Anglicizing foreign languages.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

One thing that I have never understood, and maybe some genius DUers can help me out on this one.

When we transliterate foreign languages like Chinese or Arabic, why aren't the words spelled out phoenetically in our language? I mean, if we're fucking with it in the first place, why is "Chin" spelled Qin? Why not spell it Chin?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. kick for the hiding geniuses

[hobo_baggins]

2. Another thing i don't get is...

how some sometimes in translations...poems still rhyme and shit...that can't happen!

[Ravenseye]

5. Creative Translations

Some translators take liberties to try and make poems still rhyme or have an even meter. They're not translations at that point though, but more 'adapted works', imho.

[hobo_baggins]

6. bastards...gimmie the translation, not some adapted work!

[fishwax]

14. all translation is adapted work

:evilgrin:

[Benfea]

3. There are a couple of reasons.

Chinese is odd. All Chinese cultures use the same written language, even though the spoken languages are completely different. One word will be written the same way everywhere in China, but will be pronounced differently depending on where you are.

On top of that, I think they sometimes change the spellings in a frustrated attempt to get foreigners to pronounce words more correctly.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

10. I guess that makes sense.

And it explains a lot historically. :-)

[Ravenseye]

4. I can answer for Arabic

Since I'm a dirty arab I can tell you exactly why...You literally can't do it.

The phoenetic sounds in arabic don't always have direct letter they can connect to. Take one of the famous examples. The leader of Libya...who is he?

Khaddafi, Kadafi, Qadafi, Gaddafi...it's been spelled many ways. Why? Well the letter that starts his name has no corresponding letter in english. It's a hard K in some dialects, practically a hard G in others, so depending on who the english speaker is talking to, or where they learned their arabic, they're going to transliterate it differently. So you might hear Kadafi, and think...Why the hell did they spell that with a Q like Qaddafi. The answer is that you might say it like an english K, but it really isn't pronounced that way, and in fact pronouncing it that way makes it a different sound.

does that make any sense?

[cassandra uprising]

7. Interesting

Hence the many spellings of the Koran?

[Ravenseye]

8. Probably more

I've seen Koran, Kuran, Ku'ran, Qu'ran. Quran...

It's a different letter though. It starts out with a different sound/letter than the Kadafi name, and then the first vowel will change depending on yoru dialect so some say it more like the beginign of the word Coke, while others it's more like the word Cur, and others it's like the begining of Queen, or even a harsher Q sound....and probably more..there are tons of arabic dialects.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

9. That makes perfect sense, however...

All of those spellings could be considered phoentic. What I mean is more like my example above - there is no variation of english in which Q would yield a "ch" sound. If you said "Quin" or "Kin" to a Mandarin speaker, they'd have no idea what I was talking about. If you said Gaddafi or Kadafi to an Arabic speaker, they'd know what you mean. I'm not sure if I'm being clear on the distinction, so I apologize if I sound patronizing or anything. And I do appreciate your answer!

And there's NOTHING dirty about being an Arab!!!! As someone that has many Arab friends and have worked on behalf of Arab causes, you have a wonderful heritage! :hi:

[Ravenseye]

11. I think it's using a character for an alternate sound

From what I understand in that instance, they use Q for the sound, because to write CH would actually be a different sound.

I'm trying to think of a good example in arabic. Someone might here Kabar, with a harsher K, but they make no distniction and just write Kabar...but Kabar and Qabar with the Q being a harsher K that sometimes is indistinguishable to the English speaking ear changes the word from being I think 'to bury' to 'caper'. Is that what you're talking about?

[jpgray]

12. Genghis Khan or Chinggis Khan? Zheng He or Cheng Ho?

:crazy:

In most cases it's actually "Romanizing" the name, because it has to be translated from a non-Roman alphabet.

[Orsino]

13. And why, in sci-fi...

...would one render the spelling of an alien word with silent letters?

I'm thinking mostly of "Kzin," Larry Niven's name for an alien race. I discovered in a computer game that the name was pronounced, apparently with the author's blessing, "Zin."

Stupid.

[Ravenseye]

21. I just don't get why they all speak English

I loved the Stargate movie for not having the people speak English, and there was back and forth on understanding their language...Then more of it on the Stargate SG-1 pilot, where they had to understand a new dialect...Then for the first real episode suddenly every planet they went to all the people spoke English....*sigh*

I know it's 'easier' especially on a television series...I don't know...it always irks me...

