"Kin Shi Huang"

[Quoth the Raven]

I always used to pronounce his name as "Quin" in Civ IV haha. Foreign names should be spelled in English so they sound as close to the original language as possible in my opinion. To hel with tradition. I also used to think that Sean Bean's first and last name rhymed....

 

[Kwami]

Foreign names should be spelled in English so they sound as close to the original language as possible in my opinion.

But even that doesn't work! See my previous post, where English speakers (at least in the US) pronounce the 'j' on Beijing as a French 'zh' sound for no good reason. It's just... silly. And wrong, dammit!

I mean, it's totally OK if you read Tokimune as Tokeemoon. That's how it would be pronounced in English, anyway. But Beizhing? Really?! Just read it like an English word!

 

[Zaarin]

I always used to pronounce his name as "Quin" in Civ IV haha. Foreign names should be spelled in English so they sound as close to the original language as possible in my opinion. To hel with tradition. I also used to think that Sean Bean's first and last name rhymed....

Except that pinyin <q ch x sh j zh> all represent different phonemes in Chinese, even though English-speakers pronounce them as if they were all <ch sh j/zh>. (Incidentally, <x> also represents /ʃ/ in Old Spanish and languages whose orthography is based on it, like Nahuatl*; so it's not like pinyin's use of <x> is unprecedented.)

But even that doesn't work! See my previous post, where English speakers (at least in the US) pronounce the 'j' on Beijing as a French 'zh' sound for no good reason. It's just... silly. And wrong, dammit!

I mean, it's totally OK if you read Tokimune as Tokeemoon. That's how it would be pronounced in English, anyway. But Beizhing? Really?! Just read it like an English word!

/ʤ/ would be more correct than /ʒ/, but I've honestly never heard a single English speaker use /ʤ/.

*Which reminds me, I'm also mildly irritated by Sean Bean's pronunciation of Nahuatl <hu> as /hu/ instead of /w/--but Nahuatl is a little more obscure than Chinese, so I let it slide. It would make those names easier for him to pronounce, though...

 

[Kwami]

/ʤ/ would be more correct than /ʒ/, but I've honestly never heard a single English speaker use /ʤ/.

Right, but isn't that weird? A common criticism of romanized foreign words is that the letter sounds don't match what we're* used to. Tokimune is a good example of this. But in Beijing, the 'j' exactly matches what we're used to. Why do we change it?

* By 'we', I basically mean US English speakers. I have no idea how people say Beijing in other English-speaking countries.

 

[Zaarin]

Right, but isn't that weird? A common criticism of romanized foreign words is that the letter sounds don't match what we're* used to. Tokimune is a good example of this. But in Beijing, the 'j' exactly matches what we're used to. Why do we change it?

* By 'we', I basically mean US English speakers. I have no idea how people say Beijing in other English-speaking countries.

As already mentioned, it's a hyperforeignism, just like the /g/ in Genghis when /ʤ/ would be closer, or the /ei/ in forte when the French pronunciation actually matches the English spelling pronunciation exactly (mutatis mutandis). When a word is of foreign origin, people like to show off their savoir faire by pronouncing it in a foreign manner--and often make themselves look like fools to those of us who know better. Over time, these hyperforeign pronunciations become standardized; I may know that French forte is pronounced /fɔʁt/, but English forte is now pronounced /fɔɹtɛɪ/. I dare say the same of Beijing: the hyperforeignism has become naturalized, and however wrong it may be compared to Mandarin Beijing is pronounced with /ʒ/ in English. (Of course, if you want to get really technical, Mandarin <j ch> aren't /ʤ ʧ/ but /ʧ ʧʰ/...)

 

[Couch Tomato]

But even that doesn't work! See my previous post, where English speakers (at least in the US) pronounce the 'j' on Beijing as a French 'zh' sound for no good reason. It's just... silly. And wrong, dammit!

I mean, it's totally OK if you read Tokimune as Tokeemoon. That's how it would be pronounced in English, anyway. But Beizhing? Really?! Just read it like an English word!

