From Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Thu Jun 08 14:05:29 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 3538 invoked from network); 8 Jun 2000 21:05:29 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 8 Jun 2000 21:05:29 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mo.egroups.com) (10.1.1.34) by mta2 with SMTP; 8 Jun 2000 21:05:28 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Received: from [10.1.10.110] by mo.egroups.com with NNFMP; 08 Jun 2000 21:05:28 -0000 Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2000 21:05:26 -0000 To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: Robin on cmene Message-ID: <8hp1qm+8nmh@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: <8hmov7+5lmc@eGroups.com> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Length: 2258 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster From: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Alfred_W._T=FCting?=" la mixael. .o la maikyl. .o la maik,l. .o la micael. cusku di'e > Didn't the Japanese turn 'Li Po' into "Rihaku"? > It really only matters that we be consistent. I think first of all we should respect the Lojban rules. Within those rules, the will of the cmene's bearer has to be accepted, hence giving the proper name's pronunciation the closest possible (as an exact transliteration usually can't be achieved anyway). Then, the spelling really should be consistent and giving the foreign language's contrasts in an unambiguous way. As for ancient Chinese names like Li T'ai-po =A7=F5=A4=D3=A5=D5 (also Li Bai =A7=F5=A5=D5 or Li Po) one should follow the modern Mandarin pronunciation (under which the bearer is known worldwide) reconstructing the names ( e.g. from Middle Chinese in the case of Li) maybe is possible (e.g. Li Pak) but of little use for all those unfamiliar to them. In still other cases it's advisable to take the dialectal form (because well-known to the world: e.g. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek etc.).It's quite 'natural' for instance to take the Cantonese name 'Hongkong' rather than Mandarin 'Xianggang' both written as =AD=BB=B4=E4. Again =A7=F5=A5=D5 Li Po/Li Bai (note the different writing and pronunciation showing in romanisation!): the name in Japanese is exactly the same like the - ancient or modern - Chinese original. Just the spelling follows Japanese convention - but nevertheless goes back to ancient Chinese pronunciation. (So do names like Korean: 'Syngman Rhee' or Vietnamese: 'Trang An' =AA=F8=A6w; the Roman transliteration somewhat hiding the spoken language's closeness to Chinese pronunciation.) What cannot/should not be done though, is to translate those names into other languages: e.g. =A7=F5=A5=D5 maybe into zirbolutytric.blagis. (?) or 'Whitey Plumtree' etc.. One reason is, that it is difficult to translate the originals real meaning. So, in this example Bai/Po does not only have the meaning of 'white' etc. People also say that Chinese surnames like Bai, Li, Ma, Qian etc. - although their characters written and pronounced exactly the same way like the words 'white, plumtree, horse, money etc. - infact have nothing in common with them and are 'just names' co'o mi'e .aulun.