Peculiarities of Trilingual Names in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ค. 2024
- In English, we tend to pronounce names the way that a person chooses to pronounce it themselves. How are there any other options? In East Asia, the most standard approach of some language pairs among Chinese, Japanese and Korean is completely different.
This video gives some background on how these three languages are written and pronounced, and then explains the interesting and perhaps puzzling way that names are translated between them. In doing so, we will learn a bit about not just the linguistics, but also the societies and histories of the countries where these languages are spoken.
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0:00 Introduction
1:14 Primer to Japanese, Korean and Chinese
3:19 Translation of names between these languages
6:24 A brief history of Korean names in Japanese and the Zainichi Koreans
7:17 An interesting case in Japanese
The survey of Chinese foreign exchange students (In Japanese):
ir.lib.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/file...
Clips of Zainichi Koreans is from his video:
• Going Global(Ep.90) Th...
My information about Zainichi Koreans and further reading is available here:
Lie, John. Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity. Vol. 8. Univ of California Press, 2008.
More reading:
Pae, Hye K. “Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Writing Systems: All East-Asian but Different Scripts.” In Script Effects as the Hidden Drive of the Mind, Cognition, and Culture, edited by Hye K. Pae, 71-105. Literacy Studies. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-551....
Schreiber, Mark. “A Call to End Confusion over Foreign Names | The Japan Times.” Accessed November 18, 2020. www.japantimes.co.jp/life/201....
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As late as 19th century, Europeans were still modifying their names in different languages. Karl Marx was referred to as Carlos Marx in Spanish and as Charles Marx in French (and possibly in English).
That reminds me of Marie Antoinette from Maria Antonia
It's less common but people still do it today for ease of use.
In English it's just Karl, potentially owing to the fact the identically pronounced Carl is a name in the language so it's fairly unconfusing.
Karl Marx was the librarian in Oxford Library
people called him just Karl Marx in the UK
@@sremagamersThere's enough historical figures, called Charles in English and Karl in German. Interestingly enough, that just seemed to stop with Monarchs since the twentieth century.
There's a similar thing with the science fiction author Isaac Asimov, who was born in Russia and raised in the United States. His Russian name at birth was Исаак Азимов (Isaak Azimov), but of course in the US he called himself Isaac with the usual English-language pronunciation. When his books were translated into Russian, his name was written Айзек Азимов (Ayzek Azimov), reflecting the English pronunciation of his name.
Similarly, he was born with the Yiddish/Hebrew name יצחק (Yitzchak), but I'm fairly certain in Israel they spell his name אייזק (Aizek).
So interesting, thank you!
阿西莫夫
Interesting. In Serbian we call him Isak Asimov. We also call Weird Al Yankovic "Čudni Al Janković", since he has a Serbian family name.
Cool trivia
Not only does Mandarin render Japanese and Korean names using the reading based on the Chinese character, but this is also the case for all of Chinese, no matter if it's Cantonese, Hakka, Wu, Hokkien, Teochew, etc. In fact, within Chinese itself, we would render the names of other Chinese people based on how the characters are read in the language that we speaking and not in whatever language these people are native in.
It's weird to think about. It's as though when we are given a Chinese name, we are only given the characters for that name, but the pronunciation for the most part cannot be claimed.
I mean if you read Benedict Anderson's Immagined Communities, he basically talks about how commonly shared characters and words spoken by people with different dialect connect people over different places and forms the concept of national identity
that sums it up pretty much perfectly. Chinese characters were invented thousands of years ago as a way to unite people who spoke different languages. As the chinese dynasties exapanded and solidified their power, the only thing remaining of the other languages spoken in china is their different pronounciations
@@joshuamason2227
And the other various dialects and languages can be quite interesting
It's the same for Arabic. If MSA wasn't necessary for learning the Quran and other things like that, the various Arabic dialects woulda been considered their own languages by now.
For Westerners who find it hard to understand: imagine you live in the UK and your English name is pronuonced in 50 different heavy accents with people form different part of the UK. You wouldn't mind your name being pronounced with an accent would you? Now amplify the accents like 100x so that now they sound completely different languages, but still because you guy write in the same way, somehow you guys still regard those 50 different languages as one language, just different ways to speak it, and that is how the Chinese languages work.
The weird thing about the Chinese people is that we tend to think of the written word as the timeless original whereas our spoken speech as the copy, as mere representation of something more authentic and universal. That's because the Chinese still regard ourselves as one people with one shared history despite our language has diversified so much over the past 3000 years, and it is our written words instead of our spoken speech that is closer to the root of our heritage. Just 150 years ago the educated Chinese and the educated Japanese can actually communicate very well as long as they have a pen and a piece of paper every though they wouldn't understand the other person's speech. And the same thing applies to inter-province communication in China for thousands of years before mandarin is popularised via modern education. It was because of how the Chinese character could have a life independent of the spoken language, China could be held together by a centralised government for such a huge country for so many centuries.
As for Vietnamese people, we pronounce Chinese names using the Hán Việt pronounciation of Chinese characters, like Xi Jinping is Tập Cận Bình. For Japanese and Korean names, we mostly use the transliteration like how English people call them. There are notable exceptions though, like old leaders such as Kim Nhật Thành instead of Kim Il-sung and Minh Trị instead of Meiji
I believe Kim Chinh Nhat is Kim Jung-il and not his father tho
@@georgedavis7741 Thank you I mixed it up. Edited it
Japanese names are a bit complicated bc they don’t follow the Sinoxenic model for names. It’s not one-character surname + plus two-character given name. Rather, most Japanese surnames are native (using kun-yomi/native pronunciation) and not Chinese-derived, thus don’t fall under same umbrella as Kim, Wang, or Nguyen. Not to mention, Japanese surnames (which are native) commonly have two characters and of course, read in native Japanese bc they’re descriptive names for where people/families are from (Takahashi, “high bridge”). For men, they tend to have Sino-Japanese given names (Ichirō), and women the native (Haruka).
@@tideghosta lot of these names we just do what the commenter metioned so yeah!
For Taiwanese people it’s very cool that Han Viet is very familiar to us!
Translating names happens a lot in Bible translations. For example, the Hebrew name Yohanan becomes John in English, Juan in Spanish, Jean in French, and Giovanni in Italian. This was a common thing in early Western society, even outside the Bible. For example, John Calvin's real name is Jehan Cauvin.
Omg now i finally know why John in Chinese is pronounced "Yue Han"......
yeah, people would latinise their names in writing, delatinise them
Decartes, would be known as Renatus Cartesius
in my language, i call Columbus 'Cristofor Columb'
in his home in Genoa (Genova in italian Zêna in Ligurian), he was known as Cristoforo Colombo, and to the spanish king he was known as Cristóbal Colón
Columbus in english is taken from his latinised name, but in latin he wrote his first name as Christophorus
there's tons of examples of people messing with their names and finding alternatives and tweaking them
It happens with royals too. Prince William is called Guillermo in Spanish.
Saints and popes too (Saint Francis San Francisco) (Saint Anthony San Antonio) (Saint Didacus San Diego) (Saint Hyacinth San Jacinto) (Saint Lawrence San Lorenzo)
Japanese bible
Jesus Christ=Iesu Kirisuto(イエス・キリスト)
John=Yohane(ヨハネ)
Mark=Maruko(マルコ)
Matthew=Matai(マタイ)
Joseph=Yosehu(ヨセフ)
Luke=Ruka(ルカ)
James=Yakobu(ヤコブ)
Philip=Piripo(ピリポ)
etc.
There is no difference between L and R in Japanese, but I think the Japanese version is similar to Hebrew.
As a Chinese speaker it’s extremely hard for me to mention a Korean or Japanese name while talk to a westerner(about historical things usually)due to the reason mentioned in this excellent video..... I can only pronounce the names in Hanja read in Chinese most times so the Europeans were confused as they don’t know who I am referring to.
Fun fact: Chinese translate the common English name "John" as "约翰", pronounced as "YueHan", similar to it's Hebrew origin "Yôḥānān", rather than it's English reading
Mandarin also translated Sweden as 瑞典 (Ruì Diân) perhaps because its following Hokkien transliteration instead, where 瑞 is pronounced as 'Swèe' instead of Ruì
also for Greece, chinese calls it XiLa which is closer to its actual name.
Consequence of Christian missionaries being the first translators
There are also examples of the opposite, for example Jupiter is translated with the English reading rather than how it was said in Latin
@@YJSP893it comes from its actual name Hellas, but transcribed with the Cantonese pronunciation Heilap. Then the same characters were pronounced in Mandarin as Xila.
Watching figure skating events and competitions while living in Japan, I noticed that NHK usually calls Chinese skaters with the Japanese pronunciation of their name characters, while the other channels write their names in katakana and call them with their Chinese pronunciation (which is totally confusing, I never know who they're talking about 😂)
IIRC _kanji_ is a subset of Chinese's characters, so if the skater's name uses characters present in Chinese but absent in _kanji_ , then I guess you have to use _katakana_
@@lzh4950 yes, some Chinese Kanji are not used in Japanese, but in this case, all the skaters, regardless of whether their name characters are used in Japanese or not, are called one way on the NHK and the other on the other channels.
