ma ying-jiu…who changed my spelling?jeou indeed!
His name is spelled Ma Ying-jeou. Stick to the way that he himself Romanizes his name. We don’t have Chen Shuway-bien, now do we?
I changed it, by the way. In the same way that I don’t want to see people spelling Lien Chan as “Lian Zhan.” That is not the way he Romanizes it.
The premier spells his name oddly, Yu Shyi-kun, and that’s what we use.
I also would not advise you to start using Lu Hsiu-lien for the vice president.
But the use of standard hanyu pinyin makes it easier to search for people’s names (and place names). As far as I know it is site policy on Forumosa to use Hanyu Pinyin.
Brian
Alright, I give up. Use any construction you want. Be inconsistent, or not. I don’t care.
As for policy, that may apply to non-names of people, but my feeling is that if a person spells her name Hsiao Bi-khim, for example, then it is not up to you to change it.
But I give up. Do whatever blows your hair back.
I know who he means either way it’s spelt. One is how he spells it, the other is how it’s pronouced, both are understandable to me.
But maybe Lu Hsiu-lien should be changed to Annette Lu, because that is how most of us know her, I’m not particularly bothered if Lu is changed to the correct pinyin either.
What is this ‘Jeou’ stuff anyway? Where did he get that from? I notice that it’s how the Taipei Times romanizes his way, but it doesn’t seem to be proper Tongyong (which is what TT uses for Taiwanese people). Did he really choose that spelling himself?
Brian
I’m a strong advocate of Hanyu Pinyin, as I think most posters who’ve been on Forumosa.com for any length of time know. In the case of the names of well-known people, however, I’m generally inclined to go with the preferred and standard spellings of those individuals, where known.
In a thread name even I would change “Ma Yingjiu” to “Ma Ying-jeou” because I think that helps people browsing the boards know who is being discussed. Within the thread itself, I’m not as concerned with correcting or changing people’s spellings as long as readers can easily figure out who is being talked about. I support posters adding Hanyu Pinyin, esp. when referring to people like Hsiao Bi-khim who use non-Mandarin names.
OTOH, I refuse to add extra capital letters, even though I know that Lee Yuan-tseh likes to write his name “Lee Yuan-Tseh.”
That looks like Gwoyeu Romatzyh. But the ying doesn’t match. In short, by any standard romanization system that I know of, he spells his name incorrectly. That, however, is not particularly unusual for people in Taiwan.
The Taipei Times uses Tongyong? Not that I’ve noticed.
The premier’s name (in Mandarin orthodoxy) would be spelled You Xikun, and the VP’s name should be L
Ma In-joe. Make it easier!
god’s sakes how do i manage to start so many arguments here…my guess is that like a lot of taiwanese mayor mah got his name from the first time his dad applied for a passport for him…in the old days it was whichever dimwit was on duty in the office that made up the names for whoever was applying…therefore it was basically the old random spelling generator at work…
as an aside i noticed on my trip to the scream and back some bright spark has been having his wicked way with the freeway signs…hsinwu/xinwu is now sinwu…in fact all hsin/xin types spellings are now spelt “sin” which helps absolutely no one except perhaps missionaries in search of sin (ok very weak joke i know)…is sin a tongyong spelling?
Yes. Tongyong uses s for two different sounds: those represented in Hanyu Pinyin by s and x. A good example of this is the Tongyong spelling “Sansia” (Sanxia in Hanyu Pinyin). Note how the place name’s two s’s represent sounds that are not the same.
Yes, it is.
It’s important to remember, however that the pronunciation is intended to be exactly the same as hsin or xin. It’s too bad they’re going this way, because nobody here has any inkling of how to romanize in any sytem, and certainly most foreigners, if they are familiar with any system, are most familiar with Hanyu pinyin. ~sigh~