Romanization

   

Writing other languages using the Roman alphabet.

There is one short article at Go4Go.net talking about Romanization of player names: [ext] http://www.go4go.net/v2/modules/article1/index.php?id=14

Japanese

Romanization of Japanese presents several issues, including naming order and romanization style issues.

Sensei's Library use a modified version of the Hepburn romanization system (without macrons and apostrophes). The "Revised Hepburn" system used by the United States Library of Congress is presented alongside the modified romanization in articles about the subject. See Japanese Go Pronunciations.

Viciousman: (The line originally said: Romanization of Japanese presents no problems.)

Andrew Grant: Oh yes it does - there are at least three ways of doing it, and you have to use the right one. See the Discussion page.

anonymous: What is the reason for removing macrons and apostrophes? This is confusing and inaccruate.

Blake: They don't translate well to URLs, so the pagenames on senseis can't handle them. Do you really want to write ōgeima that bad?

Chinese

It has been agreed (quote unkx80) to use Pinyin (拼音, pīnyīn) [ext] Pinyin on SL.

  • tderz: It can be noted, that for all of us non-sinologists this also includes the roman letters without the diacritic signs [10].

(example: pīnyīn becomes Pinyin, which is ok too on Senseis (as you could not have unicode in Senseis pagenames?)),


[10] despite that this might lead to ambiguities:
ma ma ma ma ma ? (seems to have no sense; a prattling toddler?)

mā ma mà mǎ ma
māma mà mǎ ma (Pinyin adds sense)

妈妈 骂 马 吗 (?) (characters eliminate any possible ambiguity)
Mummy scolds the horse? (this is the meaning)

Other Chinese tongue twisters: (proving the usefulness of diacritic signs ... and characters)
西施死時四十四
西(xi1)施(shi1) 死(si3) 時 四(si4)十(shi2)四(si4)
xī shī sǐ shí sìshí sì
Xi Shi died at 44.

四是四 sì shì sì
十是十 shí shì shí
十四是十四 shísì shì shísì
四十是四十 sìshí shì sìshí
四十四是四十四 sìshísì shì sìshísì
四十四隻石獅子是死的 sìshísì zhī shí shīzi shì sǐ de

sì shì sì, shí shì shí, shísì shì shísì, sìshí shì sìshí, sìshísì shì sìshísì, sìshísì zhī shí shízi shì sǐde

Four is four,
ten is ten,
fourteen is fourteen,
forty is forty,
forty four is forty four,
at forty four one of the stone lions died.

(Now imagine a person from Shanghai - my father-in-law, speaking 普通话 pǔ tōng huà without distinguishing much between shì and sì,
often it sounds like sì (tong seems to approach less the gum than the upper front teeth))
this could sound close to sì sì sì, sí sì sí, sísì sì sísì, sìsí shì sìsí, sìsísì shì sìsísì, sìsísì zhī sí sízi shì sǐde

吃葡萄不吐葡萄皮jí pútao bù tù pútao pí,
不吃葡萄倒吐葡萄皮 bùchī pútao dào tù pútao pí

If eating grapes, don't spit out the grape skins (Chinese do!)
If (/When) not (anymore) eating grapes, (then) spit out the grape skins
Frank Sinatra (lyrics: Paul Anka): "I ate it up and spit it out." (from "I did it my Way")


qīngqīng shānshàng yī gēn téng, qīngténg dǐxia guà chuī téng tíng téng tíng tíng
青青山上一根藤
青藤底下挂銅鈴
風吹藤動銅鈴動
風停藤停銅鈴停

Atop a green mountain grows a vine,
under the green vine hangs a copper bell,
when the wind blows, the vine moves and the bell moves,
when the wind stops, the vine stops and the bell stops.

盆和瓶 pén hé píng]
桌上有個盆 zhuōshàngxíng yǒu gè pén
盆裡有個瓶 pén lǐ yǒu gè píng
砰砰砰 pēng pēng pēng
是瓶碰盆 shì píng pèng pén
還是盆碰瓶 háishì pén pèng píng

Pan and table,
the desktop has a pan,
inside the pan there's a bottle,
bang, bang, bang.
Is it the bottle hitting the pan
or the pan hitting the bottle?

青青山上一根藤 qīng qīng shān shàng yī gēn téng
青藤底下挂銅鈴 qīng téng dǐxia guà tóng líng
風吹藤動銅鈴動 fēng chuī téng dòng tóng líng dòng
風停藤停銅鈴停 fēng tíng téng tíng tóng líng tíng

Atop a green mountain grows a vine.
under the green vine hangs a copper bell,
when the wind blows, the vine moves and the bell moves,
when the wind stops, the vine stops and the bell stops.

(Tongue twister's characters taken from yellowbridge.com, but the words are actually common knowledge)


This is a copy of the living page "Romanization" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2007 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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