Chinese transcriptions of the name "Iowa"
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Iowa is home to the famous Iowa Writers' Workshop, which is located at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Over the years, many aspiring Chinese writers who later became outstanding poets and authors have enjoyed residencies there, and many of China's and Taiwan's most distinguished authors have come to the Writers' Workshop for shorter stays, to attend conferences, and to give lectures.
Here is a 1993 account of "Chinese Writers in Iowa" by Peter Xinping Zhou that gives a good idea of the importance of the Writers' Workshop for the Sinophone literary realm. This essay mentions only a fraction of the Chinese writers who had come to the Workshop by 1993, and, needless to say, the number who have passed through the Workshop since 1993 is even greater. As Peter Xinping Zhou begins his essay, it is no exaggeration to say that "To many people in China, the name of the University of Iowa is just as familiar as that of Harvard or Oxford."
But what IS the name "Iowa" for the people of China?
Here are a few of the transcriptions of "Iowa" that I have come across:
1. Àiwǒhuá zhōu 愛我華州 / simplified 爱我华州
2. Ài'àowǎ zhōu 艾奥瓦州
3. Ài'àohuá zhōu 艾奥華州 / simplified 艾奥华州
4. Yī'āhuá zhōu 衣阿華州 / simplified 衣阿华州
5. Àihéhuá zhōu 愛荷華州 / simplified 爱荷华州
Since the characters for some of the transcriptions were chosen not just for their sounds, but also for their meanings, I give here basic glosses for each of the names (zhōu 州 means "state"):
1. love — I / me / our — florescent
2. mugwort (artemisia) — abstruse — tile
3. mugwort (artemisia) — abstruse — florescent
4. clothing — the sound "ah" — florescent
5. love — lotus — florescent
So "Iowa" is a well-known name in the Chinese-speaking world, but it seems that there may simultaneously exist several Iowas in the minds of Chinese, depending upon which transcription they are thinking of. A Chinese colleague from the mainland who taught at the University of Iowa for several years told me that, before coming to America, she had long heard of the fame of the Àihéhuá 愛荷華 Writers' Workshop, but that it took her awhile after arriving at the University of Yī'āhuá 衣阿华 before she realized that the latter transcription (favored by the authorities in the PRC) designated the same place as the former (long preferred by the people of Taiwan). Moreover, in the PRC, Yī'āhuá 衣阿华 is well known as the site of the horrific 1991 murders perpetrated by a mainland student named Lu Gang. My colleague also told me that, once they come to America and learn that Àihéhuá 愛荷華 (love — lotus — florescent) and Yī'āhuá 衣阿华 (clothing — the sound "ah" — florescent) are the same place, they much prefer the former over the latter, so that — despite its official status in the PRC — the latter transcription is fast losing ground to the former.
[Thanks are due to Zhou Yunong]
Bruce Rusk said,
May 15, 2011 @ 6:52 am
I wonder if at some level the University might have a preference different from that of the state government, as Peking University has kept its old English moniker despite the otherwise-universal (duck notwithstanding) switch to Beijing.
Jon Wong said,
May 15, 2011 @ 8:20 am
When doing spurious translations like this I don't think anyone would associate 華 with "fluorescent"..
Jim Hulbert (Hu-Jin) said,
May 15, 2011 @ 8:44 am
15 May 2011
When I studied with my tutor, Yu Zhi-qiang, at the University of Iowa, he mentioned that "Iowa," or "Ai-wah!" was an exclamation that could be translated: Ouch!"
Victor Mair said,
May 15, 2011 @ 9:19 am
@Jon Wong
"Fluorescent" and "florescent" are two very different words from two very different roots.
Also, I don't think that "spurious" is what you meant to say. What I gave for each character were glosses or tags.
bryan said,
May 15, 2011 @ 11:57 am
ai & wa has many characters with the same pronunciation and so it's hard to pinpoint an exact one via Pinyin.
Usually ai is transcribed with the word meaning "love".
Via Cantonese, " va & wa" is usually 'hwa', which is converted to "hua" in Mandarin via PInyin.
Andrew said,
May 15, 2011 @ 6:35 pm
I think maybe what Jon Wong meant to say was that one would normally think "Chinese" when seeing 華? (As in, 中華，華語， etc)
But I could just totally be making that up.
A said,
May 15, 2011 @ 6:51 pm
As a non-native Mandarin speaker, 愛荷華 sounds very much like a place that would be nice to visit, whereas 衣阿華 is much more obviously a transliteration of a foreign name.
