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

From:Douglas Koller, Latin & French <latinfrench@...>
Date:Friday, November 22, 2002, 20:22
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

Replies

H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
John Cowan <jcowan@...>