View Message

[Facts] name update
I've added new names to the site - http://www.behindthename.com/updates/update68.phpNow the Chinese and Korean names are written in their native scripts!
vote up1vote down

Replies

It would be interesting if you could also include the pronunciation of (some) chinese names. Eg. Zhon [djON]. Regards.
vote up1vote down
That's going to be a bit difficult I think. I know some Chinese people and there is no way i could properly explain the sounds of their names in the way pronunciations are written on this site. A Chinese girl form my school told me that there are more ways to say sounds, like the Q (like in Qing) and Ch (like in Ching) would both be CH in the transcript, but they are in fact different sounds. (She explained them to me, and after trying several times, I got it right, one of them is more said using the bottom part of the mouth and the other more with the upper part). Also the intonation is not possible then, which could lead to people saying a completely different word. But if there would be a way to explain them I'd be very interested in seeing all the pronunciations of them :) (maybe the 4 way of intonation could be given a number or something like that?)
vote up1vote down
I agree, Mar. I know there are many ways to pronounce a letter, specially in Chinese. Anyway, there are some basic rules that we could try to expose, so if not perfectly, unless we could pronounce the nearest way to the right form. In my last book (Mike C, Lumia and Magia have each one) I've included a guide of pronunciation of several languages, included Chinese, but... only for spanishspeakers. Thanks.
vote up1vote down
Of course there are always "sounds" that cannot be expressed in a certain language, for example the pronunciations of German or French names on this site here are also a bit (or a lot) off sometimes, but well, that can't be helped...One can at least include the "major rules" to avoid major mispronunciations due to the Pinyin system. For example that the "Y" is silent and only there because of a "pinyin rule" saying that every chinese syllable must have a consonant and a vowel. Like, Yu is pronounced "u" or "ü". But I wouldn't know how to write that letter in English ;)
vote up1vote down
Are you planning on updating Eleanor with Lumia's comments from the thread below?
vote up1vote down
At the moment I'm working in a paper about Eleanor (with more information and more aspects) for the bulletin of the Catalan Onomastics Society. Once it is published, I can send it to Mike C properly translated so that he can update the information if he considers so.

This message was edited 6/25/2007, 5:52 AM

vote up1vote down
That would be fantastic!
vote up1vote down
Imho that additional information from Lumia should be included in a new entry on Aenor :)
vote up1vote down
Yay! You added Máxima! I submitted this name a while back, and I'm so glad you added it to the database.
vote up1vote down
Thanks for the update!Just noticed that Pomponia has an extra S on the end of Pomponius.
vote up1vote down
Thanks! I've fixed it!
vote up1vote down
A question and a remarkThank for the update :)The question: How come you can hyperlink names with accents? Is it possible to also make that possible for messages? Because now everything with an accent doesn't get hyperlinked (especially with something like Danaë it's weird).Remark: Dutch pron. for Peter says PE-tur, but in fact E (pEter) is said as AY
vote up1vote down
Hi Mar,
It's simple to link to names with accents. However on the message boards, the parsing routine which turns capitalized words into links has trouble when it runs into accents.
Mike
vote up1vote down
Wow!I'm off to look at all the Chinese and Korean names. Great update--thanks!
vote up1vote down