For example, 闫涵 is written 閻 涵 and called En Kan (with the Japanese pronunciation) on the NHK, and written ヤンハン pronounced Yan Han (in katakana) on the other channels. Same for 金 博洋 Kin Hakuyo on the NHK, Jin Boyang on the other channels.
@@lzh4950 There are no characters absent in Japanese, the difference is that both countries have different simplification systems, the Japanese only adopted old style simplifications that have been used for centuries and they only adopted a handful of new simplifications, the Mainland Chinese adopted a lot of newly created simplifications, but the underlying traditional characters are the same.
@@-haclong2366 he’s probably referring to kanji that aren’t used outside of being loan characters for Chinese words, like 闫 that the other reply mentioned.
@@lzh4950Kanji is just the Japanese word for Chinese characters. There are a few that are used in China that don't have any equivalent in Japan, but it would still be kanji. Maybe "seiji" (正字) is the word you want.
Attempting to read Chinese/Japanese names in their native pronunciation and not the Koreanized version of these Chinese characters is a relatively recent development, it seems. For example, almost all Koreans write Xi Jinping as 시진핑 (Shi Jin-ping). But when it comes to older Chinese people such as Mao Zedong, while a majority of Koreans transcribe his name as 마오쩌둥 (Mao Jjeodung), a lot of people (especially older people) read his name out as 모택동 (Mo Taek-dong), which is how Koreans would read the Chinese characters that make up Mao's name. And for basically every Chinese person that was born before the 1800s such as Confucius (Gonja instead of Kongjeu) or Liu Bei (Yubi instead of Riu Bei) or any of their emperors, Korea almost exclusively uses the Koreanized version of the Chinese characters for their names. This goes for place names as well, such as calling Beijing both 북경 (Buk-gyeong) and 베이징 (Be-i-jing). While the latter is more common these days, the former is still used, and even more commonly when talking about pre-modern Beijing specifically. Koreans also use both 대만 (Dae-man) and 타이완 (Taiwan) to refer to Taiwan.
This seems to be true for how Koreans used to treat Japenese words as well. While it is much more common to use the Japanese pronunciation to transcribe Japanese names with Chinese origin, people sometimes still use Koreanized version of Japanese names in certain specific instances. For example, people will use both 대마도 (Daemado) and 쓰시마 (Sseushima) when talking about Tsushima (I actually used to think they were two different islands when I was a kid). Hokkaido is both referred to as 홋까이도 (Hotkkaido) and 북해도 (Buk-hae-do). Using 도쿄 (Dokyo) for Tokyo instead of 동경 (Dong-gyeong) is much more common these days, although when talking about Tokyo University specifically people still overwhelmingly call it Dong-gyeong Uni, possibly because the university existed during the Japanese colonial era and as such a lot of Koreans wanted to attend (and did attend) Tokyo University. That's basically it for Koreanized Japanese names though, as unlike what they do for old Chinese names Koreans have almost completely switched to using Japanized pronunciations for Japanese names, even for the old ones. The only remnants of Koreanized Japanese names remain in old novels written in the early 1900s, where one time I saw a character talking about a Japanese man named 'Gil-cheon' and was confused until I later realized the name, written as 吉川 in traditional Chinese, is pronounced Yoshikawa for the Japanese.
Thanks, that is an interesting addition to the information in the video.
It coincides with Korea abandoning Hanja. The loss of Hanja means people no longer read the Hanja and Korean Orthography becomes purely phonetic. The older names still use Hanja readings because thats how Koreans came to know those places before abandoning Hanja. Newer names becomes completely phonetic because "translating" Hanja names is no longer a thing. Vietnamese has a similar development.
Japanese and Chinese dont have this issue because Hanzi/Kanji is still in use and their logographic concepts is still retained.
@@taoliu3949 That's an excellent point, and so obvious I don't know why it didn't occur to me.
@@taoliu3949 When did Korea abandon Hanja?
I've seen elementary and highschool students still taking classic literature classes in Korea that still uses Hanja.
@@_Just_Another_Guy It's still taught in school, but its use has essentially died out in everyday Korean. Mixed Script has not been a thing for decades.
Ah yes, Vietnamese is once again left out eh
Anyways here are the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation for them names:
- Xí Jìnpíng: Tập Cận Bình (習近平)
- Suga Yoshihide: Gian Nghĩa Vĩ (菅 義偉)
- Moon Jae-in: Văn Tại Dần (the letter "D" is pronounced like "Z") (文在寅)
- Kim Jong-un: Kim Chính Ân (金正恩)
For Vietnamese names, despite the French colonists forcing the decline in use of Hán tự (漢字) and Chữ Nôm (𡨸喃) from the 1920s, our way of speaking as well as how we name ourselves and other things has not changed, which means most (if not all) Vietnamese name and place name to this day could still be written using Hán tự
Hi. I do apologize for not including Vietnamese. It has every right to be included in this discussion but I didn't have the background to cover it confidently and wanted to keep this video to a certain length.
I am therefore very thankful that you are sharing your knowledge with us. You have provided a great summary to compliment what my video is missing.
I will keep an eye out for opportunities to discuss Vietnam in the future since I do agree it is missing coverage, and I am regrettably part of that. Cheers.
Chinese prounce every names of people and places in Sinosphere in the sound of 汉字, except the name of South Korea capital city Seoul. Chinese used to call it 汉城. But South Korea thought 汉城 was too Chinese and change it to 首尔。
@@leiyue1411 Exactly. Korea (or Joseon/Chosen/Triều Tiên/Chaoxian)’s capital used to bear the name Hanseong (漢城). We Vietnamese also used to call it “Hán Thành”, and it was only until the name Seoul could be written in 漢字 as 首爾 could we call them “Thủ Nhĩ”
@@f.dud4 I’m actually quite accustomed with transliterating East Asian names already and is learning Japanese atm so this is no biggie to me ^^ I could even read your name in Sino-Vietnamese: Cương Điền Tứ Vinh (岡田 四栄, Okada Yoshi ?)
@@f.dud4 Yep ^^. And in Sino-Vietnamese: Cương Điền Tứ Vinh.
Vietnamese and Koreans both also used Traditional Chinese characters from Classical Chinese, just like Japanese Kyūjitai (舊字體, Sino-Vietnamese: Cựu tự thể) characters. All of the words you have shared belongs to the Sino-Xenic vocabulary, which composes about a third of the spoken language but about ~ >60% in formal form for every East Asian language 🇨🇳🇯🇵🇻🇳🇰🇷
May I ask, is there any known famous Vietnamese person whose name is written in Kanji and is pronounced in On’yomi (Kun’yomi even)?
For instance this is my full name written in Hán tự (漢字): 陳曰 元魁
In Vietnamese: Trần Viết Nguyên Khôi
In Chinese: chen yue yuan kuai
In Japanese On’yomi: ちん えつ げん かい /chin etsu gen kai/
In Korean: jin wal won goe
I’m a native Japanese speaker. It’s sometimes frustrating when someone from western country mentioned someone from other kanji-based country with different pronunciation with western accent. 蒋介石(Jiǎng Jièshí) is pronounced Sho Kaiseki in Japan. When my western teacher mentioned him ‘Chiang Kai-shek’ and I couldn’t recognise, she was disappointed at me for ‘lack of knowledge.’
It has never happened with other fellow Asian countries because we know we have different reading systems for same kanji, so when either of us couldn’t recognise the person mentioned, we can guess that he/she is called differently.
it's a different form of romanization based on cantonese
Most Chinese leaders in The People's War Against Japanese Aggression were transliterated from Cantonese. Apart from Wang Jingwei and Mao Zedong who were traitors to the Chinese race.
It does happen with Vietnam, since we Vietnamese call Chiang Kai-shek as Tưởng Giới Thạch (トゥオン・ゾイ・タイク). Until now, Vietnamese media still mention Chinese figures in Vietnamese pronunciation, such as Xi Jinping as Tập Cận Bình (タップ・カン・ビン), Li Keqiang as Lý Khắc Cường (リー・カク・クオン), Hua Chunying as Hoa Xuân Oánh (ホア・スアン・オアイン)
I was also imagining how Japanese might pronounce names from other languages:
Gangnam 江南 -> Oeminami?
Qingdao 青岛 -> Aoshima/Aojima?
Guangxi 广/廣西 -> Hironishi?
Insein (also written as 水盛 in Chinese) -> Mizumori?
Hekou 河口 -> Kawaguchi?
Surabaya (also written as 泗水 in Chinese) -> Shimizu?
@@lzh4950 Some are pronounced in Mandarin or Hanja'eo 한자어 pronunciation, like Gangnam is "Kannamu", Qingdao is "Chintao". Some are pronounce in onyomi, like Guangxi is "Kousei", Hekou is "Kakou",...
As a Pole, let me tell you, translating names to their equivalent in the language of the person you're speaking to was perfectly normal as little as two centuries ago, and to a degree still occurs nowadays. Like, a Germant migrant to XIXth century Warsaw would call himself "Hans" in his own home, but become "Jan" while speaking to his Polish neighbour. Nowadays, this Pedro guy you speak of would generally be called "Pedro", but once he becomes friends with people, they will likely start calling him by the local diminutive form of the name, "Piotrek".