Tokimune is still Tokeemooneh in English. No excuse for that, given karaoke, kamikaze, and sake (all of which are often incorrectly pronounced with an "ee" instead of an "eh")

 

[Kwami]

As already mentioned, it's a hyperforeignism, just like the /g/ in Genghis when /ʤ/ would be closer, or the /ei/ in forte when the French pronunciation actually matches the English spelling pronunciation exactly (mutatis mutandis). When a word is of foreign origin, people like to show off their savoir faire by pronouncing it in a foreign manner--and often make themselves look like fools to those of us who know better. Over time, these hyperforeign pronunciations become standardized; I may know that French forte is pronounced /fɔʁt/, but English forte is now pronounced /fɔɹtɛɪ/. I dare say the same of Beijing: the hyperforeignism has become naturalized, and however wrong it may be compared to Mandarin Beijing is pronounced with /ʒ/ in English. (Of course, if you want to get really technical, Mandarin <j ch> aren't /ʤ ʧ/ but /ʧ ʧʰ/...)

A neat little bit about forte (and foible!): http://www.madadventurers.com/gm-word-of-the-week-forte-and-foible/

Anyway, close enough.

Tokimune is still Tokeemooneh in English. No excuse for that, given karaoke, kamikaze, and sake (all of which are often incorrectly pronounced with an "ee" instead of an "eh")

Tokimune is an example of a word that isn't pronounced using English rules, such as they are, the way that it's spelled in Roman characters. The difference between Tokimune and Beijing, though, is that Beijing is pronounced almost exactly the way that it's spelled, yet we mess it up anyway by introducing French sounds into it. It's not at all like mispronouncing Tokimune.

I suppose that hyperforeignism is as good an explanation as any. That, or blame the media. They always says Beijing wrong, too.

Besides, I've never, ever heard a non-Japanese person say karaoke right. It's almost always something like "carry oh key", which isn't even close. I have no idea where that one comes from! In fact, kamikaze is never right, either. It's always "kah muh kah zee". I've heard both "sah keh" and "sah key", though, so at least some people get that one right. Good enough!

Please do forgive me for being too lazy to go find the IPA characters.

 

[Browd]

As already mentioned, it's a hyperforeignism, just like the /g/ in Genghis when /ʤ/ would be closer, or the /ei/ in forte when the French pronunciation actually matches the English spelling pronunciation exactly (mutatis mutandis). When a word is of foreign origin, people like to show off their savoir faire by pronouncing it in a foreign manner--and often make themselves look like fools to those of us who know better. Over time, these hyperforeign pronunciations become standardized; I may know that French forte is pronounced /fɔʁt/, but English forte is now pronounced /fɔɹtɛɪ/. I dare say the same of Beijing: the hyperforeignism has become naturalized, and however wrong it may be compared to Mandarin Beijing is pronounced with /ʒ/ in English. (Of course, if you want to get really technical, Mandarin <j ch> aren't /ʤ ʧ/ but /ʧ ʧʰ/...)

Not a linguist here, so please pardon my lack of vocabulary for what I'm about to say, but I think a partial explanation for the zh sound in the American english pronunciation of Beijing is that the transition from the sliding a sound into the j and then an i is not a sound pattern that is found in other English words (feel free to your own Scrabble search). We have forms that manage the eji transition (like the word "rejigger"), but sliding from that e into a ji sound is easy on the palate and tongue, but moving your mouth from an a sound into ji tempts the american speaker to use more of a voiced g sound than a voiced j sound (compare genre with jump; the g in genre is closer to the pronunciation of the j in Beijing).

 

[Kwami]

Not a linguist here, so please pardon my lack of vocabulary for what I'm about to say, but I think a partial explanation for the zh sound in the American english pronunciation of Beijing is that the transition from the sliding a sound into the j and then an i is not a sound pattern that is found in other English words (feel free to your own Scrabble search). We have forms that manage the eji transition (like the word "rejigger"), but sliding from that e into a ji sound is easy on the palate and tongue, but moving your mouth from an a sound into ji tempts the american speaker to use more of a voiced g sound than a voiced j sound (compare genre with jump; the g in genre is closer to the pronunciation of the j in Beijing).

Immediately, I think of "caging", "aging", "staging". Those fit your -eiji criteria, I think. We certainly do have common -ji words (jingle!) in English, and even some -eiji words. (In terms of sound, anyway. I can't immediately think of an English -eiji word in terms of spelling.)

 

[Browd]

Yeah, those do all have the initial ay sound leading into the tip-of-your-tongue-starts-at-the-top-of-your-mouth j sound (like jump or jerry), but all spelled with a g. So much for that theory.

 

[Kwami]

Do normal people know the word Meiji? Maybe they know of the brand, at least? I wonder if US English speakers Frenchify that one, too.

