Transcription into Chinese characters

In Chinese, transcription is known as yīnyì (simplified Chinese: 音译; traditional Chinese: 音譯) or yìmíng (simplified Chinese: 译名; traditional Chinese: 譯名). While it is common to see foreign names left in their original forms (for example, in the Latin alphabet) in a Chinese text, it is also common to transcribe foreign proper nouns into Chinese characters.

Issues when translating non-Chinese words into Chinese characters:

• Chinese is written with monosyllabic logograms. A word of three syllables is transcribed into at least three Chinese characters, in most cases three meaningful verbal units.
• The same foreign word can have many transcriptions, based on different dialects. Transcription based on one dialect may not sound close to the original when pronounced with another dialect. (The official pinyin, based on Mandarin, is used in this article.)
• Even within the same dialect, there may be more than one transcription for a word (as homophones abound in Chinese) when tones are disregarded. Since there are many characters to choose from when transcribing a word, a translator can manipulate the transcription to suit a purpose.

History

The following is an extract from "On the best method of representing the unaspirated mutes of the Mandarin dialect" by Rev. John Gulick. "The inhabitants of other Asiatic nations, who have had occasion to represent the words of their several languages by Chinese characters, have as a rule used unaspirated characters for the sounds, g, d, b, &. The Mohammedans from Arabia and Persia have followed this method[…]. The Mongols, Manchus and Japanese also constantly select unaspirated characters to represent the sounds g, d, b, and j of their languages. These surrounding Asiatic nations, in writing Chinese words in their own alphabets, have uniformly used g, d, b, &c., to represent the unaspirated sounds."

Sound, meaning and graph

A transcription into Chinese characters sometimes reflects the meaning as well as the sound of the transcribed word. For example, the common ending -ва (-va) in a Russian female family name is usually transcribed as 娃 (wā; "baby", "girl"), and the —в in a male family name as 夫 (fū; "man"); Utopia is famously transcribed by Yan Fu as 烏托邦 (乌托邦 wūtuōbāng; "[a] fabricated country"); Pantagruel is transcribed as 龐大固埃 (庞大固埃 pángdàgù'āi), as 龐大 means "gigantic" and 固 "solid". One translation of World Wide Web is 萬維網 (万维网 Wànwéi Wǎng), meaning "10,000-dimensional net (or web)".

Sometimes subjective feelings are reflected in a transcription. The Beatles are known in Taiwan and Hong Kong as 披頭四 (披头四 pītóusì; "mop-head four"), comparing the four-character idiom 披頭散髮 (披头散发 pītóu sànfǎ; "to wear hair dishevelled"). Esperanto was known as 愛斯不難讀 (爱斯不难读 àisībùnándú; "[we or I] love this [because it is] not difficult to read") when it was first introduced into China.

Fidelity to the original sound is often sacrificed in a non-technical context. In transcribing names of people, companies, shops or brands, phonetic fidelity is not the overriding factor: any characters may be used as long as the Chinese is memorable, dignified or auspicious. In some cases this amounts to renaming, rather than "transcription". A common example is the Chinese names non-Chinese people adopt for themselves, which are not transcribed, but rather "adapted" from or "inspired" by the original. See, for instance, the Chinese names of the Hong Kong governors.

Sometimes characters are specially made for transcribed terms. For example, 茉莉 (mòlì) for jasmine (Sanskrit: malli), 袈裟 (jiāshā) for kasaya (Sanskrit: kasāya) or most of the Chinese characters for chemical elements. Most of them are semantic-phonetic compounds.

Connotations

Given that a word may be transcribed in accordance with meaning as well as sound, an "innocent" transcription may be unwittingly interpreted as reflecting the meaning of the original. During the Qing Dynasty, some Chinese scholars were unhappy to find China was located on a continent called 亞細亞 (亚细亚 yàxìyà), i.e. Asia, as 亞 means "secondary" and 細 "small", believing that the Europeans were deliberately belittling the East. The ancient Japanese, or the Wa people were upset by their name being represented by the character 倭 (also meaning "small, short, servile") by the Chinese, and replaced it with another character. Modern Africans have accused the Chinese of racism, as "Africa" is written as 非洲 ("negative, wrong continent") in Chinese. Whether these accusations were justified is controversial.

