Subject: Re: Robin on cmene

From: "Alfred W. Tüting" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2000 21:05:26 -0000

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 §õ¤Ó¥Õ (also Li Bai
§õ¥Õ 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 »´ä.

Again §õ¥Õ 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' ªø¦w; 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. §õ¥Õ 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.