Why is Sherlock Holmes translated as "福尔摩斯" (Fuermosi)?

Question

The last name of the detective Sherlock Holmes is translated as "福尔摩斯"(Fuermosi) in Chinese, which seems to be strange, since the Chinese pronunciation is nowhere close to the English one, beginning with the "F" sound instead of the "H" sound. Since the word "福" doesn't vary significantly in pronunciation across dialects, it probably is not a dialectal issue.

Furthermore, the "ho" phoneme is definitely present in Chinese, and translating it as "侯尔摩斯" would be significantly closer in pronunciation to the original.

Is there a reason this strange translation was carried out in the first place, and was furthermore maintained over the years?

I was myself confused by this translation, when I saw the book in a Chinese library and could not initially place any detective story starting with "Four" or the equivalent, and only realised the true translation after browsing through the book.

Answer 1

The term "福爾摩斯" was used in newspapers as a detective example (中國亦有福爾摩斯), as early as 1905.

香港華字日報, 1905-10-25

Title: 香港華字日報, 1905-10-25 = The Chinese Mail
Bib ID: NPTCM19051025
Publisher: 香港 : 香港華字日報有限公司
Date Created/Published: 1905-10-25
Page: 7th

An article talked about this topic:

福爾摩斯譯名及其他

i edited this answer, with sound files of "福", in min nan (閩南話) and cantonese (廣東話). one may compare these with the 1st syllable of english pronunciation of "holmes", have fun 😼

in min nan (閩南話), according to 教育部臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典:

福　hok　mp3 file

in cantonese (廣東話), according to 漢語多功能字庫, using sydney lau scheme:

福　fuk1　mp3 file

Answer 2

Min dialects pronounce 福 as "hok", hence the spelling Hokkien (also spelled Fujian as per Mandarin pronunciation). The translation of Holmes as 福尔摩斯 is neither inaccurate nor ignorant. It has to do with which language/dialect the translator speaks, and in this case, a Min dialect, as pointed out by another user. When a name catches on, it becomes the one people will use. The historical fact that one Chinese dialect was chosen as "standard" Mandarin 國語 does not invalidate other dialects, nor does it render transliteration of names according to those dialects inaccurate. Another example would be the name Hong Kong, which is pronounced "Xiang Gang" in Mandarin. But I am sure the name Hong Kong will stay, and it would be a bit silly to say that the transliteration "Hong Kong" is inaccurate.

Adding some references here:

https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Sherlock-Holmes-translated-to-F%C3%BA%C4%9Brm%C3%B3s%C4%AB-in-Chinese

Answer 3

"福尔摩斯" is not accurate for the pronunciation. That's right. But this is decided by the first two translators for the book in 1902, Ding Huang and Zaixin Zhang. They translated Sherlock Holmes to "休洛克福而摩司", which is really similar to "福尔摩斯". In 1903, "福尔摩斯" was used in a new translated version by Wenming Press. But the reason behind this is untrackable anymore.

Answer 4

Transliterations from/to Chinese belong to the realm of fuzziness. It is no more different than ignorant English-speaking people pronouncing Beijing as Beizhing (as if they had a speech impediment, unable to say "jingle bells"). Or people saying Mukden, Canton and what have you not.

Some Western names have been transliterated by sound, oftentimes using Cantonese, since trade was carried out in southern China for a long time. That is why Sweden is called 瑞典 in Chinese (Seuihdin in Cantonese, Ruidian in Mandarin).

Furthermore, Chinese names for foreign things are often translitterated with a fixed set of morphemes, 福 being one of them, in order to make such names neutral.

One could imagine a translator pondering a suitable transliteration for Holmes, stumbling over hou-er-mo-si as a first estimation, only to realize that 猴儿 means monkey.