10
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Transliteration of Sanskrit
The term, 婆羅門, has been used in China for at least 1500 years.
OLDict lists a few dictionaries. All of them transliterate "Brahman" as "婆羅門".
resources:
Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
漢藏梵英佛學術語 (...
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10
votes
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Why is Cristiano Ronaldo known as “C罗” in Chinese?
C for Cristiano
罗 for 罗纳尔多 (Ronaldo)
Apparently before him:
Ronaldo (罗纳尔多) (Luís Nazário de Lima) was known as 大罗
Ronaldinho (罗纳尔迪尼奥) was called 小罗
So, with big (大) and little (小) already taken, ...
Mou某♦
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10
votes
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How did Chinese people know in the past the pronunciation of words?
The pronunciation of characters was glossed using the Fanqie (反切) system, which uses two existing characters whose pronunciations are known to determine the pronunciation of the unknown character.
...
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8
votes
What is the right spelling, 乌兹别克 or 乌孜别克?
1934年，盛世才召開新疆第二次民眾大會，確定烏孜別克族為正式族名，把國外的烏孜別克族依然寫作烏茲別克。
In 1934, 盛世才 held the second public meeting in Xinjiang, determining 乌孜别克 (wū zī bié kè) as the official ethnic name, and the foreign Uzbek still ...
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8
votes
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What Chinese characters for “ching wong but jeep” (Roughly: There is no one to keep things going)?
Based on the pronunciation along, I guess it is 青黄不接 （qing1 huang2 bu4 jie1）
青：green, which means the newly planted still growing wheat this year
黄：yellow, which means the old wheat gathered last year
...
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7
votes
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Chinese names: Gah-Ning
Although it is a potentially valid to use the slightly derogatory "cute" nickname, it is much more likely to be a more standard-sounding given name, for example 佳寧 or perhaps 嘉寧, both pronounced ...
- 6,423
7
votes
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Artist seal and meaning
it's 羅綺, in traditional chinese, in Small Seal Script (小篆)
the left character is 羅
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=羅
the right one is 綺
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu....
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6
votes
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Which is more common: 川普 or 特朗普?
Haha, funny question. "特朗普" is the official transliteration, used most commonly in official media of China, such as CCTV（新闻联播）and People's Daily(人民日报), while "川普" is more often used in social media or ...
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6
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When and why did Cambridge go from being 康桥 and become 剑桥?
英国的康桥，如今大部份人都称之为剑桥，这个译法很特别，但是居然
还是被人们接受了。一般来讲，中国人翻译外国的地名大多采用音译，
如“翡冷翠”、“枫丹白露”，都是其中的上乘之作；也有不多的一些
外国地名是采用字面的义译，如“牛津”、“地中海”，可算别具一格，
但鲜有音译和义译混合的。“剑桥”是少见的一例，剑桥的“剑”乃是
“Cam”的音译，“桥”是“Bridge”的义译。由此可以推断，
...
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5
votes
How to translate the fictional name "yuan-ti" into meaningful Chinese words?
imo, "yuan-ti" is a transliteration of chinese, using older scheme of romanisation. the characters represented are "軟體" (a pliable body), quite a good description of "snake-related-monster".
the "...
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5
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Is this statement about the challenges of tracking down the Chinese equivalent of a name in Pinyin basically correct?
Yes and no. The characters associated with context-free random toneless pinyin will sometimes impossible to infer with certainty. However, the issue is more about identifying characters which match ...
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4
votes
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Is "v" ever an acceptable English rendering of ü?
AFAIK (I'm a native English speaker) the letter v is never used in English writing to render the sound represented in pinyin by ü.
However in software that uses pinyin it is standard practice to use ...
- 1,540
4
votes
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Origin of transliteration of ~j/sw to ~r in Mandarin
Yes.
瑞 is seoi6 (IPA: /sɵy̯²²/) in Cantonese, and sūi (IPA: /sui²²/) in Hokkien, so is a fairly close match to the French word Suisse and the English name for Sweden. The origin of a lot of ...
