LL-L "Transliteration" 2004.11.26 (01) [E]

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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: Transliteration

I know there are some standards for how to transliterate Cyrillic, Hebrew
etc into Latin characters, but how do we translate our lowland names in
Chinese characters?

I was in Beijing from Nov 12 till Nov 18 and tried to find out.

I understand Chinese try to find a close match, transliterate, and finally
do not pronounce as in the original language, but rather how these
characters read in Chinese.

I asked the guide to note in pinyin the Chinese name for CocaCola Light (=
diet Coke).
He wrote:                     Jian yi  ke kou ke le
(I omit the tone accents)
“Light” is translated,
“Coca Cola” finally becomes “ke kou ke le”
See label of a bottle and his pinyin transcription on:
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/cocacola.jpg

Before continuing with the transcription, some general things I saw and
learned.

A - Bejing street names generally have a pinyin transcription beneath the
Chinese characters. This transcription generally is in capital characters
without tone indication. In a few cases of internationally known places, the
pinyin transcription is replaced with the English name of the place.

B – Our guide found these pinyin transcriptions silly, since Chinese people
can read the Chinese characters, and Westerners do not understand the pinyin
texts anyhow. Deepening further into the matter I understand pinyin has much
ambiguity, since a same syllable can have different meanings, and needs the
completion of the whole sentence, or needs a context for being understood,
while the characters are immediately semantically clear.
He told me kids start with pinyin the first two years of primary school, but
switch to Chinese Characters afterwards.
I bought some books for kids, and a page out of one of these illustrates the
transition:
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/p_23.jpg

C – Translating into characters raises other issues: what character set to
use?:
- the simplified mainland character set? (used on mainland China, except for
Hong-Kong)
- the traditional character set? (used in Taiwan)
- a calligraphic character set, where sun, feathers, lotus flours etc
replace some combinations of strokes

Back to the transliteration.

In Badaling, at the wall, an artist was offering calligraphic versions of
their name to Chinese people. I asked him if he could do my name. I wrote
down “ROGER THIJS”, he made this of it:
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/wall.jpg
I asked him to write the name also in standard Chinese characters, he wrote
it in the upper right corner, cf. scanned detail at:
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/wallname.jpg
I asked our guide to read the calligraphic version, he could not. Than the
standard character version in the upper right corner, he thought it was
something poetic, but he did not translate. When I told him it was a name,
he made something out of it that was somehow close to my name.

Next day I asked him to write my name on a sheet of paper in both Chinese
characters and pinyin. This is what he wrote:
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/guide_1.jpg
He was at least consistent with himself, since I found my name on the
Certificate of Participation as:
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/certific.jpg

A couple of days later I asked a calligraphist at the entrance of the Liyuan
theatre for having “EURO-SUPPORT” getting transliterated:
I got this:
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/opera.jpg
I asked him to write it also in normal Chinese characters on a sheet of
paper, and I got:
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/operatxt.jpg

I also asked our guide, to do the same. He wanted to know if I would like to
have it “as to sound” or rather (what he preferred) “as to meaning”.
For the sound I got (with Inc. added):
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/guide_2.jpg
For the translation I got:
http://home-13.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm09245/tmp/guide_3.jpg

I did not ask for translating my name,

- For ROGER a basis could be:
--- quote (from a message of July 30)
From: R. F. Hahn
Subject: Names
> nor do I understand all roots as e.g. "chrod"(?) and "gar"(?) for finally
> "Roger".
Indo-European: *kar(ǝ) + ĕ[h]aiso
Germanic: hrōþa + gaiza(z)
Old Saxon: hrōth + gêr
Old German: *ruod? + gēr
Old Low Franconian: *rōt* + --
Literally: "fame(d) + spear"
--- end quote

- For THIJS, I could even be more difficult.
It is generally accepted that it comes from (Ma)thijs – Mathias
And I guess that is a Greek transliteration of something in Aramees?

So my question is: how should one proceed for transliterating one’s name
into Chinese?

- Not transliterating, but translating on the basis of a forgotten
etymological meaning?

