Re: OT: Conlangea Dreaming

Actually, I thought it was a bit more complicated than that.  Wasn't Lee
(/i/) written with the Chinese character for "plum" back when Chinese
characters were used in combination with the Korean alphabet?  If so it
makes perfect sense (after a fasion!).  The Chinese character for "plum" is
pronounced /li/ so, of course the Koreans must be mispronouncing their own
language!  Therefore we wise Western noodle heads fixed you up!

Adam


>From: Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
>Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 17:57:27 -0400
>
>Simple.  "Ee" or "I" looks Very Strange as a surname in American English
>(I bet British and Australian and Indian and other Englishes, too), so
>Koreans often transliterate /i/ as Rhee, Lee, Li, Yi, Yee or other
>variations when they're filling out silly things like immigration forms
>or birth certificate whatevers.  Then they accept most Americans'
>resulting and understandable attempts to render the names as written in
>English, and go on saying /i/ to each other.
>YHL
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