A Chinese-English-Russian Question

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:

> 15 Jan 06
> 
> Dear Michael,
> Thanks, that is a good suggestion, but I do not recall the Boddes 
> dealing with what Tolstoy called "Mi-ti" when I read that book (but I 
> could be wrong).  I the meantime, I have received several messages on 
> this subject and I am pretty well convinced that the correct answer is:
> 
>> Mo Di (no hyphen please!) (468-376 BC). It would be quite logical for 
>> Tolstoy to be interested in his ideas, which included "non-aggression" 
>> and "universal brotherly love".
> 
> I understand that "Mo-tzu" and "Mo Ti" have also been utilized to render 
> this name in English.  Apparently "Mo Di" is the now proper rendition, 
> just as Taoism is now Daoism.  I do wish I knew more about Chinese.
> Thanks to everyone who contributed to answering my question!

You're welcome.

The difference in transliteration is the difference between the older 
Wade-Giles system and the newer Pinyin system that the Chinese 
government endorses (see below). The consonant in the second syllable is 
unaspirated (as in French and Spanish ptk), but is heard by English and 
Russian speakers as voiced, so the Pinyin system is more intuitive. Thus:

Wade-Giles  Pinyin    Russian
     p'        p       п  (hard or soft)
     p         b       б  (hard or soft)
     f         f       ф  (hard or soft)

     t'        t       т  (hard or soft)
     t         d       д  (hard or soft)

     ts',tz'   c       ц  (always hard  -- Polish c)
     ts        z       цз (always hard  -- Polish dz)
     s         s       с  (always hard  -- Polish s)

     ch'(i/ü)  q       ц  (always soft! -- Polish ć)
     ch(i/ü)   j       цз (always soft  -- Polish dź)
     hs(i/ü)   x       с  (always soft  -- Polish ś)

     ch'       ch      ч  (always hard! -- Polish cz)
     ch        zh      чж (always hard  -- Polish dż, drz)
     sh        sh      ш  (always hard  -- Polish sz)
     j         r       ж  (always hard  -- Polish ż, rz)

     k'        k       к  (hard or soft)
     k         g       г  (hard or soft)
     h         h       х  (hard or soft)

Note that Russian uses the following vowel to distinguish the hard 
consonants it represents with ц цз с (Pinyin c z s) from the soft 
consonants it also represents with ц цз с (Pinyin q j x), and it always 
writes "hard" vowels after the Chinese hard consonants ч чж ш ж (Pinyin 
ch zh sh r). For other consonants, Russian spelling hardness/softness 
represents a semivowel as in бяо (Pinyin biao), not consonantal 
softness. This should not present any difficulty, except that Russian 
speakers will have to remind themselves that ч before a hard vowel 
really is hard, and ц before a soft vowel really is soft.

The hyphen is used in Wade-Giles to join components of the personal name 
(Mao Tse-Tung), but omitted in Pinyin (Mao Zedong). It should not be 
used to join the personal name to the family name.

There are other differences between the systems that are not relevant to 
your specific question. You can see a complete table of equivalencies at 
<http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/eastasian/ctable3.htm>; if you 
want to view the third column (Zhuyin), set your browser's encoding to 
"Chinese (Big5)."

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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