tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post1174852207631944017..comments2024-03-18T09:47:18.076-07:00Comments on Forever a student: List of UN country names in Chinese and their meaningsVladimirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-20984580618895369532020-11-27T11:16:30.163-08:002020-11-27T11:16:30.163-08:00Wonderful and very interesting. All points taken. ...Wonderful and very interesting. All points taken. I updated the table. Thanks for the input.Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-20668667477160947512020-11-27T10:48:06.673-08:002020-11-27T10:48:06.673-08:00Sorry for the delay - Thanksgiving prep time here ...Sorry for the delay - Thanksgiving prep time here in the States, ya know. :) <br /><br />Alright, so, RE: the other countries. I start from the same place that I started with Cambodia - what is the dominant topolect of the Chinese diaspora there and when did they arrive? <br /><br />Venezuela & the rest of Latin America: <br />For the vast majority of South and Central America, that's going to be Cantonese-speaking people brought there by British, Portuguese, and Spanish traders as part of the coolie trade. The practice was so common, you can now Google the Spanish name for it and read all sorts of papers comparing it with the Middle Passage: <i>la trata amarilla.</i> <br /><br />In the mid to late 1800s, corresponding with the post-First Opium War economic crisis in China, the ceding of Hong Kong and Macau (<i>1/4 of all Chinese coolies left port <b>just from Macau</b></i>), and the abolition of slavery in the British & Spanish empires (<i>i.e. loss of cheap labor</i>), Cantonese folks were imported literally everywhere throughout Latin America, from Portuguese Brazil to Spanish Guatemala to British Jamaica. (Also why I think the names of these places are also most likely from Cantonese, but the phonological difference between Mando and Canto in these cases are not huge.) The most prominent of these Latin American destinations were Peru and Cuba. 100,000 Chinese men were imported to Peru, mostly to work the guano mines, and 150,000 Chinese men were imported to Cuba, mostly to work the sugar plantations. It's estimated that even today, up to <b>20%</b> of the Peruvian population can claim some Chinese heritage. <br /><br />In the mid-1800s, with Chinese folks coming to the New World in massive numbers but the Qing Dynasty in serious decline, it would be highly unlikely that there was a top-down, Mandarin-based, official dictate of the names for these numerous, far away, foreign places. It's much more likely that a name arose organically among the Cantonese speaking emigres and became widespread by the Republican era, perhaps even helped along to codification by the Cantonese-speaking Sun Yat-sen, who himself, had emigrated to a 夏威夷 whose Chinese population was overwhelmingly of 中山 extract (hence the Cantonese pronunciation). <br /><br />Timor Leste: <br />The majority of Chinese emigres to Timor Leste were Hakka, so that's my starting point. However, Hakka is not a great phonological fit for 東帝汶. So this bears further consideration. <br /><br />Well, Timor Leste was a colony of Portugal for many years, and more to the point, was a colony of Portugal that 1) was administered from Portuguese Macau and 2) had it's economic deficits covered by Macanese revenue. Quote from <i>Boletim do Governo de Macau e Timor</i> issued 18 February 1867, "There shall be in Timor an Adjunct or Delegate of the Treasury subject to the Treasury Board of the Province of Macau to which an account shall be rendered of all its acts." Both politically and economically, Timor Leste was beholden to Macau. <br /><br />So...in this case, I believe that the modern transliteration for Timor Leste <b>was</b> indeed created by random Chinese officials not in Timor Leste, but these random Chinese officials were most likely Cantonese-speaking residents of Macau. <br /><br />Sweden: <br />I have no awareness of any historical Chinese diasporic community in Sweden. I admit that in this case, my assertion was mostly due to phonological similarity to Cantonese pronunciation. With a <b>very nebulous</b> thought toward British-Scandinavian relationships and the fact that the vast majority of British-Chinese have historically been Cantonese-speaking. Lirielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04850771857456524359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-20399805217182270122020-11-22T08:36:19.564-08:002020-11-22T08:36:19.564-08:00My