Maybe this is made to adapt names to a language's alphabet and grammar rules such as declensions, in Icelandic there are strict laws about first names, that have to fit Icelandic standards
@@Tavoshel To a degree, yes. For example, every single Iranian-Polish couple will name their first son Dariusz, simply because it's a name common in both languages and pronunced exactly the same as well.
Though in the specific example of Pedro, there is no problem with declension.
Jan is an interesting case for a personal name, as in some nations (e.g., Nederland) it's considered a man's name, but in the US (but said differently) it's a woman's name. And Mika is a man's name in Finland, but a woman's name in Japan.
"and to a degree still occurs nowadays."
Absolutely. I am Dutch but spend most of the time in Germany. When I introduce myself there I use German "Gerhard" as my first name instead of Dutch "Gerard", which is easier for everyone (the pronunciation difference is much bigger than the spelling suggests).
It's fairly common to polonize names of famous eastern european folks, like Володимир Зеленський (Volodymyr Zelensky) exists in Poland both as Wołodymyr Zełeński and Włodzimierz Żeleński.
I remember that in Joseon dynasty, Toyotomi hideyoshi was read as pungsinsugil(풍신수길), which doesn't resemble the Japanese pronunciation at all. It seems in the past, Japanese names were read in Sino-Korean pronunciation.
Super interesting. Thanks for sharing this, all the results I can find on it online are in Korean so there's basically no way I would have learned about this myself.
yeah honestly it should be... Korean language does have a pool of sino-Korean vocabs especially for names.
edit: on second thought, it shouldn't be. some Japanese names only use Kanji for its meaning but the name is pronounced in indigenous pronunciation, for example, 鳥山明Toriyama Akira... some use kanji as transliteration, purely for its pronunciation, 安倍/阿部 Abe... Korean language may or may not have a sino-korean loan word for those and it won't be meaningful either (Abe is a good example. it appears what kanji it uses did not really bother ancient Japanese that much. they were simply pursuing the formality of a name written in Kanji. it is also evident that abe is an ancient aristocratic name, unlike 齋藤，村上，鳥山，福山，which are literally made-up names from 1860s with its meaning matching perfectly with Kanji in spite of arbitrary pronunciations
Back then, the written lingua franca of East Asia was Classical Chinese used by China, Korea, and Japan. They could read each other’s letters, but not pronounce it in the same way.
Sino Korean pronunciation for Japanese names continued to be used up until super recently. Take the example of the colonial era Linguist Ogura Shinpei (小倉進平), known in Korean both as 오구라 신페이 (phonetic) and 소창신평 (Sino-Korean)
@sunny sunnyday no its not. Korean pronunciation is derived from (a) medieval variety(ies) not a modern variety. you can tell this because Korean keeps distinctions that are lost in all modern varieties but historically recorded, like chongniu.
And in north korea, xijinping is read as seubgeunpyeong(습근평).
Thank you for this too. I was treating the North and South dialects as being the same for the purpose of this video. I knew there were differences, for example with loan words, but didn't know how these differences would apply to names. North Korea using Sino-Korean readings makes sense to me, it seems to be a more traditional approach than phonetic transcription and reflects the approach used by the PRC, their closest ally.
You specifically excluded Vietnamese from the video, I think the tldr is that many Chinese people and places are still referred to by their Han Nom readings, including Xi Jinping (Tập Cận Bình). However many names which were formerly based off of Han Nom readings have been replaced, for examples 香港, formerly Hương Cảng but is more often now just Hồng Kông.
in wu chinese：xijinping is read as jet gin bin（bieng）
I've always found it very natural to translate names when possible instead of transcribing them. I'm part of a ethnoreligious group called Russian Mennonites and they have a long history of moving from country to country due to various circumstances. Because of this, they have taken up the practice of translating their names to the language of the country they are in instead of pronouncing them in a way that is awkward or difficult for the natives. So, Nathan becomes Natán, Paul becomes Pablo, Albert becomes Alberto, Elizabeth becomes Elisa, etc. As I grew up I had to learn that some people find it offensive if you change their name or pronounce it in the way that is most comfortable according to the language you are speaking. Nowadays, I can understand both sides of the argument and try to accomodate to a person's personal preference.
My name is David. In my lifetime, I have been addressed as Dafydd (Welsh), Davide (Italian) Da'ud (Arabic) etc. Each time, I took it as a friendly compliment.
Also a Mennonite, & I never really noticed this, but you're right. My name & most of my siblings' names are the same in English & Plautdietsch, but some of my cousins have different names depending on language, like Peter when being referred to in English vs. Peeter (/pɔjta/ poy-taa) when being referred to in Plautdietsch
A little anecdote about Russian names here. Katherine the Great’s name in Russian is Екатерина (Yekaterina). In Mandarin, we call her 叶卡捷琳娜 (ye ka jie lin na), which is based on her Russian name instead of the English version of that name. After moving to the West, I became very confused why people called her “Catherine”.
A possible western parallel could be something like the Pope's name in different European languages. Eg. Pope Francis becomes Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco; Spanish: Francisco, French: François, etc..
Vietnamese : Phanxicô
That's how European names have been used for over a thousand years, it's only during the late 19th century that we started to translate names less.
City names are a more obvious example to me
@@KriaeNow that you mention cities it makes sense to me (as a Finn) because in Finland some people speak Swedish, many cities have two names: a Finnish and a Swedish one
like:
🇫🇮 Helsinki
🇸🇪 Helsingfors
🇫🇮 Turku
🇸🇪 Åbo
🇫🇮 Lappeenranta
🇸🇪 Villmanstrand
and maaaaaany many more
I'm an Australian by the name of Frank, short for Francis. Named after my Irish grandfather. I've had a couple of Italian coworkers who've called me cheech, a nickname for Francesco. Because most "Franks" they know have been Italians called Francesco hahaha
As an international student in Taiwan, I've accepted that 宮崎駿 (gōng qí jùn - Hayao Miyazaki) is the only Japanese name that I'll ever be able to understand in spoken Chinese!
As a Japanese, I can understand where that pronunciation came from. Makes total sense. I still would have a hard time guessing who that was, though.
Here are possible pronunciations used for these characters in Japanese.
宮-miya, kyuu, guu, ku
崎-saki, zaki, ge, ki, i
駿-hayao, shyun, sun, sugu(reru)
TIL Hayao Miyazaki has the same given name as me. What's interesting is 駿 has a Japanese pronunciation "Shun" that is much closer to Jùn phonetically, but has multiple readings that differ wildly, including Hayao.
For Korean native speakers reading Chinese people's names is divided roughly across the Chinese Republican Revolution in 1911. The revolution itself is written and pronounced in Koreanized Han Characters: "신해(辛亥)" or Shinhae. People before 1911 are referred to with their Koreanized pronounciation, example being Liu Bei(유비, sounds like Yuu bee) or Zhuge Liang(제갈량, sounds like Jegal Ryang) from 3rd century China. People after mid to late 1900s are mostly called in their modern Chinese pronounciation: example being Xi Jinping. The year 1911 is a rule of thumb but there is a fuzzy interval of transition that spans decades around the year. People like Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek, or Sun Yat-sen are fifty-fifty between aforementioned modern Chinese pronounciations and their Koreanized "Mo Taekdong", "Jang Gaeseok", and "Son Mun". For this wide transition period and even beyond, *the choice is usually decided on a level of individual Korean speakers and their familarity to Han Characters.*
This is well shown in a recent Korean movie Noryang. you can see Joseon era Koreans pronounce Konishi Yukinaga as "Soseo Haengjang" (a Koreanized pronounciation of four Han Characters 小西行長). Moreover, admiral Yi is shown having a direct conversation with generals from Ming China without a translator, by writing sentences in Han Characters on a paper. This practice is known as conversing with a pen. This word is pildam in Korean but for Chinese and Japanese they have their own way of saying the same word 筆談 in their languages. They won't understand me if I asked them "pildam ganeung?", but they will nod their heads and take out their pens if I wrote letters "筆談可能?" on a piece of paper or a smartphone screen.
how to pronounce 加藤清正
To me Chinese pronunciation of the Japanese name is more poetic and beautiful. The actual English/Japanese pronunciation if directly pronounced in Chinese is too long and confusing.
in chinese, 筆談可能 is pronounced "bitan keneng"
@@boringpunk1816 That can be pronounced 가토 기요마사(Gato Giyomasa) generally. However, older generation pronounced 가등청정(Gadeung Cheongjeong).
5:01 This is correct for names of all currently-living people. However, the official guideline is, for Chinese people before "1911 revolution", to read their name in Korean pronunciation. For instance, Liu Bei is read as Yu Bi in Korean. Primarily because we have been reading their name traditionally as such, but also note that the Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters reflect the ancient Chinese pronunciation when it was imported.