 

[Zaarin]

Not a linguist here, so please pardon my lack of vocabulary for what I'm about to say, but I think a partial explanation for the zh sound in the American english pronunciation of Beijing is that the transition from the sliding a sound into the j and then an i is not a sound pattern that is found in other English words (feel free to your own Scrabble search). We have forms that manage the eji transition (like the word "rejigger"), but sliding from that e into a ji sound is easy on the palate and tongue, but moving your mouth from an a sound into ji tempts the american speaker to use more of a voiced g sound than a voiced j sound (compare genre with jump; the g in genre is closer to the pronunciation of the j in Beijing).

In addition to the list Kwami posted above, there's also paging, which is virtually identical to Beijing. Also /ʒ/ is only peripherally phonemic in English--that is to say, it only occurs in loanwords (almost exclusively from French) like garage, mirage, Jean(ne), genre, etc.--which is probably why the hyperforeignism occurs: English speakers associate /ʤ/ with native words and /ʒ/ with foreign words, so because Beijing is foreign they use /ʒ/. (Another example: I enjoy constructing languages as a hobby. I so strongly associate /æ/ [the vowel sound in cat in American English] with American English that I rarely use it in my conlangs, despite its presence in plenty of other languages ranging from Arabic to Farsi to Tuscarora.)

 

[Lord Khorak]

The parochial ignorance in this thread is mind boggling. Demanding that Chinese Pinyin in some way shape up and 'spell things like they're said' is dumb to a degree that's barely imaginable, since Pinyin is an artificially built Romanization of Mandarin that is, as a result, a few billion orders of magnitude more consistent and reasonable than the typography of the English language itself EVER is. It DOES spell things as they're said, the problem is YOU.

Plus the hilarity of 'it should be spelt Chin because that's how you say it' when that isn't how you say it. If it was how you say it, it would be a 'ch' instead of a 'q'. That 'q' is a sound that doesn't exist in the English phonological inventory, so saying it should be spelt 'Chin' is already fractally ignorant insofar as you quite likely aren't even capable of producing the sound that's in the correct pronunciation of his name without practice and coaching. Let's throw on top of that the fact that the actual 'ch' sound is never followed in Mandarin by 'i' unless in complete isolation (like chi), so you're demanding the name of a revered historical figure be spelt AND pronounced wrong to suit you. You know, because you're all so very understanding when Chinese people can't manage to properly deal with an l in the middle of a wordOH NO WAIT IT'S RACIST ACCENT STEREOTYPE TIME.

The request is basically 'please change Pinyin to be less accurate so I can approximate a man's name according to my own preferences instead of saying it properly'. This s*** is half the reason why Chinese people go around with Western names....because they know full well that the majority of Westerners simply aren't going to bother affording their actual name any respect the moment they encounter the slightest degree of linguistic difficulty, so you might as well be Frank, or something weird (I currently teach English to a Pluto and Pony, covered a class with a Loki, and we have two TA's named, I s*** you not, Ebony and Ivory).

While it's annoying that Firaxis weren't apparently willing or able to coach Sean Bean in certain pronunciations (because oh lordy a lifelong actor of his calibre would have so much trouble with that), it's way MORE annoying when people posit 'solutions' that are far more aggressively self serving and wrong than the voice actor just spamming out a few thousand lines in a single day as best he can, and cashing the probably pretty small paycheck.

 

[killmeplease]

so you might as well be Frank, or something weird (I currently teach English to a Pluto and Pony, covered a class with a Loki, and we have two TA's named, I s*** you not, Ebony and Ivory).

hmm its a good solution actually. rename Qin to Frank to stop these silly pronounciation disputes.
languages arent the same there are different words for tables and hats why personal names should be an exception.
also i'm strongly against coaching sean bean to pronounce Qin like a chinese (well maybe 220 BC chinese? how using contemporary pronounciation is better than saying Kin?), its a waste of time and budget

 

[Couch Tomato]

The parochial ignorance in this thread is mind boggling. Demanding that Chinese Pinyin in some way shape up and 'spell things like they're said' is dumb to a degree that's barely imaginable, since Pinyin is an artificially built Romanization of Mandarin that is, as a result, a few billion orders of magnitude more consistent and reasonable than the typography of the English language itself EVER is. It DOES spell things as they're said, the problem is YOU.

