an anglicised pronunciation. Translation of a name, in a daily sense as I would put it, involves more of a transfer of meaning (意譯 ji3 jik6 meaning translation), like how we say ‘Jacob means Supplanter in Hebrew’. Firstly, we transliterate, not translate. There are several important concepts and factors relating to how Westerners have their Chinese names. How do they do it? Transliteration and Translation Still, we see that many Westerners do end up getting a Chinese name (漢名 hon3 meng2 Han name) that sounds almost completely different. But all I could answer to this question is, “what’s your name in Russian then?” That would probably just be the original name with an accent, which is basically the case in Chinese. ![]() To Westerners, Chinese is probably the epitome of an exotic language: it sounds sing-songy and weird and looks completely incomprehensible. I cringe a little whenever I hear this question, because it comes up so often. I’ve reached Advanced C1 level Polish in one year!? Polyglot Gathering in Warsaw, Day 1.Why is it SO DAMN HARD to Learn Welsh? How Not to Revitalise Your Language.SPEAKING WELSH for the first time with Richard Simcott and Having Fun in 13 LANGUAGES at Polyglot Gathering □□ Day 2.What Even is a Composition PhD? End-of-year Musician slash Language Learning Update.I have covid……so I’m studying hebrew【粵字】quarantine special language book haul / update.
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