Today's bit of linguistic fun

[oloriel]

Non-Tolkienists probably won't want to know.

So, completely by coincidence and through channels that shall remain unnamed (*cough* dA *cough), today I learned how the Chinese translators of the Silmarillion rendered Maedhros in Chinese, namely, 梅斯罗斯 (mei(2)si(1)luo(2)si(1)).
Of course, that translates to nothing sensible, just being a rough approximation of the sounds of the Sindarin to the sounds of the Mandarin, so to say. (When you transliterate foreign names into Chinese, there are basically two options: Either, you try to come up with something in two characters that distantly invokes a related sound but otherwise isn't really similar; however, it will feel reasonably "Chinese" to speakers of Chinese. Or you come up with something utterly non-Chinese that may look a bit more like the original. An example for the former would be 徳国 (de(2)guo(2), "Germany") - this looks like a Chinese name for a country, but sounds nothing like "Germany", or even like Deutschland (although that is, of course, why they chose a character that reads de). An example for the latter would be 法兰克福 (fa(3)lan(2)ke(4)fu(2), "Frankfurt") - this sounds roughly the same, but immediately parses as "foreign", and really just means jibberish. But the main point is, these strings of characters have been chosen to represent these names in the Chinese language.)

But of course, the individual characters have a meaning of their own. So when coming up with such a "translation", the translators try to find characters that vaguely fit the concept they're looking at. That failing, they try to flatter. For instance, 可口可樂 (ke(3)kou(3)ke(3)le(4), "Coca-Cola") literally reads "nice-mouth-nice-amusement". (de(2)guo(2) is "virtue-country", and fa(3)lan(2)ke(4)fu(2) is "law-orchid-victory-fortune".)

So of course I could not resist looking up the characters for mei(2)si(1)luo(2)si(1), to find out what the nice Chinese translator had considered suitable for Maedhros.
"plum-like-silk-like", that's what.
Aside from my initial AHAHAH, THAT'S SUCH A GIRLY NAME, this is actually quite clever; Chinese plums tend to be on the reddish side, and silk, as we all know, has a lovely texture, so, for a name that's originally supposed to mean "well-shaped copper", this is a reasonably good match (as these things go. I mean, you have to find characters that sound right AND mean something useful - even with the crapload of homonyms in the Chinese language, especially when you leave out the stresses, that can't always be easy. I mean... "law-orchid-victory-fortune", anyone?).

But... IT'S SUCH A GIRL'S NAME. XD

(Also, plums have now become "my" Maedhros' favourite fruit. Just because.)

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

ROFL, such a girly name indeed! And it's makin' me think of plum wine, which is the Drink of Love.

I've always thought that Maitimo Nelyafinwe must have gotten his Sindarin name because of his hair. In the Etymologies, Tolkien writes that Maedhros means 'glint of metal', and 'plum-like silk-like' would apply just as well to coppery Elven hair.

Oh, that hair. *swoonTHUD!*

[http://users.livejournal.com/macalla_/]

*language squee*
*language love*

[ladyelleth.livejournal.com]

*sniggerfit* This is fantastic.

So. Maedhros on Himring. Does that make him the plums that were in the icebox?

>>
<<

*runs*

[shadowbrides.livejournal.com]

forgive me, they were delicious

*chortles*

[furius.livejournal.com]

Actually, it isn't that girly.

Granted, the 梅 part is plum, but the rest of it is actually..quite meaningless except as sounds? 罗 is more commonly scene as part of a name. 斯 has a variety of meanings, but none of it is evoked in combination with the other characters.

I'm not sure where you're getting the silk from...丝 is silk, not 斯. In terms of just sounds, 罗斯 actually sounds like screw (not the verb, but the tool).

Messy Loss is a plausible way of how it transliterates back to English though XD

Re:

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Why does everybody think that I mistook 斯 for 丝? I can read! I swear!
My dictionary says for 罗, luo(2): "lightweight fabric; silk gauze; light silk". It doesn't say that it's apparently so archaic that nobody knows it anymore.

And yeah, the "meaningless except as sounds" is what I was trying to express with that long-winded paragraph about Falankefu etc.

FWIW, "Messy" sounds girly to me, too - kinda like "Missy".

Re:

[furius.livejournal.com]

Because if you're using 罗 as silk, it's usually in combination with another character. Like, 罗衣 is silk clothing, Or say something like 罗织 silk fabric. It's not usually read as "silk" when just floating around. That's more 桑罗 (mulberry silk...) XD It is somewhat archaic, I'll grant you that.

