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Understanding Asian Names

Understanding Asian Names. Developed and presented by Dr Fiona Swee-Lin Price. Outline. Introduction Scripts: Logographies Syllabaries Alphabets Romanisation Structures: Confucian Patronymic Unstructured Summary and discussion. Asian writing systems. Examples of Asian names.

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Understanding Asian Names

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  1. Understanding Asian Names Developed and presented byDr Fiona Swee-Lin Price

  2. Outline • Introduction • Scripts:LogographiesSyllabaries Alphabets • Romanisation • Structures: Confucian Patronymic Unstructured • Summary and discussion

  3. Asian writing systems Examples of Asian names Romanised versions Hu Jintao DivyaArora Kim Jong-Il 胡锦涛 दिव्याअरोड़ा 김정일

  4. Writing systems around the world

  5. Logographies • Each symbol represents one morpheme • Contrast with alphabets, where each symbol represents one phoneme • Best known examples Chinese characters and Japanese kanji, see also Egyptian hieroglyphics • Started out as pictures:

  6. Different readings of characters • Symbol not directly connected to pronunciation • Hence symbol can have several pronunciations.

  7. Romanising logographies • Listen to word and spell, using pronunciation rules of choice: 郭 • Mandarin: guō (hanyu pinyin romanisation)Japanese: kaku (Hepburn romanisation)

  8. Syllabaries and abugidas • True syllabary: Japanese hiragana • Abugidas: Devenāgarī (Hindi script) Thai

  9. Romanising syllabaries • Mix and match initial consonants and endings • Invent new letter combinations or diacritics to represent new sounds • South Asia: Hindi (Devanagari), Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Bengali, Sinhala, Tibetan • South-East Asia: Thai, Laotian, Khmer (Cambodian), Balinese

  10. Alphabets • Roman alphabet: Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog • Other alphabets: Korean hangeul (hangûl). Chinese character-sized box with: • Initial consonant top left corner • Vowel (below or on the right of this) • Final consonant below the other two

  11. Colonial languages • Romanisations often opaque or counter-intuitive for modern English speakers, e.g. Luy, Tjia, Nhanh • Changes in officially recognised system, idiosyncratic, obsolete forms, etc.

  12. Potential romanisation issues Pronunciation unclear for English speakers Features with no equivalent in target language: • Sounds: Use existing letter with closest sound, existing letter with diacritic, new letter combinations • Tones: Ignore, add diacritic or number • Stress patterns: Ignore, indicate with diacritic Romanisation process: • No system, or system not applied consistently • Competing systems • Use of obsolete system, e.g. Mao Tse-Tung

  13. Name structure:Given name/s + surname Common, but cultural differences in use: • Sikh surnames • Sinhalese ge names • Thai nicknames & address

  14. Name structure: Unstructured Javanese: • 1-5 components, no surname common. Child’s name may but need not combine elements of parents’. • May informally use last component as surname if 2+ components; single names may be doubled, or have another component added Burmese: • 1-5 components, no inherited component, change of name common • Often incorporate titles, e.g. Daw, U, Bo

  15. Name structure: Patronymic Malay: • Name prefixes, bin/binti, title+given name address • May drop bin/binti & prefixes, use father’s name as “surname” Tamil: • Two structuresused. May add further initials from male line (e.g. R.K. Narayan). • Nominate father’s or own name as “surname”

  16. Name structure: Confucian *Note last component only (Kunthea, Hoa) used for address in Cambodian & Vietnamese names **Vietnamese gender markers=Thị(♀) & Văn(♂) • Westernised by moving family name to end (e.g. Jintao Hu, Myong-Mee Park) • May also substitute Western given name (e.g. Holly Nguyen, Candy Say)

  17. Summary • Three types of writing system used: alphabetical, syllabic, logographic • Romanisation process often inconsistent • Westernisation common, can lead to one person having a range of different names

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