On the other hand, we rarely read their name in Korean pronunciations for Japanese names, primarily because they have multiple pronunciations for a single Chinese character. Although this is not completely out of option when historic context is given. E.g., Toyotomi Hideyoshi is usually read as the Japanese pronunciation in Korea, but it is sometimes read as Pung-Shin Su-Gil to reflect how Koreans referred to him back in the days.
When it was imported, with Korea accents *
Personally speaking, I think it's really cool that my Chinese name can be translated into other East Asian languages. I happen to attend a Korean church, and at my first attendance the pastor introduced me as 하연준 (ha yeonjun), which is the hanja reading of my Chinese name 何衍俊 (hè yǎnjùn).
I don't know why, but that sounds like a smart name😏
that totally sounds like a real korean name
It's cool how in Japanese, 俊 is ”Shun" and is a relatively common boy's name. Your surname however is not common lol
@@user-em3sr1vo2n Yes, his name 'yeon' is related to divination and calculation, which gives people a very wise feeling.
@@user-em3sr1vo2n His name literally means like uh how on earth can evolve such handsomeness😊
7:17 this is actually more complicated
yes, we tend to write in katakana Nikkei names (ethnically Japanese people living outside Japan)
e. g. Michio Kaku, George Takei or Francis Fukuyama
But we DO use kanji for them when we want to emphasize that they are "Japanese."
The typical case is Naomi Osaka, a Japanese tennis player playing in USA, born to a Haitian-American father and a Japanese mother.
She somehow doesn't look like "Japanese" to boomers watching TV shows (you know Japan is a highly homogeneous society), they chose to write in kanji, not katakana 大坂なおみ
As a Nikkei person, I was told I’m not allowed to write my name in Kanji in context of Japan as I’m not a Japanese citizen. Not sure if that’s accurate but it follows your example above as Naomi Osaka is a Japanese citizen representing Japan in sports, whereas Michio Kaku, George Takei, and Francis Fukuyama are U.S. citizens.
If you go back a little bit in history, Koreans also pronounced Japanese and Chinese names in Korean pronunciation. To me, 등소평 (Deung So Pyeong) is more familiar than Deng Xiaoping, and older generation Koreans might be more used to 풍신수길 (豊臣秀吉) than Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Even now, there are cases of names being transliterated, for example in K-pop. Former members of WJSN Cheng Xiao, Xuanyi, and Meiqi were known in Korean as 성소 (Seongso), 선의 (Seoneui), and 미기 (Migi). (G)I-DLE has both in a single group. Yuqi uses 우기 (Woogi), while Shuhua keeps her Chinese pronunciation as 슈화 (Shuhwa).
Also WayV member Ten 이영흠 (李永欽)
This gets really interesting when Japanese anime is translated into Chinese. Sometimes the characters' names are transliterated into Chinese and retaining their Japanese pronunciation, other times the names would be transformed into kanji characters (or the best approximation) that would correspond to the Japanese names and read in Chinese pronunciation. Here's an example:
Naruto in Japanese is ナルト, but in Chinese is typically 鸣人 (ming ren). Same name but totally different pronunciations. Sometimes Naruto's name in Chinese is translated as 鸣门 (ming men), which goes to show how the same sounds can be written with different kanji.
On the other hand, Kakashi's name in Japanese is カカシ, and his name in Chinese is 卡卡西(ka ka xi). This is clearly a case of translating by sound. Even if "kakashi" means "scarecrow" in Japanese, his Chinese name still wouldn't be 稻草人(dao cao ren), which means the same thing.
I guess it really just depends on which name the translators think sounds the best.
Edit: corrected the translation for "kakashi."
Yes! I was going to include this sort of thing in the video but I cut it out because of time.
I think there can even be interesting cases where the Japanese name is written in Katagana or Hiragana, but is based on some rare Kanji. In Chinese, the name is rendered in corresponding Chinese characters, which can potentially excavate the meaning that was somewhat obscured in the Japanese representation.
Just wanted to add to this conversation. The anime Detective Conan (meitantei Conan) is translated as 名侦探柯南.
The meitantei part is just the Chinese reading of the kanji, whereas Conan (written in katakana) is approximated by sound as 柯南. Also, Mouri Ran (毛利 蘭) keeps the surname, but is usually referred to as 小兰/蘭. The character 小 is used as a diminutive, often used to refer to younger people, and because it IMO sounds unnatural to simply call her 兰. Ran's father (Mouri Kogoro 毛利 小五郎) keeps his name, but the Chinese reading of his name is used.
Just a question. Why is 鳴人 more popular than 鳴門? It’s really interesting cuz Naruto was based of the topping of the the same name, and that topping was based of the whirlpools of the city of Naruto in Tokushima which is written like this 鳴門. I can see how 鳴人 can be read as “Naruto” but I haven’t seen anyone use that here in Japan. Sorry for using traditional characters. My keyboard can’t type simplified characters.
@@Shanaoh Uzumaki Naruto is often known as 漩涡鸣人 in Chinese translation, that whirlpool part and the plot behind Naruto’s Uzumaki bloodline/insignia (漩涡一族/涡之国·涡潮隐村) are well understood in Chinese audiences because 漩涡 is a common Chinese word, but 鳴門の渦潮 would be too much of a reference to be put into a name of an anime character, so they just went with 鸣人, which rhymes better with his first name 漩涡 when pronounced in Chinese.
@@yuchengfu4677 Maybe because 小五郎 is a common japanese name and there's more collective experience of Chinese people seeing the name?
Also in my mind 小-name is similar to how name-ちゃん is used, and name-君 is similar to how name-くん is used. However there's a slang version of name-chan where chinese will say name-酱（jiang)
5:00 Fun fact: In some Chinese dialects 文 is pronounced as 'boon' instead. The same Chinese surname can also be spelt differently (but not necessarily pronounced differently) in different Chinese-speaking territories e.g. 谢 - 'Xie' in mainland China, 'Hsieh' in Taiwan/ROC, 'Cheah' in Malaysia, 'Chia' in Singapore; 叶 - 'Ye' in mainland China, 'Ip' in Hong Kong SAR, 'Yip' in Malaysia, 'Yap' in Singapore; 黄 - 'Huang' in mainland China, 'Huang'/'Hung' in Taiwan/ROC, 'Hung' in HK SAR, 'Ng' in Malaysia & Singapore, 'Widjaya' in Indonesia
widjaya!
The dialectic surnames doesn't work according to countries. That's false info. In Malaysia, 黄 is also common among Chinese. Some are Wong, some are Ng, some are Huang etc. Our names in IDs are only registered in abc alphabets here. It isn't just about the pronunciation of surnames.
@@ywgo0362 Some but not all surnames' spellings are country-specific
@@lzh4950 yeah that's what i meant
The difference of the spelling comes from different pronunciation of different dialects. For example, in mandarin, 黃 is pronounced and spelled as Huang or Hwang.
However, 黃 is pronounced as Ng in Taiwanese（台語、閩南語） and Hokkien（星馬地區的福建話）,so the spelling variation thus occurs.
This is such an underrated video! I saw this in my recommended a month ago and watched it. I looked it up to watch it again only to be shocked to see how few views there were! This deserves hundreds of thousands!
I really love this video! The fact that Korea, Japan, and Vietnam have this weird dynamic was mostly due to ancient Chinese cultural influences (and imperialism of course). To Mandarin speakers, characters have meanings, but the way to pronounce it matters very little. The term "Mandarin" used to refer to the governmental language-- the language officials use to conduct governmental businesses. People from all ethnic/religious backgrounds from all over the old Chinese Empires would have to speak that to become an official.
A very funny anecdote is about South Korean footballers (soccer players). We usually know how their names sound, so we can always have a "translation" of their name that is somewhat accurate. Yet, since we don’t usually know how their name is written in Chinese characters on their national ID, it would frequently get modified after the players request us to do so. A player who played for my hometown team is Kim Min-jae (김민재), who now plays for Bayern Munich. When he first arrived in Beijing, we called him 金玟载. But later on, he showed his ID to the public, and his name in Chinese became 金玟哉. The two names are pronounced almost identically.
If someone want to think how would Vietnamese just read the names, easy:
Vietnamese read Chinese names as Sino-reading because Mandarin were too many homophones, while Korean and Japanese names were read in original reading, some exception like pre Cold War Korean would read as Chinese eg. Kim Il Sung as Kim Nhật Thành, Lee Syng Man is Lý Thừa Vãn
This is also a thing in European languages, now less common but still present (see historical figures, like kings, each language has its own translated version of the royal name). But there is another important distinction. Peter and Pedro both are written in latin alphabet, no transcription is needed, so a Spaniard can read Peter with a spanish accent without any English knowledge. But Chinese/Japanese/Korean need to transcribe everything, and the common root are Chinese characters, which is why they are also used for transcription. And unlike names in alphabets, chinese characters do have a very clear meaning and is culturally important aspect of it. Nobody calls her son Peter because he wants to emphasize he has stone characteristics, but in Asian names are picked with a meaning in mind.
