"Despacito" transcribed with Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English syllables
This amazing song from Taiwan seems to have been inspired by some Japanese cultural practices, which we will explore later in this post.
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This amazing song from Taiwan seems to have been inspired by some Japanese cultural practices, which we will explore later in this post.
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[This is a guest post by Robert S. Bauer]
HK’s Cantonese language continues to attract attention and be a topic of discussion.
Two Mondays ago (May 14, 2018) I was a guest discussant on RTHK Radio 3's Backchat programme.
The topic was "The Future of Cantonese" (in Hong Kong).
In addition to the two main hosts, Hugh Chiverton and Mike Rowse, the following people joined in the discussion:
Simon Liang, Member, Societas Linguistica Hongkongensis (a group promoting the correct usage of Cantonese)
Peter Gordon, Editor, Asian Review of Books; and Language Critic
Benjamin Au Yeung, TV host and Linguist
Robert Bauer, Honorary Linguistics Professor, University of Hong Kong
Li Hui, University of Hong Kong
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Watching the embedded video in this article, "Korean Air Chairman Fires Two Daughters Over Rage Incidents" (Bloomberg News [April 22, 2018, 8:45 PM EDT]),
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Just as all school children in the PRC learn to read and write through Hanyu Pinyin ("Sinitic spelling"), the official romanization on the mainland, so do all school children in Taiwan learn to read and write with the aid of what is commonly referred to as "Bopomofo ㄅㄆㄇㄈ "), after the first four letters of this semisyllabary. The system has many other names, including "Zhùyīn fúhào 注音符號" ("[Mandarin] Phonetic Symbols"), its current formal designation, as well as earlier names such as Guóyīn Zìmǔ 國音字母 ("Phonetic Alphabet of the National Language") and Zhùyīn Zìmǔ 註音字母 ( "Phonetic Alphabet" or "Annotated Phonetic Letters"). From the plethora of names, you can get an idea of what sort of system it is. I usually think of it as a cross between an alphabet and a syllabary.
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I'm at Yale University attending a workshop on Tangut. So you ask, "What is 'Tangut'?" Relevant Wikipedia articles:
Enough of Tangut for now. I will write a separate post on Tangut language and script later on. Meanwhile, since the majority of specialists on Tangut are Russian, and several Russians are participating in this workshop, I've heard them refer to the president of their country with a pronunciation that is rather different from what we say it in English, but more nearly resembles the way his surname is spoken in Mandarin.
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News article from Xinhua (1/16/18, by Quan Xiaoshu, Qu Ting, Cao Pengyuan):
"Ancient tripartite-city of Xiongnu a special religious and meeting site: archaeologists"
It starts:
Bathrobe comments:
Now, it may be due to my poor web research skills, but I'm having considerable difficulty finding any Sanlian city or even a Khermental city in Mongolia outside of the Xinhua news article.
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French President Emmanuel Macron presented a horse to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Vesuvius, an 8-yr old gelding from the 'Garde Republicaine'.
Now, Macron's name in Chinese is transcribed as "Mǎkèlóng 马克龙" (lit., "horse subdues / overcomes / conquers / surmounts dragon").
Make of it what you will.
Zhao Mengfu 趙孟頫 (1254-1322) is one of the most famous painters in the history of Chinese art. Many of his priceless works still exist, and he was even honored by having a 167 kilometer-diameter feature on Mercury (132.4° west, 87.3° south), the "Chao Meng-Fu crater", named after him.
When Zhao Mengfu's name came up in a discussion on connoisseurship in one of my classes a few days ago, I almost fell off my chair upon hearing a graduate student from mainland China pronounce it as "Zhao Mengtiao". Where did she learn that strange pronunciation for this ultrafamous artist's name? Did she hear it from her teachers? Her classmates? Or was she just making a wild guess based on what she thought the ostensible phonophore, zhào 兆, would yield? However she came up with "Zhao Mengtiao", the effect upon hearing it would be akin to hearing someone say "Michelanjump" or "Leonardo da Jump".
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A friend of Rebecca Hamilton saw this at a local market in Dundee Scotland:
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