Plus the hilarity of 'it should be spelt Chin because that's how you say it' when that isn't how you say it. If it was how you say it, it would be a 'ch' instead of a 'q'. That 'q' is a sound that doesn't exist in the English phonological inventory, so saying it should be spelt 'Chin' is already fractally ignorant insofar as you quite likely aren't even capable of producing the sound that's in the correct pronunciation of his name without practice and coaching. Let's throw on top of that the fact that the actual 'ch' sound is never followed in Mandarin by 'i' unless in complete isolation (like chi), so you're demanding the name of a revered historical figure be spelt AND pronounced wrong to suit you. You know, because you're all so very understanding when Chinese people can't manage to properly deal with an l in the middle of a wordOH NO WAIT IT'S RACIST ACCENT STEREOTYPE TIME.

The request is basically 'please change Pinyin to be less accurate so I can approximate a man's name according to my own preferences instead of saying it properly'. This s*** is half the reason why Chinese people go around with Western names....because they know full well that the majority of Westerners simply aren't going to bother affording their actual name any respect the moment they encounter the slightest degree of linguistic difficulty, so you might as well be Frank, or something weird (I currently teach English to a Pluto and Pony, covered a class with a Loki, and we have two TA's named, I s*** you not, Ebony and Ivory).

While it's annoying that Firaxis weren't apparently willing or able to coach Sean Bean in certain pronunciations (because oh lordy a lifelong actor of his calibre would have so much trouble with that), it's way MORE annoying when people posit 'solutions' that are far more aggressively self serving and wrong than the voice actor just spamming out a few thousand lines in a single day as best he can, and cashing the probably pretty small paycheck.

Agreed. What's really at the root of everything is this whole cultural shift of "acceptable ignorance." I feel like almost everywhere, no one can tolerate being corrected (with regards to language/pronunciation), giving excuses like "this is how I've always pronounced this." And I'm talking about basic words, not even foreign names/words. I don't get it. If you're doing it wrong, then gratefully take the feedback and do it right. Like recently, someone told me I've been pronouncing a technical word wrong. I didn't believe it, so I looked it up. They were right, and there was no alternate correct pronunciation (that I and many other people have been saying), so I forced myself to change my pronunciation. That's all you have to do.

In this case, I'm not advocating people go crazy and pronounce Qin with the exact pronunciation by IPA or with tones, or with ancient Chinese. Qin, once Ch'in, has been a name in history textbooks for centuries and longer (considering he is BC). At a basic level, anyone who even touches Chinese history should have a general idea about the dynasties -- or at the very least that it started with the Qin Dynasty and ended with the Qing (before becoming the Republic of China). It's as fundamental as not knowing the Roman Republic came before the Roman Empire, which later split into West and East, etc. And it's also not too much to ask for, given that China is one of the most important countries in history and in the present. It also goes to show how lacking non-European history education is -- which is ironic coming from me, who almost exclusively focuses on European history.

 

[killmeplease]

At a basic level, anyone who even touches Chinese history should have a general idea about the dynasties -- or at the very least that it started with the Qin Dynasty and ended with the Qing (before becoming the Republic of China).

one can know much more than that but not pronounciation as 99% of information comes from reading not listening

 

[Menzies]

Agreed. What's really at the root of everything is this whole cultural shift of "acceptable ignorance." I feel like almost everywhere, no one can tolerate being corrected (with regards to language/pronunciation), giving excuses like "this is how I've always pronounced this." And I'm talking about basic words, not even foreign names/words. I don't get it. If you're doing it wrong, then gratefully take the feedback and do it right. Like recently, someone told me I've been pronouncing a technical word wrong. I didn't believe it, so I looked it up. They were right, and there was no alternate correct pronunciation (that I and many other people have been saying), so I forced myself to change my pronunciation. That's all you have to do.

In this case, I'm not advocating people go crazy and pronounce Qin with the exact pronunciation by IPA or with tones, or with ancient Chinese. Qin, once Ch'in, has been a name in history textbooks for centuries and longer (considering he is BC). At a basic level, anyone who even touches Chinese history should have a general idea about the dynasties -- or at the very least that it started with the Qin Dynasty and ended with the Qing (before becoming the Republic of China). It's as fundamental as not knowing the Roman Republic came before the Roman Empire, which later split into West and East, etc. And it's also not too much to ask for, given that China is one of the most important countries in history and in the present. It also goes to show how lacking non-European history education is -- which is ironic coming from me, who almost exclusively focuses on European history.