Korean pronounce Xi Jinping itself bc we tend to pronounce what locals do. If reading it as "Korean" Hanja style then it's pronounced 습근평(Seup geunpyeong). Suga yosihide also can be pronounced Gwan Ui Wi. :)
Meanwhile names of Indonesian Chinese are very different when pronounced in Mandarin instead of English/Bahasa/Indonesian e.g. former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahana Purnama Mandarin name is 钟万学 (zhōng wàn xué)
@@lzh4950 the Tja (modern spelling = Ca, Cahana. pronounced like 'Cha') in his name is derived from Zhong/Chung 钟. Example, if someone Chinese Indonesian has the name ".... Salim " we can guess their family name (by the word Lim) as Lin 淋 .
I think mainland China in general likes to do their own thing instead of the other's thing. Even with transcribing western names. like 爱因斯坦 or 莎士比亚 or 奥巴马
(funnily enough there's no historical proof how _exactly_ shakespeare's name is spelled too)
예전에는 그냥 한국식 한자 발음 사용했죠.. 모택동 등소평 이렇게
@@MsZscTranscribing Western names is all phonetic, theres no standard way of doing it and theyre all approximations like any other language.
For names that has a Characters associated with it, its all read in Chinese because for the Chinese, the characters are the names. If you "transcribe" it it will look completely different. The characters are what matters, pronunciation is whatever. And this applies to all Chinese, not just the mainland.
As a Chinese in Japan, I like to use Katakana transliteration of Mandarin for my name. The reason is that the Kanji sounds very strange in Japanese.
Yes and too many homophones
@@zsqduke some completely normal chinese names will sound like gibberish in Japanese
@@leezhiengidk, it would still make some sense, but it will be like Ember being transliterated into Russian as Агния
me too..... what the hell is you ei bin (my Chinese name in Japanese)...... I would rather give myself a Japanese name........
As a Chinese (not from China) who speaks Korean and a little Japanese.
I just direct translate my name base on Chinese characters to Korean characters.
Chinese and Korean names are usually 3 characters.
For translating to Japanese, the trouble is
1. not all characters in Chinese exist in Japanese.
2. sometimes a single Kanji is 2 syllables in Japanese. A Chinese name ends up sounding really weird/awful in Japanese which Japanese also recognise it as not being Japanese sounding.
3. Japanese names are typically 4 Kanji. That equals to 5 to 7 syllables.
So I prefer them to use Katakana in that sense since my Japanese literal translated name sounds awful in Japanese.
When Japanese names are read In Chinese. We can recognise it as a Japanese name. It's doesn't sound awful though. Besides its kinda cool for people to have their own "Chinese" names. Also since we can read Korean and Japanese name in Chinese. It will be weird to invent names for them when there are perfectly readable Chinese characters as compared to Western names which needs to be "invented" and still does not sound similar.
For translating Chinese to Korean, it doesn't sound weird because 1 character = 1 syllables. So if a Chinese is fluent in Korean, it is a personal choice if they want it translated phonetically or base on the korean sound of the Chinese word.
I dunno if this sounds complicated.
Chinese names are not necessarily 3 characters. Many mainland Chinese have only 2 characters, ie Li Bin where their given name is just Bin. In fact having 2 characters for their given name tends to be a more Southern Chinese trait. Also I once met a Chinese lady with the surname Wang pu, so her entire name was 4 characters!
@@silverchairsg Pardon. I said USUALLY. Southern Chinese and Taiwanese are usually 3 characters. China is big. Han Chinese. Max 4 for Han Chinese I will say. If I put in Mongolians, manchurians... The names are longer.
@@silverchairsghaving 2 or 4 character names is more recently a trend now in china. southern china does tend to have more 2 character names possibly because they dont have a tradition of naming generations according to their family records or the records and rules themselves are more uncommon across the population. but also recently more parents have been giving 3 character names to their children to mimic the rare 2 character surname or 1 character names to copy those uncommon 2 character names and because almost all family records and traditions have been lost after the communist revolution.
@@RAIJINMARU670 Interesting, I'm Chinese Singaporean and the norm is usually 3 Chinese character names + 1 English first name if the parent chooses it. Ie Lee Kuan Yew, Harry Lee Kuan Yew, or sometimes Lee Kuan Yew Harry depending on how they choose to order the official name. 2 character names are rarer and usually indicate the person is mainland Chinese. The surnames and given names can be in dialect, though given names tend to be Mandarin ones nowadays.
I’m running into a similar issue. I am American born but have a Korean name, based on hanja, as well as an American one. So, I instantly have a Chinese name just by using the Mandarin or Cantonese word whatever pronunciation instead of the Korean. But I want to use it in Japan and don’t know how it would sound to a Japanese person. Would two random kanji sound like a name? How would I pick what reading to use? It’s only two syllables total so way to short for an average Japanese name. My current solution is to take the first kanji and use a common Japanese name that is derived from it. (Masaki from “Ma(ま)”which is the Japanese pronunciation of 真 (진 or Jin in Korean). Basically, it’s very difficult to have a name that sounds good in Korean, Chinese and Japanese that maintains the same underlying meaning but it’s fun to try.
0:32 I would have to disagree with the assertion that you would be deranged to use an equivalent name. Rather, the idea of considering each name as entirely separate is an incredibly modern concept as a result, I would imagine, of the growing diversification of background of the speakers of European languages. Traditionally in European languages it was very common for one's name to be "Jan" in Poland, and "John" in England. Many German settlers followed in the same convention when moving to America, changing their names from those such as "Schmidt" to "Smith". Calling it deranged to use the native language equivalent is a narrow minded modern view.
I myself do not mind when others refer to me using an equivalent name from their own language if I am speaking to them in their language, and I know I have friends and colleagues who have deferred to using English equivalents when speaking to English speakers for the sake of ease. Perhaps this is less common over in America (because of aforementioned diversity), but I have seen this a lot in England and Europe, though mostly with names that are still reasonably similar.
I made a comment on it but same. As a Spanish speaker, this isn't uncommon to see especially here in the states.
Great video!
One correction though: In Japanese reading of Kanjis, there are usually multiple ways of Chinese-derived pronunciation (on-yomi) too. Depending on when the sounds came into Japan, we distinguish them as 漢音、呉音、and 唐音 (Kan-on, Go-on, Tou-on).
Also 慣用音 but maybe that isn't relevant to the video.
Your treatment of foreign words being translated into Chinese was quite simplistic.
There are 6 basic ways that come to mind....
1. Purely sound based: Auckland 奧克蘭
2. Sound and Meaning: "New" Zealand 新西蘭
3. Purely meaning: Dog Island 狗島
5. Inspiration: Christchurch 基督城 (lit. Christ City)
6. Simultaneous sound and meaning: Coca Cola 可口可樂 (sounds similar and also means "delicious, delightful")
But it ain't normal for people to take Chinese things seriously so your video makes sense.
& there're also translations into Chinese of names from other languages that're more closely related to Chinese I think e.g. Vientiane -> 万/萬象; Kanchanaburi -> 北碧, while I think Cambodia's name translation into Chinese derived from its older name _Kampuchea_ instead
@@lzh4950 Kampuchea has always been Cambodia's official name in its own language. Cambodia is just English name
There're also some Mandarin translations that follow how the Chinese characters are pronounced not in Mandarin, but in other Chinese dialects e.g. Sweden translates into 瑞 (pronounced as Ruì ('ray') in Mandarin but as 'swe' in Hokkien) 典 (Diǎn)
@@lzh4950I heard that in Sichuan, they also pronounce瑞 as sui
This is also done with Western names, when I went to university in Taiwan I never used my English name, but only my Chinese name, which I basically chose myself, but ideally it should resemble my name either phonetically or semantically.
Yeah Chinese exchange students I met in Germany had chosen English names.
But this wasn't easily received by Germans, who are used to maintaining the original pronunciation of foreign words and names as best as they could and generally don't use many nicknames.
yea because theres no system of transliteration for chinese its basically a free for all lol
Chinese characters were used in Korean publication in the past (Hanja). Its usage in everyday life has gradually declined, but Koreans in Korea are still required to know the Chinese characters of their names. This is why Koreans and Chinese immediately understand each other's names in writing, despite the somewhat different evolutions of pronunciation. This also applies to place names.
Even Japanese people know a Chinese person or place's name when presented in the correct context--the pronunciation differences don't matter; they see the Kanji and immediately know the thing being referenced.
This is why the three cultures have shared so much over the centuries, because the Chinese ideograms are sufficient and the specific native pronunciation doesn't really factor in when they meet (unless they are learning it as a second language).
Analogies for the sino-sphere writing system:
Japanese = Full game + DLC & Expansion
Korean = Standalone DLC/Expansion
Chinese = Vanilla Game only
Vietnam = Spin-off game based on main game but developed by different studio (cause they adopt roman alphabet)
As for Indosphere it would be one main game and then the community around it made mods for it kinda like Skyrim
Good analogies, but not 100% accurate.
The Japanese kanji is not completely the same as Chinese kanji, while kanji in Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese are not the same either.
(Japanese 広 Traditional Chinese 廣 Simplified Chinese 广)
And part of kanji is also seldom used in Japanese while still used in Chinese(虞、且、遵、但、朕、附、又etc.)
