Chinese translations that seem to make no sense but actually do

Taigi: Hiong-gâ-lī 匈牙利

I know the debate is not settled, but I thought the idea was that Hungary is the land of the Huns, and the original Huns were the 匈.

1 Like

匈 would have sounded like *qʰoŋ, and 空 would have sounded like *kʰˁoŋ, meaning at one point 胸腔 would have almost sounded like the same syllable repeated twice.

羌, the name for another none Han tribe would have sounded like *C.qʰaŋ.

The two names sound so similar, makes me wonder if it’s more than just a coincidence.

I was stumped by this question and couldn’t come up with any.

However, I just thought of one last night.

s-/r- characters:
需 (xu) / 儒 (ru), 濡 (ru)

需 is a phono-semantic compound, meaning sluggishness due to rain, and implies hesitation, must take a pause, wetness. The semantic compound is 雨 for rain, and the phonetic compound is 而, which is described to sound like 如支切, if we use Mandarin to approximate, it’d be ri.

需’s implied meanings then got applied to rebus characters such as 濡 for wet. The original character itself took on the meaning of must from “must take a pause”.

儒 is a new phono-semantic compound from the original phono-semantic compound. It is described to sound the same as 需.

Today, they sound nothing a like.

In Taigi:
需 (su) / 儒 (jû)

Actually, thinking about it, it probably is the exact same case with 瑞 in the first place, which also has the phonetic compound of 而.

2 Likes

Just saw a YouTube video where it explained that the Min dialects (Hokkien, Teochiew) descended directly from classical Chinese whereas everything else from Middle Chinese. Which is why Holo is far more distant from Mandarin.

That terminology is a bit confusing. Usually Classical Chinese refers to Middle Chinese. Most Min languages retains an Old Chinese substrate, with Middle Chinese layer of mostly loan words forming a diglossia situation.

Sometimes I think it’s possible a triglossia language is being born now.

Ignoring cases where there are only a few loanwords remaining, I think Taigi (Taiwanese Holo) right now is at least a quintglossia, Old Chinese, Middle Chinese, Japanese, Mandarin, English.

1 Like

True. At least up here though, listen to many speakers and you’ll hear loads of Mandarin. It would be interesting to see how things end up down the line, though I guess the language being lost is pretty possible up here.

And what is it taigi? Shouldn’t it be daigi?

That will be the next great battle in the Pinyin Wars! :scream:

(We have several threads about the PW.)

1 Like

As the English spelling system is a phonetic mess, it’s best we don’t use it for spelling other lamguages.

In Latin and in IPA “t” is used to voiceless alveolar stop, where “d” is voiced. There is no voiced alveolar stop in Taigi, therefore a “t” is more appropriate.

Or even English, apparently. :sunglasses:

lamguages should be a word to describe constructed languages.

2 Likes

The German city of Bremen is written 不來梅 in Chinese. I always wondered why. “The plum that is not coming…” Also, why not 不來門. Much closer to the “men” in the name.

Who decides the official way of transliterating foreign place names anyway?

For Budapest they use 布達佩斯 not 不達佩斯. Why?

1 Like

I’d love to know more about this, although I suspect there’s already a thread somewhere. For example, how is it decided whether to translate or transliterate?

Good question. I supposed the first person to use it in an official document probably determines it.

As I recall Bremen is written as 布萊梅, as least it was when I was living in Germany. I would have translated as 霧璃門 (Bū-lê-mn̂g) in Taigi.

Is it possible Bremen has an alternate name in other European languages?

New Zealand – 紐西蘭 or 新西蘭 which do you prefer?

I think in mainland China they like to translate words like New, South, etc.

Took me a while to figure out that 南安普敦 means Southampton…

Bréma in Hungarian…