- Choosing a pronunciation when transliterating
Roger is pronounced Rozjé in French and Rodger in English
Thijs is pronounced Teis in Dutch, Tais in English, Tis in French and Tüs in
German.

- Choosing the Character set: Continental simplified characters or Taiwanese
traditional Characters (or a Calligraphic set)?

- Checking the meaning of the characters used for transliterating for
avoiding silly semantics, see what characters do all fit for a certain
pinyin syllable, eventually include all tone variants of the syllable for
enlarging the scope, eventually choose an other pinyin root, with a similar
sound?

Thanks for all advice,
Regards,
Roger

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Transliteration

Roger,

Since this is barely marginally Lowlands-related I will be relatively brief
about my response bit (another piece of _pro bono_ service today).

What you have there are *transliterations*, attempts at getting close to the
sound of a foreign name in whatever Chinese language and dialect the
transliterator uses or is influenced by when trying to speak Standard
Mandarin.  Yes, these may come out semantically strange, but most of the
time semantics are disregarded when it comes to reading foreign names
treated as foreign names, which in many or most cases becomes clear because
they do not conform to Chinese naming conventions of typically one
character/syllable for the family name (and a few two-syllable ones), whose
etymology and semantics are irrelevant as such, followed by a one- or
two-syllable given name.  There is a limited number of family name, all of
which are known to speakers.  Given names usually "make sense" in describing
desirable attributes.

As a foreign business person, you have the choice of presenting your name,
along with Roman-letter presentation, in transliteration or as a Chinese
name.  Many non-Chinese foreigners that regularly deal with China,
especially those that know some Chinese at least, take on a Chinese name,
and many Chinese are happier to use those than the transliteration,
especially those that do not have foreign language command.

If you want to have a Chinese name, I am happy to suggest one, which is, as
is typical, a compromise between sound and meaning.  Meaning is rarely based
on the original name's etymology. I will send you various font versions in a
PDF file attached to a private email message.

Here it is (with Mandarin pronunciation):

Traditional:  戴樂哲
Simplified:  戴乐哲


戴  dà i  (surname [otherwise: bear, wear])*
樂 (乐)  luò, lè  'joy', 'enjoyable', 'happy' (also yuè, yà o 'music')

哲  zhé  'sagacious (person)', 'wise (person)', 'sage'

_Dai_ is better than _tai_ because Pinyin _d_ stands for a voiceless
unaspirated stop, equivalent to the unaspirated _t_ in Low Franconian.
(There are no voiced stops in Mandarin, though in some dialects it occurs as
an allophone.  The _t_ is pronunced with strong aspiration.)

Soundwise it would have been nice to get _luore_ for your given name, but
there is no good meaning to be found.

If you deal with both Mainland China and Taiwan on a regular basis, I
suggest that you use both the traditional and simplified versions for the
two respectively (in which case you can use the simplified version in
Singapore as well, and the traditional one in Hong Kong as well).  If you
want to use only one, choose the traditional one.  Mainland Chinese do not
mind traditional versions, especially in foreign contexts, and many at least
secretly do not approve of the official simplification ruling, oftentimes
use traditional character for artistic purposes themselves.  In Taiwan, on
the other hand, Mainland simplification is generally detested, scorned and
rejected, may only barely be tolerated in foreign contexts but is not
something I would consider commercially or socially advantageous.

I hope this helped and others will help too.

Best of luck!

Reinhard/Ron

P.S.: Do not overestimate the intentions of calligraphers at tourist traps
(or at calligraphy booths at fairs outside China).  This is business, and
those folks usually don't give a rat's behind if the name they give you
makes sense, is semantically unfortunate or whatever.  Once you're out of
there you're out of their minds.  To most of them you are an "ignorant
barbarian" with money to hand out for trinket services.  So don't put too
much stock into it.  The calligraphy you showed is of the currently
fashionable type; it is supposed to be decorative but is barely legible.   I
don't mean to be a party pooper, am just trying to help as an old friend.  I
hope you'll understand.

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