@@wfnameme6609 I agree but let me explain in context of adoption Japanese still use Kanji which is derived from Chinese character albeit different since both went separate ways but it still is Chinese character that Chinese people can catch some of it's meaning in their own way thus the main game analogy and then they also uses their own creation based on Kanji which can be analogized as DLC, Korean have Hanja but as of now it's mostly Hangul that were used as main system thus it's Standalone DLC, The Chinese still use the Chinese character from way back so yeah they're Vanilla Game enjoyer, lastly Vietnamese used to use Chinese character (I forget what they called it) but then they dropped it like the Korean but instead of making new system based on or inspired by the Chinese character/writing system they instead adopted modified Roman alphabet which is from outside of Sinosphere as their main system thus it's a Spin-off that were developed by another studio
@@wfnameme6609 那幾個漢字日文還算常用:且つ 又は 但し
值得注意的是戰前中日韓都是用同一套漢字
@@waffle-waffle5416 In Vietnamese we call chinese characters are "Hán tự" (漢字) or "Chữ Hán" (宁字漢)
This exact topic has been going around in my head for the longest time, it’s great to see a video made about it. Keep up the good work!
yeah same i just had the itch to search about it on youtube
Thanks for this video, I’ve been wondering about this topic in the back of my mind since forever but grateful to see an actual flushed out explanation
I found this very interesting. I've lived in Japan and visited both Korea and Hong Kong. Thanks for bringing back some great memories.
The topic of Korean translations of Chinese names is quite interesting, especially for non-contemporary figures. As many others have mentioned, while contemporary figures like Xi Jinping are written as 시진핑 (shi-jin-ping), an approximation of the Mandarin pronunciation, this becomes rather ambiguous for historical figures as recent as Deng Xiaoping, where 덩샤오핑 (deong-shao-ping, approximation of Dèng Xiǎopíng) and 등소평 (deung-so-pyung, the Korean pronunciation of the hanja 鄧小平) would both work perfectly well in day-to-day conversation. There is a seemingly gradual transition for this preference between the two approaches until some point around the fall of the Qing empire, at which point the Korean pronunciation of the hanja takes over. For example, the Ming era explorer Zheng He would unambiguously be written 정화 (jung-hwa, Korean pronunciation for 郑和).
The recent solidification is almost certainly due to the change in media formats in South Korea as well as South Korean attitude towards mixing hangul and hanja in written media. To this day written formats (basically exclusively newspapers) continue to use some hanja, particularly for proper nouns, but this was much more widespread as recently as the 90s.
For proper nouns prior to the PRC standardizing the Chinese language so that Mandarin became the common tongue (putonghua), there is little justification for using the Mandarin transliteration. In fact it could be argued that the Western use of Mandarin transliterations for the names of figures like Zheng He or Li Bai are rather anachronistic, though I suppose there isn't a good alternative. We need not go farther than Chiang Kai-shek or Sun Yat-sen (Cantonese transliterations) to see that name translations can be historically informed.
The phenomena discussed in this video is an extension of how Chinese handled different dialects with a single writing system which was standardized around 220 BC. When reading the same article in different Chinese dialects it can sound completely different but writing and meaning remain exactly the same.
What is currently written as Standard Chinese is basically the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, so people from around China may not be speaking the words in the way they'd write them. Previously, until the early 20th century, people wrote in Classical Chinese, which is like a completely different language. But the structure and words of the other "dialects" (which are really different /languages/, not dialects) is often quite different to Mandarin, I believe. For example, Mandarin uses a lot of two-character words where another dialect will use just one, often different, character, because Mandarin lost many tones where other dialects retain them (Mandarin has 4 tones, whereas Cantonese has 9, and Cantonese also has consonants at the end of some syllables which also helps to differentiate characters that would sound identical in Mandarin. Because Mandarin lost these, it needs to use two syllables to specify the word, or else too many words would be identical). Even though I can read traditional characters, I sometimes can't understand text from Hong Kong because they write a bit differently more based on Cantonese, I think. At least colloquially they do.
我發現日本翻譯中國人名的時候依舊還是漢字，而日本翻譯韓國人名則變成了片假名，但當中國翻譯韓國人名最後再翻譯成日語則依舊還是漢字，而沒有翻譯成片假名，這真的很有趣
日本现在很多时候翻译中国人名会附汉字表记，但是读音是直接音译现代汉语。菜名同理，比如写作青椒肉絲读作チンジャオロースー
meanwhile in the West, we still haven't figured out wether we should switch Asian first and last names or not. Sometimes we do it for Japanese, sometimes we don't, we rarely do it for Chinese and Korean tho. Most people still confuse Lee, Kim, Wang etc as given names even though they're family names.
That was fascinating! Thank you 🙏
Fascinating subject and excellently presented video.
Translating names happens a lot in Europe, I don't know why you'd say otherwise. It's maybe not as common, but I often heard e.g. people called Pedro be referred as Peter in English.
Yep. Not uncommon at all. Look at all the European monarchs whose names are translated to English: 'King Louis of Hungary' = King Layos. 'Pope Francis' = Francisco. 'Charles of Germany' = Karl. Etc etc.
05:40 but there is the way how to say chinese name in Korean. For example one of nct member from China named Huang Renjun or simply called as Renjun have a pronunciation by another nct member as Reonjwin (런쥔) based on south standard, but since he was born in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Country which is located in Jilin Province, he got korean name as Hwang Injun (황인준) or simply as Injun (인준) which is based on north standard. So converting the chinese name into korean is depend on what they wanted to pronounced it.
And Chinese voice actresses called 姜英俊, in Chinese called Jīang Yīngjùn, and in Korean called Kang Yeong-Joon (강영준), which is used Hanja to change into Hangul, so converting the Chinese name into Korean is depend on what they wanted to pronounced it.
It’s a lot to remember but the gist is quite interesting and informative. Thanks for making it!
I really enjoyed the Video, thanks for the work
It's fascinating actually, I'm ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, I find it fun to have many ways to pronounce my name! The Chinese Character is really sophisticated, the meaning of a character is still the same even though it's pronounced differently across Chinese dialects plus Japan and Korea as well! my surname is 彭 which is "Phang" in Hakka, change it to other dialect or standard Mandarin it would sound similar, but in Japanese with the Nanori reading it becomes "Mitsuru" which I find cool!
I’ve got the same last name, only I’m from mainland China so it’s spelled differently! Fascinating tbh
The Japanese also give the katakana treatment to Yoko Ono. I assume that she has kanji for her name, but since she's a "Western" celebrity, it always appears in print as ヨコオノ.
To be correct, it’s オノ・ヨーコ. Her kanji name is 小野洋子. According to her, after she went to America, Japanese media somehow started to use katakana writing for her name.
A very good concise video! I was confused with the chinese-japnaese name pronounciation but this it cleared up! Thanks!
This is a great video that focuses on interesting things! thank you
One good example that i would take regarding onyomi and kanyomi from my childhood classes on Japanese history was 織田信長 Oda Nobunaga where in Cantonese, it would be pronounced Ziktin Shuncheung. Sounds entirely different right? However, if we used the traditional pronounciation of Japanese different from modern Japanese, you get Shokuten Shinchō, which sounds similar if you say it aloud at least.
Very interesting observation! As a native Chinese speaker who learned English, Spanish and Japanese, i never really paid attention to the difference of how names are translated in these languages 🤔
very insightful. thanks for making this video.
this stuff is really fascinating please make more
‘Asia’ 亚洲 is not a good example of a foreign word that’s been transliterated into Chinese. The second character 洲 literally means continent and has no connection to the transliteration of the word Asia, only the first character 亚 does. People do not need to guess from context the meaning when one of the characters literally means continent. Another commenter also made some very good points about how names can be translated and transliterated in Chinese but I think your video only covers people’s official government names in the East Asian sinosphere, and not place or object names, so I think you gets the basics right.
He just neglected to use the full name of Asia (亚细亚洲).
Totally out of scope for the video, but this transliteration is based off the dialect popular at the time, which is closer to modern day Cantonese than Mandarin. In Cantonese 亚细亚 is pronounced something like "aa-sai-aa" while in Mandarin it's "yǎxìyǎ".
Neither ancient Greece nor Rome has continued to the present with Latin, so languages written in the Latin alphabet have their own reading methods, and their status is relatively equal; while China has accompanied Chinese from thousands of years ago to 2023 in the Western calendar . Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Vietnam all borrowed Chinese characters to create their own characters, and directly reserved some Chinese characters for their own use. For this reason China has the so-called "right of final interpretation" of Chinese characters。
In addition, the biggest advantage of Chinese characters is that "the pronunciation is different, but the meaning is the same". There are so many dialects in China that they cannot even communicate with each other, but as long as you have received modern education and know Chinese characters, you can communicate (Mandarin is actually Chinese characters in language).
I remember that before 1945, as long as you knew Chinese characters, you could communicate in countries such as China, Japan, North Korea and Vietnam without having to learn the language of each other
This was very interesting, thanks!