I think Missy would definitely imply another character for sound instead of plum. XD

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Aaah, I see!

Of course. Not to mention that "Messy" would be an awful name, no matter whether for a girl or boy. XD

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

I love your posts like this. :)

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

Hihihi cool :) You know/learn chinese?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Like 'Spiller in Mary Norton's Borrowers books - all he remembers about his mother is her telling him his name :

"A Dreadful Spiller, that's what you are," she said, "Aren't you?"

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you've seen the thing about vendors in China, before the official transliteration occurred, using characters which read "Bite the wax tadpole."

(http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/tadpole.asp) just in case you haven't.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I took a year of Chinese back in grade 12 - enough to know how to handle a dictionary. Also enough to know that it's not a language my brain can process well. >_>

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Ahahahah! I had heard the "Bite the wax tadpole" phrase before, but I wasn't aware it had been an attempt to translate Coca-Cola. So thanks for the link!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

*snickers* Exactly.

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

:)
My company said they'd pay for every language course I desire to take. They'd prefer me to learn korean, russian, turkish, spanish, portuguese or chinese because these are the languages of our current main custumers (but I'm not limited to this choice). And I said to myself (in a completely phd-jumbled mood): Why not chinese? (At least that's a country where women are treated more equally to men than nearly everywhere else)

But maybe it would be easier to start with spanish or french ;) I don't know.

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

Some years ago, my father had some fun with his business partners in China. They laughed their ass off because of a truck company called MAN. Which apparently means "slow" in chinese.

After some days of stupid jokes he couldn't hold back and told them what their company name - Weichei - means in German ;)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Did you have Latin in school? That would definitely make Spanish, Portuguese or French (reasonably) easy to learn, thanks to a lot of related vocabulary and grammar. Even without a Latin background, you'd probably find them reasonably familiar.

Chinese is simple as far as the grammar is concerned, but the characters are murder (~ 5000 for "normal", everyday use; ~90,000 if you want to know them all), and the fact that there's a relatively small pool of syllables but each can have multiple meanings depending on stress/tone makes it a hell of a language to speak or listen to as a beginner. People have managed, apparently, but it's very hard. (I'll go and see if I find the Chinese lion story I copied for LJ some years ago: Basically, every word is pronounced "shi" in various tones, and it makes a ludicrous but understandable complete story. ETA: Ha! gefunden! (http://oloriel.livejournal.com/2004/11/02/)) If you like a challenge, you can try it, but don't be fooled by all those "Chinese is a simple language!" things. Yes, it is - if you only think in terms of grammar.
If you want something Asian, Korean is probably a lot simpler to learn (coming from a European background): a module-based alphabet, individual multi-syllable words rather than tonal single-syllable words, and "normal" grammar.

I have to admit it's complete news to me that China is egalitarian in its violations of human rights. Certainly not in rural areas, and even in the cities, female fetuses (feti?) get aborted in relatively high numbers, because if you can only have one child, apparently one son is preferable to one daughter... doesn't sound like equal treatment to me.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

GOLD. XD

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

I was talking about adult women like me.
In China they are allowed to go to work, to study, to drive a car, etc. They are respected citizens and can move freely around the country. That's not the case in every country my company might feel like sending me on a delegation.

And no, I did never ever believe that Chinese would be easy to learn. It would be cool to KNOW though ;) (I HATED Latin at school and wasn't too fond of French. I had some fun with Hungarian and Finnish, but my favourite language to learn was Norwegian (because it's so easy of course ;)))

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Nynorsk or Bokmål? (I may have asked that question before, but I've forgotten the answer.)

Even if you hated Latin, it'd probably help you to pick up Spanish or Portuguese if you wanted. These things seem to stick with one more than one expects at the time.

Yes, I agree, actually knowing Chinese would be cool to know. So if you aren't afraid of the insane amount of work, you can do that. But it is a lot of work. I just studied Japanese (which only uses ~2000 of the ~5000 characters and at least has grammar and "normal" vocabulary) and that was a bloody pain - and I've forgotten all but perhaps 50 Kanji because you constantly have to repeat them. ^^

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

Bokmål. But just a little - enough for the holidays in Norway :)
Spain or Portugal or South America are countries that don't really fascinate me. I'll think about it. There are a lot of things to do before I will have time to learn a new language anyway.

[gwailome.livejournal.com]

Well, I've never heard the Chinese version, but some 2-3 years ago I was charmed, though couldn't hold back a small laugh, on hearing the Japanese version - Maezurosu)

But really the Chinese version sounds too soft for such a character