The US President’s upcoming visit to the Middle Kingdom has engendered a ripple or two in linguistic and media circles. Currently, Chinese headline writers refer to the current White House occupant as “Ow-ba-ma” (奥巴马), the first syllable rhyming with “cow.”
Since Obama himself and most native English speakers read the name with a long “O”, as in “open,” China’s version appears inaccurate. In a fun piece at Danwei.org, Joel Martinsen cites a recent article in the Mirror (a Chinese newspaper) that reveals that the US embassy itself is guilty of using two different transliterations in Chinese, e.g., one that is the equivalent of “Owbama” and more recently, one that reads more accurately as “Obama” (欧巴马). (This “O” actually means “Europe” and sounds like the words for both “vomit” and “idol,” but let’s not go there!)
Something that neither the Mirror’s interviewees nor Martinsen mentions is that the “Owbama” transliteration is in fact quite accurate, thank you — if, like many million of overseas Chinese (and Hong Kongers), you speak Cantonese rather than that barbaric, Manchu-influenced tongue known as putonghua (Mandarin).
The unseemly truth that China’s professional linguists and spin-doctors are loath to admit is that Cantonese transliterations have long since quietly insinuated their way into “standard” Mandarin. British-occupied Hong Kong already had English newspapers in the 19th century, and the Cantonese-speaking colony traditionally served as a bridge between the English-speaking and Chinese-speaking worlds. Thus it should be no surprise that the names of many countries, cities and historical figures worldwide (e.g., Peru, Singapore, Warsaw, George Washington) sound weird in Mandarin but closer to the original when pronounced in Cantonese.
To summarize, “Politically Correct” transliterations in today’s China:
- Are supposed to be determined by the media authorities in Beijing
- Assume a priori that transliterations coined in Taiwan or Hong Kong are not kosher
- Make memorizing names for exam time a major headache!
November 14th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
[...] Finally, the nuttiest sideshow to President Obama’s visit has to be the ongoing ‘controversy’ over the sale of ObaMao t-shirts in Beijing. (The second silliest is the debate between the State Department and Xihua over how to transliterate “Obama” into Chinese.) [...]
November 14th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
This has nothing to do with political correctness, but a lot to do with linguistic correctness. Taiwan and Hong Kong transliterations often lack rigor and consistency. As a translator, I know how valuable that is. Xinhua might have done a lot of things wrong, but they did at least one thing right: they started to build of database of place and people’s names. This is very helpful if someone tries to do “back translation” in research. Even some foreign media, such as Financial Times, depend on this database for consistent transliterations. Hong Kong and Taiwan transliterations are often “freer” as they are more market driven. Translators translate names to make them sound smooth in Chinese for their reader, caring less about the original pronunciation. For instance, McCain is translated as 马侃 in World Journal, which caters mainly to Taiwan or Hong Kong readers. The case of Obama is an exception not the rule. In addition, wait for people to laugh at the new “欧巴马“ translation which is previously used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. “欧” sounds the same as “呕“ as in “呕吐” (vomit, throw up), or 偶 in 偶像 (idol). 奥 is more difficult to play with in such language games.
You are suggesting that Beijing is trying to manipulate such small things as transliterations. I think the government couldn’t care less one way or the other. It’s mainly something for intellectuals to debate about.
November 15th, 2009 at 12:18 am
both the entry and the above comment both claim that 欧 sounds like 偶 and 呕, implying that the name will be the pun of throw-up jokes and (american?) idol references.
tonally, 欧 doesn’t sound like either of these (it sounds more like 殴, which has its own negative connotations).
But the point is that 欧 is a commonly used character in transliteration, and I seriously doubt anybody would “laugh at” it. Nobody makes fun of 欧佩克; why would they make fun of 欧巴马？
Personally, I very much hope it does get changed from 奥 to 欧, because that’s how I pronounce it anyway and it’d be nice if the Chinese language adapted to ME for once!
November 15th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Jonathan, congratulations, you just won. I think it has changed to 欧巴马. Maybe I am wrong, there is not going to be any negative connotation after all. I wouldn’t mind it either.
If Chinese government gets to win on other fronts, I don’t think it cares at all what kind of Chinese name the US embassy will give to President Obama.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:18 am
Why in the world should Chinese be different from any other language? Are you actually suggesting that the PRC governing authorities have a right to dictate to the US government how to spell the head of state of their country?
Who knows better than the country itself how to translate the name of the country’s leader? When China translated 邓小平 as Deng Xiaoping into English did anyone make a big deal? He had been previously known as T’eng Hsiao-ping… Bravo to the US bureaucrats who had the balls to stand up and do what is right.