Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>:
>
>
>>>The FAZ seems to prefer 'Chan' as common noun; I cannot recall reading of
>>>Temmüjin (I suppose German writes "Temmüdschin"?) in it, but it did use
>>
>>'Khan'
>>
>>>in the personal names of some Afghanistani figures.
>>>
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Ha! In proper romanization it is _qaγan_ and pronounced [XA:n]!
>>The Marco Polo manuscripts spell it _can_, BTW.
>
>
> Why the "ha!"?
Because the proper romanization is so utterly weird that
even the more "phonemic" romanizations _khan_ and _Chan_
are "wrong". It should at least be _Chaan_ in German,
as it is _хаан_ in Cyrillo-Mongolian.
>My [xa:n] is still closer to the original than the alternative
> [ka:n] is.
Sure, and it is closer than "Polo's" Old Italian/Provençal
spelling too.
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)