Re: Chinese Dialect Question

H. S. Teoh sikyal:

> On Tue, Sep 30, 2003 at 06:42:43PM -0400, JR wrote:
> > on 9/30/03 5:20 PM, JS Bangs at jaspax@U.WASHINGTON.EDU wrote:
> >
> > > In the department I work at, we just got a new grad student from China
> > > named "Quan Zhou". We naturally pronounced the first part of that as
> > > /kwan/, more or less, until he arrived and said something more like
> > > /tSwEn/.
>
> Sounds like it's not Guang Zhou (traditionally "Canton"), but a different
> province.
>
> > > This is such a bizarre difference that I had to make a theory
> > > about why. Either (1) "Quan" is just a truly awful Romanization,
>
> This is one of the things that turn me off about Pinyin.
>
> > > or (2) "Quan" is a pretty decent Romanization for Mandarin, but
> > > /tSwEn/ is speaking and pronouncing his name in a different dialect.
>
> He's pronouncing it right. _Q_ in Pinyin is pronounced something like
> [ts_h].
Sheesh. That defeats most of the purpose of a Romanization, as {Quan}
gives me about as much information about the proper pronunciation as the
original character does.

So I guess the "awful Romanization" theory is correct.


--
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"

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