Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.

Eugene wrote (sorry, the "Quote original message" button returns garbage for
you)
>It isn't very accurate to use commercial names, as their nativisation
>involves harmonising commercial aims etc. as well. Coca Cola would have been
>kou3 ke3 kou3 le4 until someone spotted the opportunity.
Yes, of course.  I should have thought of that.

>Also, many names are Sinicised not by using the modern Mandarin
>pronunciation. There is no fixed way of Sinicisation: different names will
>be Sinicised differently in China, in Hong Kong, in Taiwan and in Singapore
>(though the official press in Singapore likes to use the PRC version if
>known). How the name turns out  depends on a few factors, such as
>
>1. when the name was borrowed
>2. who first borrowed the name
>3. that person's familiarity with methods of Sinicisation, past examples and
>Middle Chinese/an alternative Chinese lect to Mandarin.
>
>(tones make no difference.)
>
>For example, the name Jiānádà [tɕanata] for Canada is only so pronounced in
>modern Mandarin. When it was borrowed the characters were pronounced
>[kænata] in the . America was borrowed as [amilikæ], subsequently formalised
>to [jamilikæ] and sound-shifted to [jamejlitɕa]. Unwieldiness in Mandarin
>aside, potential confusion also (as always in Chinese) leads to abbreviation
>with clarification: hence Měiguó, literally "jamejlitɕa (country)" and
>Měizhōu, literally "jamejlitɕa (continent)".
>
>The name "Washington" is now Huáshèngdùn [hwaɕəŋtwən], but when borrowed it
>used to be [waɕiŋtun], and still is in Cantonese. "Sweden" is Ruìdiǎn
>[ɻweitjæn] but used to be [switjɛn] and still is in Hokkien (Min-nan) and
>Teochew.
And that

>Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó tends to be used in official situations, like
>summits, or where a distinction is favourable against Taiwan. The name
>Yǎměilìjiā is archaic except very rarely in Hong Kong or unless the
>publisher has a predilection for it.
That's not what I was looking for, though.  I said that I had never seen the
translation for "The United States of America" in the wild.  Now after
looking it up on Wikipedia (I often find Chinese names of things by
searching Wiki and then clicking "zhongwen"), it is
me3li4jian1he2zhong4guo2.  I now realize that I actually *have* heard this
in the wild -- at the Olympics, during medal ceremonies, when they announce
the names of the atheletes and the countries they represent, they use the
full name (but not when they say "and now, the national anthem of the United
States" -- there they just say mei3guo2.  I wasn't sure at the time, as I
did not know at the time that he2zhong4 meant "united" -- and I also had
expected the word zhou1 "state, province" to be in there.

>One curiosity that I have never figured out (not that I thought much about
>it) was where the extra syllable in the Chinese name for Russia (Éluósī
>[ɤlwɔs̩]) came from.
I have no idea what you're talking about as I don't know where the Chinese
name for Russia even came from.  Is it actually supposed to be from "rus"?
Russia borders Mongolia -- maybe the name comes from somewhere in the
eastern regions.  I dunno -- as much as I'm not a Sinologist I know a
hundred times less about Russia and Russian.

On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:10:49 -0400, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:

>On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 8:09 AM, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
>
>> I tend to the more authentic of the available Anglicizations:
>> [halapEnjo] rather than [halapinjo], for example, and yeah, that
>
>In what dialect is [halapEnjo] an anglicization?  In my 'lect and some
>other 'lects I'm familiar with /E/ does not occur before /n/,
>it's realized as /Ej@/ in my 'lect and /&/ in some other 'lects.
>But foreign words with /e/ or /E/ plus a nasal are more apt to
>get borrowed with /in/ than /&n/, maybe, as in [h&l.@.pin.j@].
>
>--
>Jim Henry
>http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
I think it's more often [h{l@'pejnjo].  It's common for English speakers to
take Spanish [E] to [ej], since it occurs in places where [E] just doesn't
work for many English speakers.

On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:09:54 -0400, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:

>> *my real name = George Corley
>
>So where does "Ollock Ackeop" come from, out of curiosity?
>--
>Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Old Star Wars Galaxies character that for a short time spun off as an
independent (and completely non- Star Wars related) RP character and
eventually evolved into the Kesatan race -- which probably only share with
the Mon Calimari the fact that they are intelligent amphibians -- and, not
having a complex speech mechanism, cannot produce linguistic sounds much
less pronounce the name.

To summarize (before I get too much off topic garbage in here), my pseudonym
is from a character in a game I no longer play who has evolved in my head to
the point that he can't really exist as an individual anymore as the race he
inspired cannot pronounce his name!

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