Also want to echo what Andrew said, I think most native speakers would think of "Chinese culture" first for a definition of 華. But both that and the flowery denotations are much nicer than "roof tile".
John said,
May 15, 2011 @ 7:33 pm
Florescent, as in flowering, prospering, as in 繁华 and a number of other words that have nothing to do with Chinese culture or roof tiles.
Wentao said,
May 16, 2011 @ 1:45 pm
To be honest, I find this topic trivial and incorrect. Pick up any Mainland atlas of the world, or for that matter, of the United States, you'll find 艾奥瓦州 with no exception. The result is the same in dictionaries, encyclopaedias and other reliable sources.
I myself have only encountered the phrase 衣阿华 once, in a Jules Verne novel translated in the 50s. So I suppose that this is a rather out of date transliteration – as well as a inaccurate and awkward one. How come people are more familiar with it, is a complete mystery to me.
As for 爱荷华, according to the Chinese Wikipedia article, it is the official name in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
P.S.: I strongly suspect that 爱我华 was originally supposed to mean "love my China". A patriotic pun, maybe. By the way, University of Iowa may be a prestigious name to certain people, but it is surely far from as famous as Harvard and Oxford.
Wentao said,
May 16, 2011 @ 1:53 pm
@A
"… whereas 衣阿華 is much more obviously a transliteration of a foreign name."
Actually to me 衣阿华 isn't that "obviously" a transliteration, because 衣 is an extremely rare choice for a foreign name, which doesn't appear in any 译音表. In my personal opinion, 衣阿华 is reminiscent of the era when 译音表 weren't devised and translators were free to their own preferences… the era of 白堤火粉, 梵婀玲 and 枫丹白露…
Victor Mair said,
May 16, 2011 @ 5:26 pm
@Wentao
If you consider these ghits, perhaps you will no longer "find this topic trivial and incorrect" (not sure what you mean by saying that the topic is "incorrect" anyway):
1. "愛我華" 890,000
2. "艾奥瓦" 549,000
3. "艾奥華" 16,900
4. "衣阿華" 500,000
5. "愛荷華" 2,470,000
6. "爱我华" 830,000
7. "艾奥华" 16,900
8. "衣阿华" 500,000
9. "爱荷华" 2,470,000
These figures are generated from actual usage, not officially prescribed rules.
John Swindle said,
May 17, 2011 @ 1:22 pm
For English speakers the challenge is to determine whether Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, and India (also known as Indiana) are the same place or not.
Bathrobe said,
May 19, 2011 @ 8:19 pm
Wikipedia (Chinese) says:
艾奥瓦州（英语：Iowa），又译爱我华州或衣阿华州.
Ethan said,
May 20, 2011 @ 1:39 am
艾奥瓦州 is by far my favorite – not only is its pronunciation closest to the English, but its component characters are also found comparatively often in transliteration as opposed to ordinary Chinese text.
Bob Violence said,
May 20, 2011 @ 8:15 am
Wikipedia (Chinese) says:
艾奥瓦州（英语：Iowa），又译爱我华州或衣阿华州.
…but change it to the Hong Kong or Taiwan versions and you get 愛荷華州.
I think "艾欧瓦" would be more accurate to the original pronunciation, but for whatever reason 欧 is avoided in standardized transcriptions, even though it's given as an option. I assume this is because the character is associated so strongly with Europe.
Wentao said,
May 22, 2011 @ 12:30 pm
What I meant by "incorrect" is this particular sentence:
"…but that it took her awhile after arriving at the University of Yī'āhuá 衣阿华 before she realized that the latter transcription (favored by the authorities in the PRC)…"
Because authorities in the PRC actually favour 艾奥瓦.
Dan Lufkin said,
May 22, 2011 @ 8:42 pm
In Boston we pronounce it "Ohio".
steve shepherd said,
February 21, 2014 @ 12:42 am
The reason for the confusion is 2-fold:
1. Peking authorities ignore translations provided from other sovereign governments – instead they create names for domestic consumptin. The love to put the character "hua" which is also used to mean "China", and even use "aiwohua" (love our China) for Iowa.
2. Washington authorities are equally to blame – , agencies like voa are totally passive and tend to parrot these Chinese translations.
Best solution would be to simply use English
reading some of these comments gives the impression that the Chinese should decide. well if that is so, then Americans should decide to use more natural names for places like Formosa, Canton or Manchuria