Re: Celtiboinking and mandarin musings

Stephen wrote:

>Talking (irrelevantly) of Ireland and nets, why o why is the mandarin
>for "Ireland" °®¶ûÀ¼ "Ai4er3lan2" = "Love-net-orchid" ?! You'd think
>that even sticking to the representation "aierlan" you'd have a good
>few homophones (a max of 64 factoring in tones) before you choose from
>the homophonic alternatives. (And why not guo2 for "land" instead of
>"lan2"?!). After all, [A]merica is ÃÀ'ú "mei3guo2" "Beautiful land" and
>(y)England is Ó¢'ú "ying1guo2" "heroland". Then again pity poor Spain which
>is  Î÷°àÑÀ "xi1ban1ya2", I think meaning "western-squad-tooth" ;)
Bag the meanings here. There's a (relatively) fixed set of characters
used to express foreign names, and they then take on a katakana-esque
role. "Ai" and "er" are not highly productive syllables, maximal
mathematic probabilities aside, and "lan" fares only slightly better.
So you take what you can get. (The same "lan2" also pops up in
"He2lan2" [Holland] and the older "Ying1ge2lan2" for "England". I'd
assume there is probably an unwieldy archaic version of
"A1mei3li4jia1" for "America" floating around out there, but it'd be
a drag to use. So you truncate. That "Ai4er3lan2" never morphed into
"Ai4guo2" *might* be because there was a homophonous "Ai4guo2"
(different "ai4", though) in ancient China. "Celtguo2" doesn't swing
since the average Chinese peasant doesn't know and couldn't care less
what a Celt is. You want sump'n like "Ei4guo2" à la "Erin go braugh"
[sic?]?, take it up with the Central Committee.

>BTW, does anyone know how proper names in chinese dialects are handled?
>I mean if the hanzi are common to all dialects, including hanzi for
>place- and people- names which have been borrowed as "soundalikes",
>then presumeable this means that the english word, say "Ireland", in
>*mandarin* sounds like the characters °®¶ûÀ¼, while in other dialects
>these hanzi while still meaning the, erm, love-net-orchid don't sound
>like "Ireland". I guess it's not such a problem, but is this the way it
>works?
It's not a problem. I'm totally freeforming here, but I think some of
this is a matter of which dialect gets there first.  I always
wondered why Sweden and Switzerland were rendered with (what in
mandarin is) "Rui4dian3" and "Rui4shi4", respectively. I mean, not
really even close, and there are better possible syllables available
in Mandarin. But then, aha, along came Taiwanese (Hokkien), where
"rui4" is "sui7" (/swi/) and "dian3" is "dien2" (/dEn/), Sui7dien2
(/swidEn/). Sweden! "Rui4" is "sui7" (/swi/); "shi4" is "su3" (su7?);
Sui7su3 (/swis(M)/, if you say it quickly). Suisse!  "Man4gu3" is
unintuitive Mandarin for Hokkien "Bban7gok4". Bangkok!  "Bai3shi4" is
unintuitive Mandarin for Cantonese "baak3si6": Pepsi (for American
SNL devotees, think the ol' John Belusi (sp?) Greek diner sketch; "No
Coke, Peksi."). Coke and Kodak, I assume, entered via Mandarin,
'cause in Cantonese they don't quite work in the "soundalike"
department. Is what I'm talking about based in fact? Not a clue. It's
just the way I like to think of it.

My fave in Taiwan was "Yang2bai3han4" University. It kept coming up
over and over in conversation and Chinese people were giving me this
dude-what-*is*-your-problem-it's-a-really-famous-school look when I
blanked. I tried saying it quickly, I tried saying it slowly, and I
couldn't for the life of me figure out what  "Yunbehun" University
was supposed to be. At last, revelation. Brigham Young. The Mormans
must've gotten to Taiwan early on so that a sinophied Chinese name
got hardwired into the general vocabulary before a clunkier
"Bu2li4jia1mu4 Yang2ge2" or some such had a chance to evolve.  "Oh,
why didn't you tell me *those* were the rules you were playing by?"
"Because, silly foreigner, you are meant to be kept guessing." Fair
enough. My Chinese handle is "Kou1 Dao4guang1"; anyone who attempts
"Dao4ge2la1si1 Ke1le4" while I'm in earshot gets their nads
unceremoniously handed to them in a paper bag. So if Mr. Young wanted
a Chinese sobriquet, so be it.

Kou

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