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<blockquote data-quote="tarchon" data-source="post: 1430581" data-attributes="member: 5990">The situation with Chinese renderings of Western names is really no different from that between any two languages.&nbsp; It's just more obvious because the writing systems are very different.&nbsp; Take for example the German name &quot;Goethe&quot; - no English speaker without special training can pronounce it, simply because one of the sounds doesn't exist in English.&nbsp; People often delude themselves into thinking they're pronouncing it by saying &quot;Gurta&quot; or &quot;Goatha&quot; or &quot;Goata,&quot; but what they're really pronouncing is an approximation of the German sounds with English sounds, no different from the approximation the Chinese make when they say &quot;Bulang&quot; for &quot;Brown.&quot;&nbsp; Even with apparently pronounceable names like &quot;Mozart,&quot; the English speaker is not really using German sounds, only English sounds that are close to the German or at least are conventionally considered equivalent because they're written with the same symbols.&nbsp; I can easily hear the difference between a German 'o' and an English 'o', and certainly the 'r' is totally different.&nbsp; More subtly, there are always differences between way sounds are combined and altered within the word, of which most speakers are unaware.The degree to which borrowed names and words are altered depends a lot on the literacy of the culture and the frequency with which words are borrowed.&nbsp; English borrows words from French so routinely that we have standard ways to mispronounce them.&nbsp; On the other hand, American Indian words borrowed into English were very haphazardly adapted by sound alone, and thus often reanalyzed by early American settlers.&nbsp; Because of that we get words like &quot;woodchuck&quot; and &quot;chipmunk,&quot; which don't resemble the originals very much but have clearly attempted to find familiar morphemes like &quot;wood&quot; and &quot;chip.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="tarchon, post: 1430581, member: 5990"] The situation with Chinese renderings of Western names is really no different from that between any two languages. It's just more obvious because the writing systems are very different. Take for example the German name "Goethe" - no English speaker without special training can pronounce it, simply because one of the sounds doesn't exist in English. People often delude themselves into thinking they're pronouncing it by saying "Gurta" or "Goatha" or "Goata," but what they're really pronouncing is an approximation of the German sounds with English sounds, no different from the approximation the Chinese make when they say "Bulang" for "Brown." Even with apparently pronounceable names like "Mozart," the English speaker is not really using German sounds, only English sounds that are close to the German or at least are conventionally considered equivalent because they're written with the same symbols. I can easily hear the difference between a German 'o' and an English 'o', and certainly the 'r' is totally different. More subtly, there are always differences between way sounds are combined and altered within the word, of which most speakers are unaware. The degree to which borrowed names and words are altered depends a lot on the literacy of the culture and the frequency with which words are borrowed. English borrows words from French so routinely that we have standard ways to mispronounce them. On the other hand, American Indian words borrowed into English were very haphazardly adapted by sound alone, and thus often reanalyzed by early American settlers. Because of that we get words like "woodchuck" and "chipmunk," which don't resemble the originals very much but have clearly attempted to find familiar morphemes like "wood" and "chip." [/QUOTE]

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