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Abe’s New Word Order

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Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#31

Post by thaumasiotes »

twic wrote: post #24
roenxi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. I suppose this sort of thing instantly confuses me - why aren't we already calling the city München if that is what the Germans are doing?

Exonymy. Here's a lightweight survey of it in Europe: https://www.citymetric.com/horizons/which-european-cities-ha... One fun fact in there: there's a town in Bulgaria called Plovdiv, but the Italians call it Philipoppoli - and they've been calling it that since long, long before it was called Plovdiv!

> but the Italians call it Philipoppoli

Judging by Italian wikipedia, Filippopoli, which makes much more etymological sense.

I wonder what the Italians think of this:

> The city has historically developed on seven syenite hills, some of which are 250 metres (820 feet) high. Because of these hills, Plovdiv is often referred to in Bulgaria as "The City of the Seven Hills".

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#32

Post by spats1990 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #30
spats1990 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's a pretty random tossup between someone introducing themselves in family name first order or family name last order, even when speaking Japanese. Same in Korea, except in Korean it's fairly rare to use "you" as a mode of address and everybody has a title or family term of some kind so you can often get away with outright forgetting/never learning somebody's actual given name. But if I fill out a form or somethin…

> the Olympic system, as far as I remember, capitalises family names. I know this is the norm for France and I vaguely believe it's normal in Europe more broadly. And I have to admit, capitalizing the surname makes it clear which name it is, regardless of ordering issues.

>I know this is the norm for France and I vaguely believe it's normal in Europe more broadly.

Is it! OK, then I more or less retract that dumb speculation /implication about the olympics (except that it makes more sense given that this capitalisation system is also used in Europe, I had never seen it outside the Olympics). Thank you.

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#33

Post by thaumasiotes »

oddeyed wrote: post #4
ginko wrote: post #3

Isn't this essentially telling other languages how they're supposed to work?

I don't really think so - I think it's more about asserting that the name ordering does hold meaningful and legitimate significance for people who are native Japanese. For comparison, consider the loan word in English, "Sushi". No one in English would consider calling it by the name "Raw Fish and Rice" because the term "Sushi" implies a specific cultural context and carries the connection to Japan, Japanese culture a…

> By comparison, at the moment, East Asian people typically re-order their names to fit Western norms in Western contexts, which by the the opposite token implies that the name ordering isn't that important, and doesn't carry any significance to the person who wears the name.

As mentioned in the article, only the Japanese do this. (Well, Hungarians do too, but they're not even West Asian.) East Asians except for the Japanese do not reorder their names. Normal practice for a Chinese person would be to use an English name in English contexts.

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#34

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

chownie wrote: post #23
roenxi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. I suppose this sort of thing instantly confuses me - why aren't we already calling the city München if that is what the Germans are doing?

Part of it is that language diverged, but it's also because if you're in country X talking about country Y and you have a long enough history you'll have a word in language X for country Y. I recall a story but I'm not sure of its authenticity, it described western traders asking portuguese translators to give them the pronunciation of 日本 (Nihon/Nippon the native word for Japan). The PT translators interpreted the ch…

Not Mandarin, but some unspecified southern dialect (probably Fujianese/Hokkien, where it's Jitpun).

If Mandarin had been involved, we'd call Japan something like Arben (Riben) in English.

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#35

Post by yorwba »

chownie wrote: post #23
roenxi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. I suppose this sort of thing instantly confuses me - why aren't we already calling the city München if that is what the Germans are doing?

Part of it is that language diverged, but it's also because if you're in country X talking about country Y and you have a long enough history you'll have a word in language X for country Y. I recall a story but I'm not sure of its authenticity, it described western traders asking portuguese translators to give them the pronunciation of 日本 (Nihon/Nippon the native word for Japan). The PT translators interpreted the ch…

The reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciation for 日本 is /ȵiɪt̚ puən/. In some languages, such as Japanese, the ȵ became an n. In others, such as Mandarin, it denasalized to a fricative like ʐ̩ instead. The etymology for English "Japan" /dʒəˈpæn/ is apparently Portuguese "Japão" /ʒɐ.ˈpɐ̃w̃/ via Malay "Jepun" /d͡ʒəpon/, via Min Nan 日本 (Ji̍t-pún) /ʑit̚⁴⁻³² pun⁴¹/ which itself is probably a loan (using Min readings of the characters), since the Min languages split off the Chinese branch before 日本 came to be used for Japan.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC#Pronunciat...

