Re: USAGE: The name "Chiang Kai-shek"

On Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 01:12:27PM -0500, Douglas Koller, Latin & French wrote:
> John xie wo xie:
>
> > > Now I lied and
> >> did not check the font-of-all-wisdom dictionary this weekend, but
> >> "sik", "sek", "siek", or "xik" (again, pinyin x) seem viable options.
> >
> >Okay, please do consult the FOAW when you get a chance.
>
> The FOAW and other sources give "jioh8" as the most common baihua
> reading for "stone", with "xia7" plunking in only in the word for
> "pomegranate" (perhaps HS, the native, can verify).
Unfortunately, in my dialect of Hokkien, the word for "stone" is a Malay
borrowing ("batu"). The older generation in my family uses "jioh8"; and
somehow, the two has come to co-exist, with "batu" meaning "stone" and
"jioh8" meaning "rock" (larger than stone, relatively speaking). I've
never heard of "xia7" for "stone".

> But, yes, in the "God, I'm good" department, "sik8" is the literary
> reading, which, I suppose, could be rendered "shek" in someone's weird
> romanization.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was a broken romanization. Back in the days
of my grandparents, when romanization was a new concept and quite devoid
of a common standard, people did all kinds of weird approximations and odd
renderings, esp. for names when registering in a census. For example, my
grandfather transcribed my father's surname as "Teoh" (which I inherited);
but my uncle (father's older brother) has the surname "Cheang". And my
uncle's daughter somehow got her surname to be "Teng", and her brothers
(one younger, one older than her) spelt it "Chang". But all of this is in
fact the one and same name, _dio~1_ (sorry, I forgot my tone numbers again
:-P), which is the same as the Mandarin _zhang1_.

As you can see, before the establishment of a standard transcription
scheme, it's a jungle out there. :-)

> Cantonese offered "sek6" and Hakka (romanized in a French way) gave us
> "chac" (which you and I might render as "shak"). As mentioned before,
> "gai" works across those dialects for "jie", but "jiang" in Minnan is
> "jiong", so now I'm totally dumb-founded. Perhaps CKS had a warped sense
> of romanization humor (along the lines of "Hi, my name's Anvil Chung.").
> This is as far as I can take it.
Can't really say much here... except to re-emphasize the kind of mangling
that romanization went through in those days before a common standard was
adopted.


T

--
He who sacrifices functionality for ease of use, loses both and deserves
neither. -- Slashdotter

Reply