apologies for what was effectively a live blog ...My apologies for what was effectively a live blog of my brain processing historical and linguistic information. I hope you don't mind overmuch! <br /><br />I do want to say too, that this is probably why I would add a sub-category for names of countries with long historical ties to China. From a cultural context standpoint, it helps the user understand that mess of Old Khmer-Middle Khmer-Middle Chinese-Modern Mandarin. And, perhaps more relevantly, stuff like 朝鮮 being a call back to the Joseon Dynasty whereas 韓國 is a call back to the Great Korean Empire. For me, as a Chinese person, especially as one from a historical diaspora, these names feel like they are at a different register than names like 冰島, but YMMV bc this choice would be more cultural than linguistic in nature. Lirielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04850771857456524359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-83780934347435224442020-11-22T08:27:27.252-08:002020-11-22T08:27:27.252-08:00Hello. When it comes to Cambodia, I give up:) I ha...Hello. When it comes to Cambodia, I give up:) I have no way of contributing in any meaningful way compared to you since even your armchair knowledge is more than my regular knowledge about the subject. <br /><br />But..I was thinking about the same thing: since Sino-Cambodian relations go way back, it's maybe not that relevant to look at modern pronunciations in Cambodian or any modern Chinese language. <br /><br />What do you think about my comments about the remaining countries?Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-75497346790590892122020-11-22T08:15:27.902-08:002020-11-22T08:15:27.902-08:00Hahaha, you have written so much! Thanks for your ...Hahaha, you have written so much! Thanks for your detailed responses! <br /><br />Cambodia: <br />First, I'm not quite sure how I should pronounce "ča." Apologies for my unfamiliarity with Slavic languages, is it anything like "ça?" Is the diphthong in "chea" (IPA: iə) accounted for? Similarly, is your "k" a hard k (as in "Katie") or it a softer "k" (as in the "k" in "skip")? Just trying to get a better sense of how the word sounds to you. <br /><br />Second, why have you elided Teochew from your analysis of possible Chinese dialects? You have Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Zhejiang Wu (I'm guessing Wenzhou?), and even Middle Chinese, but you have completely omitted from your analysis, the topolect spoken by >75% of Chinese Cambodians. Which is honestly, how I'm making most of these snap calls, based on the history of Chinese immigration patterns. Given that >75% of Chinese-Cambodians for the last 3 centuries have been Teochew, my starting point is Teochew-influenced transliteration. I'm open to being disproven, but that's why I don't think Hokkien or Wenzhounese are particularly good starting points, with modern Wu being a worse starting point than Hokkien since I'm 3rd generation Chinese-Cambodian myself, and I've never met (or even heard of) a Wu-speaker in Cambodia pre-1990. I'm sure there must be some, but enough to hit the critical mass needed to get other folks to adopt the Wu pronunciation? I'm not convinced. Alright, so...let's get nerdy! :D <br /><br />So, starting from the assumption that you are correct, that a dialect of modern Wu is the closest to Modern Khmer pronunciation of កម្ពុជា, why would this be the case, with a negligible number of Wu speakers having contact with Cambodia?<br /><br />With Cambodia, as with Thailand and Vietnam, we have the benefit of a whole bunch of vocabulary to help triangulate the situation of contact and adoption. That's why I brought up Khmer/ខ្មែរ/高棉. There's also Battambang/បាត់ដំបង/馬德望,Angkor/អង្គរ/吳哥,Preah Vihear/ព្រះវិហារ/柏威夏,plus, in the other direction, all the Chinese words, that got ported over into Khmer. <br /><br />Here's what makes things interesting, the history of Sino-Khmer contact is so lengthy that both languages actually undergo significant changes during this contact. First contact between China and Cambodia occurred while Chinese folks were speaking Middle Chinese and Khmer folks were speaking Old Khmer so we have to account for BOTH of these changes. A good example is the aforementioned Angkor. In the transition from Middle Khmer to Modern Khmer, voiced stops were devoiced, meaning the voiced G stops became unvoiced K stops, and An-gor became Ang-kor. This is preserved in Chinese with the G sound in 吳<b>哥</b>. As for the 吳, it is a