Cultural differences and personal preference about negative meaning is subjective, however some translations are generally held to be inappropriate and are usually not used in today’s transcriptions:

• Mozambique as 莫三鼻給 (莫三鼻给, mòsānbígěi), with 鼻 meaning "nose" and 三鼻 "three noses". Today the country is more often transcribed as 莫桑比克 (mòsāngbǐkè).
• Aberdeen is a common name for places and people, rendered as 鴨巴甸 (yābādiàn), with 鴨 (鸭) meaning duck. However a place in Hong Kong, Aberdeen Harbour, was originally called 香港仔 (xiānggǎngzǐ), meaning "Hong Kong minor"; that is now the official name, but 鴨巴甸 is still used colloquially. Moreover, today the place is more often transcribed as 阿伯丁 (ābódīng).
• A street in Macau is called Avenida do Conselheiro Ferreira de Almeida, after the official Ferreira de Almeida. Ferreira was transcribed as 肥利喇 (féilìlǎ), as shown on the name of the street, with 肥 meaning "fat" (adj.).
• A street in Macau is called Avenida de Demetrio Cinatti. It has been transcribed as 爹美刁施拿地大馬路, with 刁 meaning cunning or wicked.
• Philippines is transliterated as 菲律賓 (菲律宾, fēi lǜ bīn), but this has the negative connotation of 菲 signifying "poor", 律 signifying "law", and 賓/宾 having the meaning of "guest", thus giving a reading of "unruly guest". A replacement digraph of 呂宋 (吕宋, lǚ sòng) "Luzon" has been suggested, following the example of Japan (日本).

Some transcriptions are meant to have, or happen to have, positive connotations:

• United Kingdom is called 英國 (英国, yīngguó, means "flower country"). The first character, 英, is abbreviated from 英吉利, the early Chinese transcription of "English", but subsequently applied to the UK after it was formed from the union of England and Scotland.
• Germany is abbreviated as 德國 (德国, déguó, literally "Moral country"). The first character, 德, is abbreviated from 德意志 (the Chinese transcription of "Deutsch", the German word for "German").
• United States of America is abbreviated 美國 (美国, měiguó, literally "beautiful country"). It is abbreviated from 美利堅合眾國, 美利堅 is an early phonetic transcription of "America".
• Athens as 雅典 (Yădiăn), literally "elegant" and "classical".
• Champs-Élysées as 香榭麗舍 (香榭丽舍, Xiāngxièlìshè), meaning "fragrant pavilion (and) beautiful house".
• Coca-cola as 可口可樂 (可口可乐), 可口 meaning "delicious" and 可樂 is the translation of "cola" but can also be taken literally to mean "pleasing, satisfactory".
• Firenze as 翡冷翠 (by the poet Xu Zhimo), 翡翠 meaning "jadeite" and 冷 "cold". Today the city is usually known as 佛羅倫薩 (佛罗伦萨), a transcription based on the Anglo-French Florence rather than the endonym.
• Fontainebleau as 楓丹白露 (枫丹白露), meaning "red maple (and) white dew".
• Ithaca as 綺色佳, literally "gorgeous colour wonderful".
• Revlon as 露華濃, literally as "revealing bright spring dew", excerpted from Li Bai's A Song of Pure Happiness (清平調).
• Yosemite as 優山美地 (also 優仙美地, 優聖美地, 優詩美地, or 優勝美地), meaning "elegant mountain (and) beautiful land".
• Munich, German: München, the capital of Bavaria/Germany (derived fr. "Munichen" lit.: "(at the) monks") as 慕尼黑 Mùníhēi meaning "esteem - nun - black", perhaps accidentally referring to the "Münchner Kindl", the city coat of arms of Munich showing kind of childlike monk dressed in black.
• Champagne as 香檳 (香槟, xiāng bīn) meaning "fragrant areca"
• Sheraton hotels as 喜来登 (Xǐ​lái​dēng​), "love to visit"
• Best Buy as 百思买 (Bǎi​sī​mǎi​), "buy (after) thinking a hundred times"
• Subway restaurants as 赛百味 (Sài​bǎi​wèi​), "competing (with) a hundred tastes"
• Costco as 好市多 (Hǎoshìduō), "market of many great things"

History

Transcription appeared early in ancient Chinese texts when the Han people interacted with foreigners such as the Xiongnu. Besides proper names, a small number of loanwords in their transcribed forms found their way into Chinese during the Han Dynasty after Zhang Qian's exploration of the Western Regions.

