Pronunciation of Cantonese names (I think) in English book

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mattm
Posts: 103
Joined: July 24th, 2021, 9:10 pm

Post by mattm »

I am preparing to read Kidnapped in London by Sun Yat-Sen.

The book is not a translation - he wrote the original manuscript in English.

In the book, he mentions some Chinese names. They are not in Pinyin or Wade-Giles, I don't know if he used some other system I don't know about or whether he rolled his own. There is no 汉字 but I managed to figure most of them out. I want to try to pronounce authentically, i.e. using tones. I gather he was a Cantonese speaker. I have not studied Cantonese, but I have studied some Mandarin.

Some examples:
  • "Yang Quei Tze" (page 42) which I figure must be 洋鬼子. For the Mandarin tones I have Pleco with "yang2 gui3 zi" and for Cantonese I have "Cantonese English Dictionary" by "EPlusMoment" with "yeung4 gwai2 ji2".
  • "Kwang-Tung" which must be 广东 "Guang3 dong1" in Mandarin, "gwong2 dung1" in Cantonese.
  • "Ta-Yen" which must be 大人 "Da4 ren" in Mandarin, "Daai6 Yan4" in Cantonese.
  • "Tsung-Li-Yamen" (page 37) must be 總理衙門 "Zong3li3 Ya2men", "<something> lei5 nga4 mun4" in Cantonese - I can't find anything for that first character in my Cantonese dictionary app.
  • Others, just a few too many to list...
So what should I do? Mandarin or Cantonese? If Sun Yat-Sen were telling this story to an English audience, what might he have done?

Thanks for any advice! :hmm:
seraphwings
Posts: 77
Joined: November 5th, 2022, 5:18 pm

Post by seraphwings »

Hi, I'm a Cantonese speaker. Not sure if you're still looking for an answer, but I feel like it wouldn't be necessary to figure out the actual Cantonese words. Even if you have the tones, it's very difficult to get them right if you haven't studied Cantonese, as it's very different from Mandarin. And since the author used a different spelling system in the first place, I think it would be ok to just go with what's written in a way that feels comfortable for you and that you can do consistently. Trying to speak in a difficult language mind end up being distracting, and with the book being intended for an English audience, I think speaking in a way that flows with the text would be better. I hope this helps.
just flapping my wings, hoping to make a difference
mattm
Posts: 103
Joined: July 24th, 2021, 9:10 pm

Post by mattm »

Thanks for responding, seraphwings. Your perspective is helpful.

I haven't 100% decided, but I believe I have completed all the research I need to proceed with using Cantonese pronunciations.

For words that are not personal names, I have figured out all the 汉字 for the Chinese transliterations and looked up the tones. Another Cantonese speaker on LibriVox recorded an entire English-to-Cantonese dictionary, so I have his readings for some words, and my Cantonese dictionary app's robot voice for the others. I also watched a couple Cantonese tutorials on Youtube to get background to understand what it's supposed to sound like.

For personal names, a couple are described in enough detail, and are famous enough, that I could find their Wikipedia pages, where I got their 汉字. E.g. I figure Marquis Tseng on page 74 is this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xue_Fucheng. Other names I can make something up, or even cop out and use 3rd tone for everything. :)

The question is - can I make it flow and sound natural? I think I can. I listened to an English audiobook about China ("On China" by Henry Kissinger) where the reader, a native English speaker, pronounced all the names using tones. I thought it was a good choice. To my ear it flowed well. From practicing Mandarin I find it very hard to get the tones right in a full sentence, but most of the expressions in the book are just a few words at most, and I can keep doing takes until I get it right. There aren't that many.
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