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#36

Post by Freak_NL »

spats1990 wrote: post #28
Freak_NL wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> […] canonical hangul version of foreigners' names […] Like a list of names with their Hangul version? The problem is that you can't know how someone's name is pronounced for sure. In Japanese I provide the katakana reading for my name myself, because the chance of meeting a native Japanese speaker who can correctly derive the reading of my Dutch name in katakana is remote. Fortunately, in Japan it is already custom…

>Like a list of names with their Hangul version? The problem is that you can't know how someone's name is pronounced for sure. Just how their name would be said if written in hangul. Ideal but unlikely: let the person choose themselves, with assistance. Much more likely but acceptable: some government clerk decides. The important/useful thing would be to have a hangul version set officially and not have multiple vers…

> Do you find that the katakana approximates the native pronunciation of your name well?

Nope. That is a linguistic impossibility; mostly due to the lack of the schwa vowel (ə) in Japanese (Korean does have that, so my name is easier in hangul as far as vowels are concerned).

The katakana do approach it tolerably, and it is in essence my name when speaking Japanese.

With katakana and hangul it is always a matter of compromising in one direction or another. If you have a very common name there will be common transcriptions that most people will stick to, but you can't prepare a list of all foreign names in the world, so inevitably two people will prefer different compromises, especially if they are fluent in that language.

Personally, I would be very much miffed if someone forces a specific katakana reading of my given and family name on me. That actually happened once when I was in Japan as an exchange student at Rikkyō University. I don't normally use my second given name, so on one of the numerous forms that inevitably end up in front of you in Japan someone added their own interpretation of how that would sound in katakana. Some college administrative worker took the katakana provided in earlier communication for my first given name and family name and made up their own attempt based on how my second given name might be read in English (I'm Dutch). I was not amused.

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#37

Post by draw_down »

loriverkutya wrote: post #16

When you are Hungarian, Japanese names gets really really complicated if you want to figure out, which one is the surname: "In Hungarian, the Eastern order of Japanese names is officially kept and Hungarian transliteration is used (e.g. Mijazaki Hajao), but Western name order is also sometimes used with English transliteration (e.g. Hayao Miyazaki)." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_name#Name_order

All-caps seems like a good way to disambiguate

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#38

Post by oarsinsync »

spats1990 wrote: post #32
thaumasiotes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Olympic system, as far as I remember, capitalises family names. I know this is the norm for France and I vaguely believe it's normal in Europe more broadly. And I have to admit, capitalizing the surname makes it clear which name it is, regardless of ordering issues.

>I know this is the norm for France and I vaguely believe it's normal in Europe more broadly. Is it! OK, then I more or less retract that dumb speculation /implication about the olympics (except that it makes more sense given that this capitalisation system is also used in Europe, I had never seen it outside the Olympics). Thank you.

The French are the only Europeans I know that do this. I wish more did. (I'm not French)

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#39

Post by GuiA »

gumby wrote: post #5
ginko wrote: post #3

Isn't this essentially telling other languages how they're supposed to work?

Well it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. In Malaysia "Datuk" is used as a combined honorific with a name when speaking otherwise completely idiomatic English rather than being translated into "Sir So-and-so" It's not really differe…

> Unaddressed in the essay is how the construct SURNAME given_name (e.g. BREL Jaques) is quite common in countries like France -- not used in social conversation but in all official contexts including work and school

Pointing that it’s common in other cultures weakens the article’s argument that “East Asians put their family name first because family affiliation was traditionally the most important information about a person, the individual identity coming second.”

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