Transcriptions of other languages are found in ancient texts. A complete transcribed text of a short Yue song, known as Yueren Ge (越人歌 "Song of the Yue [boat]man"), is found in Liu Xiang's Shuoyuan (說苑/说苑 "Garden of stories") of the Western Han Dynasty, along with a Chinese version of the song. Some scholars have tried to reconstruct the original text.

The classics of Buddhism began to be translated into Chinese during the late Han Dynasty. Many Sanskrit terms were then transcribed and became part of the Chinese language. According to the Song Dynasty scholar Zhou Dunyi (周敦義/周敦义), the famous monk and translator Xuanzang had his Wuzhong Bu Fan (五種不翻/五种不翻 "Five don't translate"), suggesting that Sanskrit terms should be transcribed instead of being translated when they are:

• Arcane, such as incantations
• Polysemous
• Not found in China
• Traditionally transcribed, not translated
• Lofty and subtle, which a translation might devalue and obscure

These ancient transcription into Chinese characters provide clues to the reconstruction of Middle Chinese. In historical Chinese phonology, this information is called duiyin (對音/对音 "corresponding sounds"), with Baron Alexander von Staël-Holstein being the first scholar to emphasize its importance in reconstructing ancient Chinese. The transcriptions made during the Tang Dynasty are particularly valuable as linguistic data, as the Tantra sect was then popular, with the mantras, an important Tantra practice, rendered very carefully into Chinese characters by the monk-translators. The spells, it was believed, would lose their power when their sounds were not accurately uttered.

During the late 19th century, when Western ideas and products flooded China, transcriptions mushroomed. They include not only transcriptions of proper nouns, but also those of common nouns, i.e. phonemic loans. Most of them proved fads, though. After that period, people tend to favor loan translations.

In modern Japanese, foreign terms are transcribed into katakana. Some terms still appear in kanji, though, an example being 俱樂部/倶楽部, (クラブ "gathering fun department"=club). Some were absorbed into Chinese during the late 19th and early 20th century. For more about the use of Chinese characters to represent Japanese native words and foreign words, see ateji.

Official Standards

In People's Republic of China, the official guide for the transcription of people's names is the Names of the world's peoples: a comprehensive dictionary of names in Roman-Chinese (世界人名翻译大辞典), compiled by the Proper Names and Translation Service of the Xinhua News Agency. See the English transcription table or those for a number of other languages that are provided by the work. Most official transcriptions are based on Mandarin, the official language. A few official transcriptions are not based on Mandarin, as they had been absorbed into Chinese before Mandarin was established as the official language.

Cantonese media use a different (and loose) transcription system based on Cantonese.

In Singapore, the Translation Standardisation Committee for the Chinese Media is responsible for the transcription standard.

In the United States, Russia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia and many other countries Foreign Ministries or other competent government agencies set the official standards for transcribing names of entities under their jurisdiction into Chinese and other languages.

Difference in the phonetic translation between different regions

Names can be transcribed differently between the official transcription standards used within each of the different Chinese speaking regions. For example, "New Zealand" is represented as 纽西兰/ 紐西蘭 Niǔxīlán in Taiwan, and 新西兰/新西蘭 Xīnxīlán within mainland China. Taiwan here uses 紐 Niǔ for "New" phonetically in the same manner as 纽约 Niǔyuē (New York), whilst mainland China uses the semantic transcription 新 xīn which literally means "new" in Chinese. US President Barack Obama's surname is rendered:

欧巴马 / 歐巴馬 Ōubāmǎ (Official translation)

奥巴马 / 奧巴馬 Àobāmǎ (used mostly in mainland China and Hong Kong)

The city of Sydney is rendered as 悉尼 (Xīní) in mainland China, Singapore, along with Malaysia and as 雪梨 (Xuělí) in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Cantonese speaking residents of Sydney.

Hong Kong and Macau usually transliterate names using Cantonese pronunciation but, since the handover from the British to the Chinese, there is a trend to follow mainland's methods, even if the Cantonese pronunciation becomes more remote from the original. For example, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's surname is transcribed as 梅德韦杰夫 / 梅德韋傑夫 Méidéwéijiéfū, in Cantonese rendered as Muih-dak-waih-giht-fu, which is not phonetical rendering but borrowing from Mandarin spelling.

See also

• Sinicization
• Romanization of Chinese
• Cyrillization of Chinese
• Ateji - similar practice in Japanese
• English to Chinese transliteration table adopted by the Chinese Wikipedia

Notes

•  This article incorporates text from The Chinese recorder and missionary journal, Volume 3, a publication from 1871 now in the public domain in the United States.