It is very fascinating indeed. Great content
Great and interesting video! Of course people should always be addressed in a foreign language like how they themselves prefer. I'd like to mention however, that people should not be too negative of using foreign pronunciations for native names (personal or geographical). The origin of it is usually a neutral, non-chauvinistic one, in which there was originally a common cultural language involved, like Classical Chinese, in the case of Japanese, Chinese and Korean names, and Latin in the case of Western names. Names of Western Royals, scientists, philosophers, Saints, navigators, etc., are usually converted to each Western language; oftentimes because the people themselves that had these names, preferred to convert them into the foreign language they were switching to.
translating name is also still done to a certain extent in european languages - the current King of the UK is known as Carlos III in spanish, for example
That really is fascinating...I hadn't even really thought about how all that would work. Crazy!
Fascinating. Thank you for this edifying video. You have a new subscriber. I'm a sucker for etymology. And recently, I've been learning Chinese. After Chinese, Japanese, then Korean.
It’s not about translation of Korean or Japanese name in Chinese but because the Korean and Japanese write their name in Chinese caractère, so Chinese people just read these caractères.
Exactly!
Yes
A very comprehensive and high quality video!
*If it really was "comprehensive", he wouldn't have left out Vietnam* and Singapore thinking that they are "Southeast Asian", and therefore, must not belong in this made-up Anglo-American category. If he knew what he was talking about, he'd know that *Vietnam has more in common with China than even Japan does.*
Fairly interesting topic!
one interesting thing i saw once was, in a japanese book i was reading, a korean exchanged student named Kim was written as 金 with furigana キム on the top. quite interesting!
It is interesting when you talked about Mandarin Chinese, the background is Hong Kong which uses Cantonese Chinese, and it differs from Mandarin substancially in terms of pronunciation.
using stock footage of hong kong when talking about China is just sort of a norm particularly here on anglo YT where most video makers don't know better. I wouldn't read too much into it.
@@Chris-pi3ze I don't know, as a person from Hong Kong, that immediately stood out to me as signs that this is a video made by an American who may not properly understand the cultural contexts of the topics he's discussing. He *specifically* mentioned Mandarin Chinese, and then showed a place where Mandarin Chinese is definitely not the lingua franca. If you are making a video on potentially culturally sensitive topic, you should try to at least put the right background stock art lol, or at least understand that Hong Kong does not speak mandarin as the primary language. It's just a telltale sign of sloppiness.
Another example of the sloppiness is the assumption that Europeans don't translate European names to their own local language. As others have pointed out, this happens in Europe a lot. It's done less in America due to a different cultural context but it was an assertion that is a little misleading.
Most of the videos are correct, but I add one thing for your reference.
In Korea, Japanese names tend to read and write as similar as possible by respecting Japanese pronunciation.
The same principle applies to modern Chinese, but "proper nouns before the Shinhae Revolution" are required to use Korean Chinese character pronounciation.
In other words, we read 毛泽东, 邓小平 (Mao zedong, Deng Xiaoping) as a Korean Chinese character pronunciation, such as 모택동, 등소평(Motaekdong, Deung Sopyeong), rather than a pronunciation that utilizes original sounds such as 마오쩌둥, 덩샤오핑(Mao zzeodoong, Deong Shaoping)
nice video! well done
Up until 1990s Koreans used Korean way of reading Hanja to read Chinese official/celebs names. ie) deng xiao ping - 등소평 or lau de hua -유덕화. Well those Hong Kong celebs who were popular in the 80s are still called by hanja names though.
This is actually quite a problem for me when consuming English and/or Chinese news media about a Japanese or Korean person (whose languages I don’t speak), where I have to check whether it’s the same person, and have to remember both their phonetic and kanji names
This was very interesting. I would like to also see a comparison of how all three languages translate non-Asian names, whether personal names, place names, or company names, etc.
In Japan, these words are pronounced like this.
Winston Churchill=Winsuton Chachiru (ウィンストン・.チャーチル)
Ludwig van Beethoven=Rutovihhi van betoven (ルートヴィッヒ・ヴァン・ベートーヴェン)
Abraham Lincoln=Eiburahamu Rinkan (エイブラハム・リンカーン)
Saint Petersburg=Sankuto Peteruburuku(サンクト・ペテルブルク)
Marseille=Maruseiyu(マルセイユ)
Germany=Doitsu(ドイツ)
McDonald’s=Makudonarudo(マクドナルド)
IKEA=Ikea(イケア)
Chevrolet=Shibore(シボレー)
etc…
Mandarin sounds like this:
Winston Churchill: Wēnsīdùn Qiūjíěr（温斯顿·丘吉尔）
Ludwig van Beethoven: Lùdéwéixī Fàn Bèiduōfēn（路德维希·范·贝多芬）
Abraham Lincoln: Yàbólāhǎn Línkěn（亚伯拉罕·林肯）
Saint Petersburg: Shèng Bǐdébǎo（圣彼得堡）
Marseille: Mǎsài（马赛）
Germany: Déguó（德国）
McDonld's: Màidāngláo（麦当劳）
IKEA: Yíjiā（宜家）
Chebrolet: Xuěfólán（雪佛兰）
Notes:
The following words are local translations, not transliterations.
德国 (Germany) in Chinese means "moral country";
宜家 (IKEA) in Chinese means "livable home".
@ShengLeeqfzpjm159
It’s very interesting.
In Japan, country names are sometimes expressed in kanji rather than katakana (phonetic characters).
The US: Amerika(アメリカ, 亜米利加)or Beikoku(米国)
The UK: Igirisu(イギリス,英吉利)or Eikoku(英国)
Germany:Doitsu(ドイツ,独逸)or Dokukoku(独国)
French:Furansu(フランス,仏蘭西)or Futsukoku(仏国)
Spain:Supein(スペイン,西班牙)or Saikoku(西国)
Italy:Itaria(イタリア,伊太利)or Ikoku(伊国)
Russia:Roshia(ロシア,露西亜)or Rokoku(露国)
etc…
@@ShengLeeqfzpjm159 德国 Déguó (Germany) is actually an abbreviation of 德意志 Déyìzhì which is a transliteration of Deutsch, just like the Japanese ドイツ Doitsu.
Fun Fact:
1. When Japanese people write in English, they even put Chinese surnames at the end (Japanese style English will become Jinping Xi), but this is not the case rest of the world(remain Xi Jinping).
2. Korean is the only language which puts Japanese surnames at the first and also transliterate. All other surname-first language such as Vietnamese and Khmer use secondary translation via English(i.e. surnames at the last).
3. Korean tend to use English name rather than Chinese pronunciation to transliterate Hong Kong people name unless he or she doesn't have English name. Also, it's not uncommon for Korean to use Putonghua instead of Cantonese to transliterate Hong Kong people or place name even though this will anger them.
4. Japanese tend to transliterate English name rather than using Kanji for Hong Kong artists. Sometimes both forms shows simultaneously.
5. Vietnamese use Han Viet to transliterate Chinese names even for ethnic minorities in China (e.g. Địch Lệ Nhiệt Ba 迪丽热巴) but not overseas Chinese (e.g. Yo-Yo Ma 马友友). Japanese never use Kanji for ethnic minorities in China.
The same situation you mentioned at 7:32 happened to a friend of mine, whose parents are a Brazilian nikkei father and a Brazilian with German ancestry mother, though my friend was born in Japan with a Japanese name and surname, she was registered at the hospital with her name written in katakana, solely because her parents were Brazilian and she was not a full-blood Japanese person
Vietnam and China actually do read each other in their own languages, Koreans and Japanese use transliterations, but the Vietnamese axtually use Vietnamese for Chinese politicians. Leaving Vietnamese out actually just showed that you missed an entire different relationship.
Very good video. It's bizarre that nikkei names get written in katakana but Chinese names get to use the same kanji
Hello from a fellow linguistics nerd with Asian heritage! Great video!
Really interesting. Love the idea of translating names and wish we did it more.
E.g.
Welsh speaking kids learn about Hari'r Wythfed, Guto Ffowc, Siarl y Cyntaf, rather than Henry the Eighth, Guy Fawkes, Charles the First, and so on.
Japan should also start reading the chinese characters in their native reading, like 習近平 could be Nara Chikahitoshi
idk xD
If you read as a “Narai chikahira “or something ,it sounds historical Japanese person
Read it as 'Narawa Konpei' if you really want to make it sounds like a medieval Japanese figure
They "do". Japanese has 2 sets of readings for every Kanji, On'yomi which is originally derived from Chinese readings, and Kun'yomi which is based off of native readings. "Shu Kinpei" is On'yomi.
Native Korean words are not mostly derived from Chinese as this video claims. The video might be referring to Chinese character derived words, but Native words are called that since they do not originate from another source. Most Korean is native words/characters, Chinese character derived words are more dominant in academia and scientific terms (like Latin being used in the sciences of English speakers).
This is true. I'm guessing the channel author isn't too familiar with Korean... goes to show video essays can't be taken very seriously
I can guarantee that english speakers in academia do not communicate in Latin 😂😂
@@ivanchen7436 Latin and Greek are the sole sources for 90% of all scientific terms in English. Around a third to a fifth of all English words are of Latin origin via French influence. If you speak English, you've been communicating (very, very poorly) in Latin. You still have time to delete this comment.