The issue is that unless you're correcting someone on something they've never said before, they're saying it right by their own area, even if it seems wrong to you. If someone says Qin Shi Huang with a /k/, that's fine to correct them, but if someone says Beijing with a /ʒ/, that's just how it's said where they're from. Common words shouldn't be corrected, as if they were wrong for their area, they'd have already been corrected a long time ago.

Your example with a technical word is largely irrelevant as: 1) technical language can have differences and no standard pronunciation, 2) if there is a particular pronunciation used by the whole field, then that's quite a special case. There's a big difference between finding out that the word you just read out wasn't said right, and being corrected on terms you've been using for decades without issue.

Conflating an incorrect pronunciation with a lack of understanding of history is quite odd as well. Plenty of people learn about history through reading, and it's quite common for people to have seen names many times without ever knowing the pronunciation, even people with a great deal of education. It's very possible for someone to be able to list all the Chinese dynasties, without knowing how to even vaguely pronounce a single one.

Plus the hilarity of 'it should be spelt Chin because that's how you say it' when that isn't how you say it. If it was how you say it, it would be a 'ch' instead of a 'q'. That 'q' is a sound that doesn't exist in the English phonological inventory, so saying it should be spelt 'Chin' is already fractally ignorant insofar as you quite likely aren't even capable of producing the sound that's in the correct pronunciation of his name without practice and coaching. Let's throw on top of that the fact that the actual 'ch' sound is never followed in Mandarin by 'i' unless in complete isolation (like chi), so you're demanding the name of a revered historical figure be spelt AND pronounced wrong to suit you. You know, because you're all so very understanding when Chinese people can't manage to properly deal with an l in the middle of a wordOH NO WAIT IT'S RACIST ACCENT STEREOTYPE TIME.

Did someone seriously suggest changing pinyin here, or were they suggesting changing the English spelling of Qin, there's a massive difference between those. There's nothing wrong with spelling reform, although I'd argue English is enough of a mess to just not bother at this point.

Using the spelling that best allows native speakers to produce the closest approximate within a language is quite common in most languages by the way, so this odd rant here is basically a tirade against most other languages. If anything, English is a bit too forgiving with adopting foreign spelling.

 

[Kwami]

Using the spelling that best allows native speakers to produce the closest approximate within a language is quite common in most languages by the way, so this odd rant here is basically a tirade against most other languages. If anything, English is a bit too forgiving with adopting foreign spelling.

Yeah. I sure hope that guy doesn't ever see the way that Japanese spells English words. Talk about approximating!

Anyway, Lord Khorak, it's not like Pinyin is some kind of magical code that's been around for centuries and can never be changed. We've had plenty of other transliteration systems in the past. Personally, I find /ch'/ to be more useful than /j/ for the /t͡ɕʰ/ sound. But, everyone else likes Pinyin, so we'll go with it. As a result, it's going to be confusing for English speakers, who associate a different sound with the letter Q. Not everyone is going to learn how to read Pinyin. Why would they?

And as a former student and teacher at a school with many, many Chinese students, I can say that 1) some students don't take an English name, 2) other students want one because they think that it's fun, and 3) still others are indeed annoyed at everyone mispronouncing their names. But, you know, they suck at pronouncing our names, too. That's what happens when you grow up with a totally different sound set.

In short: It's not racism or Euro-centrism or whatever . Chill.

 

[Zaarin]

also i'm strongly against coaching sean bean to pronounce Qin like a chinese (well maybe 220 BC chinese? how using contemporary pronounciation is better than saying Kin?), its a waste of time and budget

Seriously, the voice director merely pointing out that "it's pronounced like 'chin'"--an exchange that would take less than ten seconds--would be a waste of time and budget? I'm pretty certain Sean Bean is being paid by the word, not the second. No one is expecting him to say /tɕʰǐn/--/ʧʰɪn/ is correct for English.

 

[Sagax]

Seriously, the voice director merely pointing out that "it's pronounced like 'chin'"--an exchange that would take less than ten seconds--would be a waste of time and budget? I'm pretty certain Sean Bean is being paid by the word, not the second. No one is expecting him to say /tɕʰǐn/--/ʧʰɪn/ is correct for English.

To be fair, voiceover is usually paid for per session, i.e. by the time spent on the work - not per word. But 10 seconds to correct the pronunciation is indeed something that is more than affordable under a standard voiceover budget. Heck, setting up delivery instructions is like the second biggest part of a project after voice acting.