good representation of the ng/ង sound, as maintained in standard Cantonese and some Wu dialects. <br /><br />Alright, moving back to កម្ពុជា/柬埔寨, it's acknowledged that the J sound (IPA: tɕ) in modern Mandarin was formerly the K sound (IPA: k) in Middle Chinese, which is preserved in...just a whole bunch of Southern topolects. Next, Middle Khmer also had this really interesting consonant restructuring in which a stiff voiceless "p" became a voiced implosive "ɓ" and a slack voiced "b" became a voiceless "p." A process I think you can sorta track through the older Chinese transliterations of Kampuchea 究不事 and 甘勃智, although I don't believe anyone has looked at this. And complicated by the fact that Kampuchea is itself a borrowing from the Indo-European Sanskrit, and not actually native to to the Austroasiatic Khmer language. (i.e. people sometimes just pronounce loanwords differently)<br /><br />I'm not as familiar with the other Middle Chinese sound changes, but I think, at this point, my armchair deduction suggests that I was wrong about Techew, and 柬埔寨 is likely from Middle Khmer by way of Middle Chinese.Lirielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04850771857456524359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-39839074762708773612020-11-21T01:18:30.386-08:002020-11-21T01:18:30.386-08:00I just asked my local friend from 浙江 how he pronou...I just asked my local friend from 浙江 how he pronounces Cambodia in his language and it almost matches the modern Khmer pronunciation. If purely based on phonetic similarity, his dialect is the closest no doubt. Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-3053879987974011332020-11-21T01:01:11.876-08:002020-11-21T01:01:11.876-08:00Sweden:
Same as Venezuela.
Portugal:
I agree. T...Sweden:<br /><br />Same as Venezuela.<br /><br />Portugal:<br /><br />I agree. This seems to come from Cantonese. Although, who knows what the pronunciation of Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka and Hokkien was at the time when the Portuguese first came to China and how Portuguese themselves pronounced 'Portugal' at that time (different dialects in Portugal pronounce it differently maybe, who knows which part of Portugal was represented in China most at that time) and how many Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese etc. lived in Portugal and who was the first to say the then-word for Portugal in a Chinese language and made everyone else adopt it. <br /><br />Cantonese: pou4 tou4 ngaa4<br />Hokkien: phû tô gâ<br />Hakka: p’u2 t’au2 nga2<br />Middle Chinese: bho dhɑu nga<br /><br />Timor-Leste:<br /><br />Here I don't know why you think Cantonese is the probable source to be honest.<br /><br />Cantonese: 东 dai3 man4<br />Hokkien: 东 tè men<br />Hakka: 东 ti5 wun3<br />Middle Chinese: 东 dèi miə̀n<br /><br />Why would you create a sub- category for names of countries with historical ties to China?Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-11464674281755290702020-11-21T01:00:46.553-08:002020-11-21T01:00:46.553-08:00Hello. Thank you for the interesting comment. Righ...Hello. Thank you for the interesting comment. Right off the bat, my trying to figure out the etymology of these countries took about an hour and I consulted exactly one friend from Taiwan so I'm certainly no expert:) The Taiwan-bias was not intentional.<br /><br />I did some research on Cambodia, Sweden, Portugal, Timor-Leste and Venezuela just now and here's what I think:<br /><br />The phonetic similarity of the contemporary name of the country (English or native) and the contemporary pronunciation in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien or Hakka (or any Chinese language) is insufficient in determining which Chinese language the name actually comes from. <br /><br />It's essential to know, who actually started using the specific Chinese characters for the name of the country first caused wide-spread adoption, which is objectively a difficult thing to do.