Transliteration/Romanization (was) "Foreign" students at Hogwarts (Cho)

[Petra Pan]

Yours truly:
> I am however surprised at the ways both 
> you and DrMM break up the syllable that 
> is 'Chang.'  Could it not also be simply 
> 'chan' and the essentially silent 'g' 
> dropped altogether?  Because really, the 
> syllable-closing consonant sound is not 
> 'g' but 'ng' which is closer to 'n' than 
> a hard 'g.'

Lina, in part:
> No, it couldn't, as that is not
> how Japanese names would be 
> written. "ng" is a particular
> nasal which, as I previously
> stated, does not exist in
> Japanese language (only one, the
> "n" exists). (The only time that
> "ng" would be used as a nasal in
> transliteration of Japanese would
> be for, perhaps, a product, which
> would lend the name to sound more
> foreign [though why they would
> want the product to sound more
> Chinese is beyond me ;D].) IIRC,
> when Chinese names are pronounced
> in Japanese, if there were a "ng"
> nasal instead of an "n" nasal, it
> would become "n" regardless in
> Japanese. So, "Chang" in Japanese
> would be "CHAN" (all the while
> looking awfully like "Chou", a
> counter which could also mean
> "lengthen"), a "transliteration" of 
> which would be written above the
> character in katakana, a group of 
> phonetic characters generally used
> with foreign words. 

Um...you do realize that in my 
original post I did suggest that in 
Japanese, 'Chang' would become 'Chan' 
just as you did above?  Previously, 
the suggestion is to break before AND 
after 'n' which then leaves the 'g' 
on its own, which in turn seems 
incorrect.  Sorry if I was unclear...
or am I not seeing the difference 
between the "CHAN" of your suggestion 
and that of mine?  <eg>

Lina, in another part:
> When (mainland) Chinese names are
> romanized, at least in the US, the 
> names are written using pinyin,
> regardless of the person's dialectal 
> origin; IIRC, the US no longer
> accepts Wade-Giles transliterations 
> from the mainland (although, and
> again, If I Recall Correctly, people 
> from Taiwan and Singapore can use
> Wade-Giles as this is the particular
> romanization system used there; from
> HK, they [generally] use the set
> Cantonese romanization [though the
> term for such slips my mind]). Thus,
> for my friend LI Mingjiang, who is
> from Sichuan and thus speaks
> Sichuan-ese in addition to the
> regular putonghua (Mandarin), his
> name was romanized as Li Mingjiang
> instead of that of his particular
> dialect (Li Men---something or
> another, I forget; I only can speak
> Mandarin and a conversational level
> of Shanghai-ese), as it is easier.
> This is how it is done throughout
> the rest of the country as well:
> When someone from a different area
> (e.g. Hong Kong) is being referred
> to, one would use their Mandarin
> pronunciation when speaking and
> romanization when writing (on the
> flip side, I do not believe that
> Hu Jintao is referred to as "Hu
> Jintao" in HK, but whatever the
> Cantonese reading of his name is;
> this is certainly how it is done
> in Shanghai). 

Yes, the above is true in most part 
of people whose names were recently 
romanized and therefore use pinyin 
of the pronunciation in putonghua 
of their names.

But Pinyin is a relatively recent 
system.  Remember when 'Peking' 
officially became 'Beijing' not all 
that long ago?  Though the Chinese 
government of the Communist Mainland 
can enforce the changeover of how 
their capital's name is to be spelled, 
it can't force the reform of all names 
already in existence of Chinese origin 
to conform to pinyin of putonghua.

Thus names romanized before the 
systems became official are all over 
the place, in terms of spelling.  An 
awful lot of the times, pronouncing 
the romanization sounds only somewhat 
like the correct pronunciation.

Then there's the fact that the 
romanization of Chinese doesn't 
produce a one-to-one transliteration.  
For example, in my years living in 
San Francisco, I have known an 
unbelievable number of Wong's.  Though 
these last names are spelled the same 
way in the roman alphabet, they are 
actually several different ones in 
Chinese that happens to sound very 
similar.

This is of course why delving into the 
etymology of names that are product of 
transliteration often involves going 
back to the original characters/
ideograms, which was my point.  And 
unless JKR actually went to the lengths 
of picking out Cho Chang's name in 
Chinese in the first place, reversing 
the transliteration probably involved 
arbitrary choices.

Asprin, anyone?  <g>

Interesting point though, is it the US 
government that insist on pinyin?  Or 
is it the Chinese government of the 
Communist Mainland who's insisting, as 
the paperwork identifying the names 
are generated there?  I rather suspect 
that Uncle Sam would take any 
romanization that would enable the 
G-men to file such paperwork without 
having to learn the Chinese script.  
While overseas, how a Chinese word/name 
become romanized is surely beyond 
Mainland China's control and the care 
of the government that wouldn't be 
reading such words in its native script.

Petra
a
n  :)

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