"Hi person from another star, greetings!" "Oh, Greetings! How are you today?"

AARRRRRRGGGHHH!!!

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

22. At least with Lord of the Rings, there was an explanation.

None of them really spoke "English" in LOTR. But there was a common language throughout Middle Earth, and that was usually used as English.

[lakemonster11]

25. There's usually some sort of "universal translator" at work,

at least on Star Trek. So they're all speaking their different languages, but everyone can understand each other. When they meet a new species, it sometimes takes a while for the universal translator to start working, and, when they want to have a plot about language, it either malfunctions or is unable to make sense of a new language. Sure, it requires suspension of disbelief, but that's sort of the hallmark of sci-fi.

In Star Wars, there's a sort of lingua franca that most beings speak (I think it's called Basic). Since it takes place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," they're probably not really speaking English anymore than the Greeks and Trojans are speaking English in Troy.

[billyskank]

15. You should see the way we transliterate Sanskrit

there's a system for doing it. And you know what? It makes no sense!

Would you think "jnana" would be pronounced "gee-ahn"? No, neither would I! And the number of words that end in -a but are not pronounced: like "Narayana," which is pronounced "na-RYE-an." Where'd that last a go? And if it's not pronounced, why write it? :shrug:

[jpgray]

16. Uhuru!

:patriot:

[billyskank]

17. Yes!

I think... :crazy:

[jpgray]

18. How is it actually pronounced, Captain Swahili?

If I ever do an Aime Cesaire production, I'll need to know. It'd be as embarassing as when I found out Ray Davies's last name is pronounced "Davis." And all of my friends were there.

[billyskank]

19. I haven't the faintest idea, old boy

Sorry! :)

[Brewman_Jax]

20. As for Mandarin

That's the pinyin spelling, adopted by the Chinese government in 1979. There are 2 "ch" sounds, written "q" and "ch"; 2 "j" sounds, written "j" and "zh", 2 "sh" sounds, written "x" and "sh". They correspond to "soft" and "hard" sounds; that's the easiest way to explain without having a study text.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

23. That was great!

Thanks for that knowledge! It makes a lot more sense to me now!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. That's basically it

The older system of translation, the Wade-Giles system, is the one that gave us "Ch'in" instead of "Qin." It was devised in the nineteenth century but based partly on non-standard dialects. That's why the capital of China is "Peking" instead of "Beijing" in Wade-Giles.

The current spelling system was devised by the Chinese government and was actually adopted by them in the 1950s. Here are the pronunciations of some common syllables (approximately):

qi = chee
chi = chr
xi = shee
shi = shr
ji=jee
zhi=jr
chen=chun
shen=shun
wen=won
zhen=jun
qian=chyen
xian=shyen
jian=jyen
zhou=jo
shou=sho
chou=cho
jiu=jyo
qiu=chyo
xiu=shyo
er=ar
ri=rr
si=suh
ci=tsuh
zi=dzuh
cun=tsoon

Therefore, the name of the actress in Memoirs of a Geisha (Zhang Ziyi) is pronounced "Jahng Dzuh-yee"

[dpbrown]

31. Learn BoPoMoFo

That's what the communist government was trying to approximate anyway.

In my opinion, using a Chinese-created pronunciation system is far and away better than retrofitting a Roman alphabet to a foreign language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuyin

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. Yeah, but it's not exactly a romanization, is it?

I don't think that BoPoMoFo in the midst of an American newspaper article would go over very well, do you? :evilgrin:

[dpbrown]

39. People can learn the Greek alphabet, why not the Chinese?

Choosing Hanyu Pinyin, or Wade-Giles, or Tongyong Pinyin to approximate the sound leaves the reader to wonder which method is being used and how the pronounciation should really go, doesn't it? :evilgrin:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

42. Yeah, right, and Cyrillic and Hangul, too

"North Korean leader (hangul-hangul-hangul) said today..."

[dpbrown]

43. Now THAT would build diversity and understanding!

Like putting hair on the chest!

:rofl:

[Brewman_Jax]

34. To complete the story

Zhuyin is used in the R.O.C. (Taiwan), to differ from mainland China. Hanyu is used on the mainland as referenced by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language

[dpbrown]

38. To complete the completion

Hanyu Pinyin is Romanization and Zhuyin (BoPoMoFo) is not. The Romanization systems used differ in the Republic of China, but for a long time Wade-Giles was predominant.

