Re: Bopomofo and pinyin

At 23:04 -0800 21.1.2000, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
>> BP Jonsson wrote:
>>
>> > but how render an initial velar nasal in (Mandarin)
>> > Chinese?
>>
>> IIRC, initial N in Cantonese matches initial w in Mandarin,
>> so Wa Wang Jin Ba.  What that might *mean* I have no idea.
>>
>> But hey, /n@g&g d@b&N s@bjIn pA/ sounds cool too.  :-)
>
>My initial reaction to Wa Wang Jin Ba (as a Chinese name) was adverse, and
>my partner, a native speaker of Chinese, also really found it 'nan2ting1'
>(unpleasant to the ear). I dunno, perhaps it ties in to "wang2ba1dan4"
>(turtle egg: a major insult) (just consulted the native speaker: my
>intuition is right...yea!!!). "Ba" really sounds uncomplimentary for the
>above reference (also: Sanba = three-eight = a ditz). I thought Wang Jin
>sounded cool (king gold: but as in a previous post, surnames don't hinge on
>meaning). Again, tried it out on the native speaker and he likes my choice.
>The four character stuff is tricky unless you deliberately want to sound
>'exotique'. Dalailama works, but you're not that, of course. Other options?
>
>Kou
No, I'm not a sPrul-sKu (Bodily Presence), just an old Phran-pa (Selfish
Person).  Funny thing is the Dalai Lama isn't called so in Tibetan, but
rGyal-ba Rin-Po-Che [\cElw@\rim/po/tChI]'Conquering Precious One'.  _Dalai_
is the Mongolian translation of Gya-mTso [\ca/tsho]'ocean', which is part
of the personal names of all the linage-holders.  Rin-Po-Che of course is
what becomes His Holiness in English.

As for *my* Tibetan name Ngag-dBang/Ngawang is a very common males' name,
actually an abbreviation of Ngag-gi dBang-Phyug [\Na:ci/waN/tCu:] roughly
'Precious Lord of the Word', a title of the Bodhisattva Manjushri
('Jam-dByangs [\tCham/ya~:] 'Sweet-voice, fair of speech'), and thus Ngag
doesn't refer to any old word, but to the Words of the Buddhas.  Sbyin-pa
is "generosity" as a Buddhist virtue.

I think Tibetans would accept Wang Jin as a Sinization of Ngawang Jinba,
especially since Jin = "gold" and Jinba is associated with bestowing of
gifts, but personally I feel that the Ngag "speech" part, since I like to
think the person who named me associated it to the fact that I am
"linguistiy gifted".  I have read somewhere that Tibetan _ngag_ "speech"
has a cognate of simielar meaning in Chinese, but I have no idea what its
phonetic shape would be, or how it could be combined with Wang Jin into a
plausible Chinese name.  Could "gold-speech" be used to mean "skilled with
words/fair of speech"?


     ______  _______  __  ______  _______   ______ __
    / ____/ |_ _  _ | \/ /_ ___/ |__ ___ | / ____/ \/
    ||       // || ||     //___    //   || ||
    ||      //__|| ||    /___  \  //____|| ||
    ||____ |_____| ||        \ | /______ | ||____
    |____ \        ||         ||        \| |____ \
         \|        ||         ||                \|
mailto:bpj@netg.se ||         || mailto:melroch@my-deja.com