- 6,423
4
votes
Database of Chinese translations of given names?
the national academy fro educational research (國家教育研究院) of taiwan, maintained the bilingual data, several of these database are name related, and all of them are free to download 😸
學術名詞下載
entries ...
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4
votes
Which of 法国, 法兰西, and 法兰斯 is the most common word for France?
For your question, as a native Chinese speaker, I use 法國。
(For illustration purposes, I have below pronunciations in Mandarin for your references. P: Pinyin, I: IPA)
There seems to be some ...
- 1,163
3
votes
How to translate the fictional name "yuan-ti" into meaningful Chinese words?
Although yuan-ti does indeed sound Chinese, I don't believe that it corresponds to actual Chinese words which mean demon men or snake men. Chinese versions of DnD (not really official) just translates ...
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3
votes
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3
votes
Why characters with "口字旁" were chosen in this transliteration?
Characters with "mouth radicals" are often chosen for transliterations. This is especially helpful to show that it is a proper noun rather than anything else, otherwise the reader might try and put ...
Mou某♦
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3
votes
Accepted
How to pronounce English words in Chinese
There are two directions you mentioned:
transliteration or romanisation using Wade-Giles (Tao for 道) or Pinyin (Dao for 道) to write/spell/pronounce chinese characters/words (see Taoism VS Daoism). ...
- 170
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According to the official rules of pinyin, should 道德经 be transcribed with or without spaces between the individual syllables?
Most of foreigners use emphasized text "Tao Te Ching". Of course, it's not in Mandarin Chinese Pinyin, but in old Chinese Pinyin. It is very common, such as Peking and Sun Yat-sen. And, how ...
- 1,273
3
votes
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Can somebody translate this seal script, please?
The last character is 印
The seal read 關景南印 (Guan Jingnan's seal). 關景南 is the author's name
(originally I thought it was '色' in "景色" which means "scenery" (they do look similar to ...
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3
votes
Accepted
Could 佛州 mean Vermont, or does it always mean Florida?
It can be used to refer to either state, however, it is more often referred to as Florida rather than Vermont, because most of the Chinese are more familiar with the former, for it's a popular ...
- 12.1k
3
votes
Can somebody please help me to parse the phrase, '挑起满满的一担...'?
挑起(pick up)满满的(full load of)一担(100 jin)粮食(foodstuff).
满满的 [adj], bank-full (full to the top of the container).
担 [noun], a traditional Chinese unit of weight. 一担 = 100斤 = 1 picul (133.33 pounds, or ...
- 12.1k
2
votes
Chinese names: Gah-Ning
I prefer 佳宁(佳寧), meaning "nice and peaceful." Although this girl may be young and stubborn, the name you suggest sounds awful and should not be applied to a girl.
P.S. 尕 is a character used mainly in ...
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votes
Accepted
Why Romatzyh and not Luomatzyh
According to David Prager Branner (林德威) in A Guide to Gwoyeu Romatzyh Tonal Spelling of Chinese it is just an ad hoc rule:
The name of the city of Rome and words derived from it are to be spelled "...
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votes
Transliteration of Sanskrit
This looks like a pretty extensive resource on the subject:
A Handful of Leaves: A Buddhist Chinese Sanskrit Dictionary
By the way, it does list 婆羅門 as Brahman on page 365.
Too bad it's not ...
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2
votes
Accepted
How to translate the fictional name "yuan-ti" into meaningful Chinese words?
How about "淵體" (yūan tǐ), or "abyssal entity?" they speak abyssal, don't they?
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Why was Jutland transliterated as 日德兰?
日 in Jyutping (Cantonese pinyin) is [jat6] which sounds similar to 'Ju' in "Jutland"
德 in Jyutping is [dak1] which sounds similar to 'tl' in "Jutland"
and 兰 is the common transliteration in both ...
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