I learned Chinese using Zhuyin and found it easier as a native English speaker to learn how to pronounce a new symbol about which I had no preconceptions than to retrofit new sounds over letters I had used all my life with different sounds attached to them. Likewise, Zhuyin doesn't change by Romanization method, so the BoPoMoFo is the same regardless of whether you're using Hanyu Pinyin or Wade-Giles or something else.

[tjwmason]

24. My favourite is Tchaikovsky and Chekov.

In the cyrillic alphabet they both start with the same letter - yet we start them with different letters.

Also - who on earth decided that Tsar should start with 'cz'? The letter concerned is actually Tse and the t is pronounced (albeit fairly crushed).

[lakemonster11]

26. I don't know who, but they probably wanted a "c" in there because

it comes from the word "Caesar."

[Benfea]

28. Probably because English-speaking brains freeze when a word starts with ts

Trust me, I know. My middle name starts with "Ts."

[jpgray]

30. Ben Tsideways?

[Benfea]

32. Ack! I'm groggy.

The second syllable starts with "ts," but it still throws people off.

And no, I'm not going to say what it is because I'm probably the only person in the country with that middle name. You never know how many freeper stalkers are reading this board. ;)

[SOteric]

27. In my experience with languages other than English,

many have concepts and sounds which cannot easily be translated for the English speaker. For example in Japanese, there are both long and short consonants as well as vowels. We can easily, as speakers of English, recognise a long and short sound between 'aaay' and 'ahh.' But it can be difficult for us to even conceptualise, much less to hear and articulate the idea of a long consonant. To many who've only experience with English, Hana and Hanna do not sound different. When translating, often a set of letters are set aside specifically to help differentiate the sets of sounds most appropriate to what message is being conveyed.

Also, there is the matter of mora rather than an alphabet. Japanese doesn't have letters of the alphabet so much as small units of sound. That's why words which go from English to Japanese often seem to grow extra syllables when written, but when you hear a Japanese speaker pronounce them, they seem very much like their English selves. As in "biru" seems like two syllables for 'beer.' But the final you is but a whispered afterthought and in some very elegant speakers, almost undetectable. 'Basubaru' comes out as baseball, 'bifu' steku' comes out as beef steak.

In a very general way, the further a languages roots are from the root languages of modern English, the more likely there are to be unusual concepts accounted for in translating for those who read only English.

[sakabatou]

35. Japanese is probably the best at being anglicized

[Bear down under]

36. Pinyin wasn't originally intended for English speakers

It was devised (and adopted in 1979) by the Chinese government to assist in the teaching of the Mandarin pronounciation of the written language. (As someone posted already, any given character has the same meaning but is pronounced differently in the different Chinese languages. Arabic numerals are a parallel case -- English speakers pronounce "45" as "forty-five", but a French speaker reads it as "quarante-cinq".)

They chose letters that seemed appropriate to them, for their own purposes. It was never meant to be a transliteration from Chinese into any particular Western language. And even if they had intended to approximate to English, which version of English? American, where "petal" (as in a flower) and "pedal" (as on a bicycle) sound almost exactly the same, or (British) Received Standard English, where they sound quite distinct?

That pinyin is now the international standard for transliterating Chinese is certainly awkward in that many of the letters don't have the same sounds as in English (or French or German or Swedish for that matter), but there are many letters that sound different in different European languages anyway.

[wickerwoman]

37. It was also, I believe,

designed for native Chinese speakers who were at a bit of a disadvantage trying to design a computer keyboard with 4000+ characters in regular use. Chinese kids learn pinyin in school, not just to help them learn foreign languages but also to allow them to use computers and mobile phone keypads. They type in a few letters and then choose from 5 or 6 characters that come up. You'd think it would be slow as hell, but they can really zip along once they get used to it.

[dpbrown]

40. A BoPoMoFo keyboard is faster once you learn it

There are never more than three keys to a character, as opposed to Pinyin that makes one spell out whole words before giving you a choice.

[dpbrown]

41. The Communist government also created simplified Chinese

Dumbing down Chinese by authorizing abbreviated words.

Not that English is much better. If I write "St." do I mean street or saint?