According to the Standard Korean Language Dictionary published by the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL), Sino-Korean represents approximately 57% of the Korean vocabulary.
I think most modern Koreans just don’t know about that because of their very limited hanja knowledge, similar to the Vietnamese.
@@chappy3125not to mention that for the japanese parts, chinese characters and the sino pronunciation are written in katakana, not hiragana like 3:42
Very interesting vid!
Korean and Vietnamese names all have roots in Chinese. Pretty much all syllables used for Korean and Vietnamese names are Chinese words, with vanishingly rare exceptions. The Japanese, on the other hand, managed to maintain their linguistic integrity with native roots in names. As for renditions of Mandarin names in Korean, I believe it's relatively recent policy to approximate the Mandarin pronunciations specifically, and in South Korea specifically, while previously they would use Sino-Korean readings, in much the same way the Japanese still use Sino-Japanese readings and the Vietnamese use Sino-Vietnamese readings, all three of which are adaptations of various ancient Chinese accents.
Vietnam's policy dictates that Chinese names are read with Sino-Vietnamese readings, while Japanese and Korean names are transcribed from their respective native readings. Thus:
Xi Jinping > Tập Cận Bình
Abe Shinzo > A-bê Sin-dô
Ban Ki-moon > Ban Ki-mun
There are few exceptions, such as Kim Il-sung, sometimes known in Vietnamese as Kim Nhật Thành. Earlier Korean figures were known by Sino-Japanese readings as well, thus Kim Il-sung was Kin Nissei, although nowadays the transcriptions would be preferred, hence Kimu Iru-son.
Also worth noting that Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese names maintain their orders in English contexts, meaning family names come first. Japanese names since the Meiji era have been reversed to accommodate westerners (hence Shinzo ABE rather than ABE Shinzo), while earlier names kept their original order (hence NISHI Amane rather than Amane NISHI).
It's not that rare in Korean, though, there are SO many Korean names that are pure korean, like Narae, Hana, Raon, Gaeul, etc
My name in Chinese (Pinyin) is Chen Jianyu. In cantonese it's Tan Jin Kong. In Korean is Cheon Jinwoo. And in Japanese Jin Kanto
Chen is Tan in Minnan Hokkien and Chan in Cantonese and Ting in Fuzhou dialect, Chin in Hakka.
Great video, but minor correction. Native Korean words are not derived from Chinese as opposed to Sino-Korean vocabulary. I think you meant to say that hangeul is used for writing Korean words regardless of origin these days.
Great video!! Please consider making a following video about Vietnamese. As a Chinese I find it even more interesting that despite being a south eastern language Vietnamese use latin letters for writing system.
This is so fascinating - growing up in a Chinese environment, I could never match the Chinese names of famous Japanese athletes, celebrities and politicians with their western translations, even though both versions sounded really nice. Now I know why. Thank you for explaining it so well.
3:25 lol the question marks
It's hard for western language speakers to understand the rules of Asian languages especially Chinese, but if you know the history behind the language, it makes more sense. For example, in the earliest times, there was no punctuation or spaces between words. imagineifenglishwaswrittenthiswaymaybeitwouldbeconfusingtodistinguishwherecertainwordendandothersstart That is why Japanese developed a secondary script, katakana in addition to hiragana because ifIwroteTHEwordsLIKEthisYOUcanSEEwhereAwordSTARTSandENDS. The double pronouncation for the word like Yama and San seems weird for us, but when we consider in English, the word for Cow and Beef and many other words we got from French that were using in conjuction with English words of Germanic origin, we can see something similar happen with Japanese. The ordinary native Japanese had their own language but the aristocrats typically were educated in Chinese characters and thus some of the language crossed over.
MIXedHIRAGANAandKANJIWRITingisLIKEthis: HIRAGANAMAKEsalmostALLGRAMMAticalPARTsandWORDSUFFIXes, whileKANJIMAKEstheSTEMofWORDs.
Although it does improve the readability of the texts to use kanji alongside of kana, the spacing issue was not the initial reason that Japanese invented hiragana. From the current research it seems to be mainly due to the need to have a phonetic alphabet to represent Japanese syllabary especially for annotations. The kana are derived from manyougana which were used to aid in annotations of Chinese texts, but they began to gain more casual usage for informal correspondences. The other real issue was that kanji was very limited in in representing sounds, they needed a way to write the particles and inflection. Japanese is an inflected agglunative language whilst Chinese is not and it has a completely different sound system. As for Katakana, they are also just isolated forms of manyougana but they were used a lot in court for scribing and functional work. At the same a lot of kanji did not have good matches for the actual kana words, so people began using kana for more than just the annotation and the inflections too.
Xi Jinping:
Hanja: 習近平
Hangul: 습근평 (seup geunpyeong)
Yoshihide Suga (Korean Rendition)
Hanja: 管義偉
Hangul: 관의위 (gwan ui-wi)
I think something like that happens in countries with Turkic languages, especially in Turkish language when names from other related languages are substituted by the Turkish equivalent.
Also, there are some kanji isn't appeared in Chinese hanzi like
凪(nagi),峠(tōge) or 榊(sakaki).
But,we just simply pronounce components inside these kanji
凪(止,zhĭ),峠(卡,qiă),榊(神,shén)
I would render my name in Japanese explicitly as マルツェル・コニーチェク because that is the closest you get to its original Czech pronunciation. However I would sign my poems written in Japanese as 小馬真留鶴 which is half semantic and half phonetic and I find it a pretty good 芸名 so to say.
And Japanese names, as well as Chinese names, have so mch depth to them that it's much more personal to choose a name in that language yourself! My name is Kate, and my name would be transliterated in to Chinese as 凯特 (kai3 te4). Which sounds crap and has no meaning to it. 凯 is also quite masculine sounding and is usually in male names, not female names. So I chose a Chinese name based on translating my real name - rather than transliterating it. 羊予清 Yang2 Yu3qing1. My surname is Shearman, and I usually describe it as "a man who shears sheep" to differentiate from the more common "Sherman". Hence 羊, or Sheep. It's not a particuarly common surname, but it IS an actual Chinese surname and is on the list of "100 surnames" (which actually consists of about 500 surnames). "Kate" comes from "Catherine" which originally comes from a Greek word meaning "pure", hence 清 (qing1, pure, clear). Chinese names usually have 3 characters, so for the third (in the middle), 予 (yu3) is a literary word meaning "to give" and sometimes "i". I really value honesty, transparency, and having pure intentions towards other people, so in a way, the name reflects that which I value. I like the sound and the tones kind of flow nicely too. It is also easily nickname-able as 清清 (qing1qing1) which I've been called before and I like. (the "q" makes a light "ch" very similar to Japanese ち, with the centre of the tongue flat against the hard palate, aspirated). What's the story behind yours?
@@Kateyangyuqing My name is Marcel Koníček (both are quite unusual for a Czech so I am probably the only one with that name, if you google me you will probably find some of my work right away). Koníček is a diminutive of horse in Czech so that becomes 小馬 (Ko'uma) and 真留鶴 is read Marutsuru which is quite close to マルツェル and has nice symbolic meaning behind it, the crane symbolism and all. I was considering 瑠 but that's just pretentious.
@@TheoEvian That's so cool, I love it! I just love the depth to these names. In fact, Chinese is a really deep language in many ways. There are so many things you can't describe in English in less than hundreds of words that you can describe in Chinese very succinctly, and so many things you can hardly describe at all in English which you can describe in Chinese. And there are so many elements of the language which English just does not have, which would make for interesting literary devices. I'm sure Japanese has a lot of interesting things that English doesn't have the equivalent of, and Japanese would also have its own unique elements that could make for interesting literary work as well, for example, the Kanji having so many possible pronunciations.
@@Kateyangyuqing well english is not my native language so I actually dont have the view that some language is superior to another one but maybe my lack of enthusiasm is now a result of working in this field for too long. Whenever i dont know how to translate something I think "wow my Czech is just too bad I should actually study and train my native tongue rather than rely on my innate knowledge " more than anything else.
When I introduced myself in Japan, along with my name, which is a six katakana letters monster, I also write the Kanji that match the meaning of my name: 不死男
Unfortunately, the Japanese authorities didn't allow me to register my name in Kanji, claiming that I don't have any official documents which can prove that I use this name in Kanji. For this reason, I am doomed to used the Katakana version of my name...
your name is "not dead dude"?
@@OVXX666
Immortal man.
No death male
So your family is named "No" and your given name is "Dead male"
What a funny name 😭
When our Filipino language teacher was telling us that proper names cannot have past, present and future tenses: Pedro, Peter, Pete. 😅
As an English speaker I couldn't care less how someone pronounces my name, as long as it's in the ballpark and everyone knows they're talking about me. People mispronounce my name all the time cause it's not a common name, doesn't bother me. I find it tedious when people are so bothered about pronouncing someone's name right. It doesn't matter.
Dude, now you gotta talk about the Hua Xia cultural sphere and how officials had to conduct their business in Classical Chinese because a common language didn't exist at the time.