Linguistic term needed

"Alfred W. Tüting" ti at fa-kuan.muc.de
Mon Apr 12 09:08:47 UTC 2004


 > Got an example?  I'm not sure I have the proper term, but I'm
thinking of the
Chinese borrowing the word "America" as mei-guo (which has 2 similar
syllables).
And mei-guo, perhaps conscious choice, means roughly 'beautiful kingdom'.  I
suppose it's a kind of "loan-blend", but not the typical kind.<<

Exactly the same with Chinese (Putonghua) Yingguo (England - ying1:
hero, outstanding person), Deguo (Deutschland - de2: virtue), Faguo
(France - fa3: law, method, mode etc.), Feiguo (Philippines - fei1:
luxuriant), Munihei (Munich/München - mu4: adore, esteem, ni2: nun,
hei1: black). This is very nice IMHO as the city arms of Munich show a
black-dressed childlike monk ;-) There's the only flaw, though, that ni2
is a Buddhist nun.

Also in German, we have Mailand (lit.: mayland) for Milano.

Sorry, I couldn't be of any help with the term needed.


Alfred



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