<br /><br />Example:<br /><br />The contemporary Hakka pronunciation of Cambodia seems much closer to the contemporary Khmer pronunciation of Cambodia than the one of Cantonese:<br /><br />Khmer: Kam pu ča<br />Cantonese: gaan2 bou3 zaai6<br />Hakka: kan3 pu1 tsai5<br /><br />Hokkien: kán poo tsē<br />Middle Chinese: gɛ̌n* biǒ* sək*/sə̀i*<br /><br />Does that mean that the Hakka were the first to use this name and everyone else adopted it from them? Probably not, as you pointed out: "Not many Chinese-Cambodians were Hokkien, even at their height, they were probably <10% of the Chinese-Cambodian population." I would imagine Hakka was even less than 10%. <br /><br />But then if you consider this, why say 委內瑞拉 comes from Cantonese too? <br /><br />Venezuela:<br /><br />The Cantonese pronunciation of Venezuela is much closer to the name 'Venezuela' than the Hokkien one I agree, but does this mean that it was actually the Cantonese speaking folk who used the name first and everyone else adopted it? <br /><br />I don't know a lot about Sino-Venezuelan relations, but to me they seem quite young in time, as the name 'Venezuela' itself is, and I feel like the name choice 委內瑞拉 is quite young too. Maybe the name was invented by some Mandarin official and when 委內瑞拉 pronounced in Cantonese, it just so happens that the syllables in Cantonese better match the syllables in 'Venezuela' than the Mandarin ones do. <br /><br />Maybe the basis for Venezuela was 委內瑞拉 in Mandarin and other Chinese languages just adopted it.<br /><br />But then again why use 委內瑞拉 if you could use 委內雪拉 in Mandarin and sound better instead for example. I don't know. Cantonese sounds more plausible as a basis, but since Sino-Venezuelan relations are so recent, there is a strong argument against it too. But then again, I know nothing about Sino-Venezuelan relations.<br /><br />What was the Cantonese speaking population in Venezuela compared to the Mandarin speaking population in Venezuela when the name was first used? Is this even crucial to determine how the name 委內瑞拉 came about? For instance:<br /><br />There are about 300 Chinese people in Slovakia, most of them from 浙江。 The name for Slovakia in Mandarin is 斯洛伐克。 Was the name 斯洛伐克 invented by Chinese living in Slovakia or by Mandarin speaking officials in China looking at the English name? The Mandarin speaking population in Slovakia is not relevant at all in this case. I feel like historically there were also many more speakers from 浙江 in Slovakia and Czechoslovakia than Mandarin speakers, yet I still feel 斯洛伐克 was an arbitrary name given to us by a Chinese official in China looking at the English name of Slovakia. Slovakia in Slovak is Slovensko by the way. Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-73592253418555565152020-11-20T19:09:42.881-08:002020-11-20T19:09:42.881-08:00Hi there! Your list is a great cheat sheet! But I ...Hi there! Your list is a great cheat sheet! But I just wanted to mention that you may have a tendency (that many folks who spend time in Taiwan have) to overestimate the influence of Hokkien, which is evidenced in your "Name type" column. Many of these are not actually from Hokkien. A good example is Cambodia. The Chinese name for Cambodia is not from Hokkien, it's from Teochew. <br />1) Not many Chinese-Cambodians were Hokkien, even at their height, they were probably <10% of the Chinese-Cambodian population.<br />2) Linguistically, Hokkien is just not a great fit. For instance, an alternate name for Cambodia is 高棉, which is related to the endonym Khmer. The Hokkien pronunciation for 高棉 is something like ko-bian, whereas the Teochew pronunciation is something like kao-miang, which, obviously, preserves M in the original Khmer. <br /><br />Similarly, Venezuela, Sweden, Portugal, Timor Leste are almost certainly from Cantonese. <br /><br />Also, I would propose that there is a significant subcategory of category 1 (names with meanings), which is names of countries with historical ties to China, which is where you will find the origin for names like 朝鮮、韓國、日本、越南Lirielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04850771857456524359noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-64721183732883464852019-05-22T00:14:40.591-07:002019-05-22T00:14:40.591-07:00Thank you.Thank you.Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-71425480578966840252019-05-21T20:09:55.908-07:002019-05-21T20:09:55.908-07:00This is awesome. 你也是很好看啊!
This is awesome. 你也是很好看啊!<br />ASWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10529382171693279985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-50252342648377681302017-12-30T14:32:07.589-08:002017-12-30T14:32:07.589-08:00Very helpful! Thanks a lot.
:)Very helpful! Thanks a lot. <br />:)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-47216790990224396732017-11-15T02:50:30.313-08:002017-11-15T02:50:30.313-08:00Vladimir,
A fine and useful list. Thank you!Vladimir,<br /> <br />A fine and useful list. Thank you!DavidLJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04477517602668340521noreply@blogger.com