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

HS writes:

>John Cowan wrote:
>  > Does anyone know the true origin of this name?  It cannot be Mandarin
>>  (the Mandarin reading is "Jiang Jieshi"), nor Cantonese either.  I have
>>  had a suggestion that it is Gan; CKS was born in Zhejiang province,
>>  and [ts\jaN kai s\Ek] is at least plausible in Gan phonology AFAIU.
>[snip]
>
>I would think it is a transliteration from the Hokkien/Taiwanese
>pronunciation of his name. Perhaps Douglas knows the real answer?
Well, I won't claim to know the *real* answer. I, too assumed it was
Taiwanese, since that's where he and the "nationalist running dogs"
settled down. Someone suggested that he was a Wu speaker, and indeed,
Zhejiang is Wu turf. But while I don't know all the nuances of the
dialect, like what's spoken in Ningbo and the like, Wu dialects are
known for converting syllable-final consonants to glottal stops,
which makes "shek" impossible (in Shanghai it would be "zza?2"). Too,
"gai" which easily pops up in a number of dialects for "jie", is
actually "ga" or "jie" in Wu. I would've thought Cantonese would get
you close on the "gaaisek" part, but "jiang" becomes, I believe,
"jeung".  Taiwanese (Minnan) is the most likely candidate since
"jiang" remains "jiang", and "jie" is "gai". "Stone" in baihua
Taiwanese is "jio", but I think the wenyanwen reading is along the
lines of "si(e)k", so I'll need to check the dictionary over the
weekend.

I trolled the web during some free peiods this morning and found bo
diddly, so this is merely a guess.

Kou

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