(29-03-2017, 08:39 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Converting a foreign name in the "VMS language" letter for letter, would mean that we would see much long words. Cause those words must represent the different foreign sounds letter for letter and that would make long words always. There are some longer words in the VMS. Those could then represent "foreign" names.
Longer words are at least 8 long.
We would expect those words to pop up in the herbals. Especially in the first line or at least the first paragraph. Also we would expect these to be used as labels.
Those words are not necessary unique with one repeat, but they would have a low repeat.
I did not find those cases in the VMS which I described.
But I did not find time to investigate those long words detailed (see other thread) and match them with the patterns I'm listing for all other words.
Perhaps there is a flaw in this reasoning, if so, let me know.
Hi David,
Basically, what you think is right. However, whether a long word is allowed is still restricted by orthography.
For example, in Chinese, we do translate foreign country names into similarly pronounced characters, but we still write characters one by one. (but as whole only when writing Pinyin)
For example:
- Austria → 奥地利 (Àodìlì)
- Poland → 波兰 (Bōlán)
- Belgium → 比利时 (Bǐlìshí)
- Denmark → 丹麦 (Dānmài)
- Russia → 俄罗斯 (Éluósī)
- Finland → 芬兰 (Fēnlán)
- Netherlands → 荷兰 (Hélán)
- Norway → 挪威 (Nuówēi)
- Portugal → 葡萄牙 (Pútáoyá)
- Turkey → 土耳其 (Tǔěrqí)
- Spain → 西班牙 (Xībānyá)
- Greece → 希腊 (Xīlà)
- Italy → 意大利 (Yìdàlì)
However, in Vietnamese, writing syllables, especially Chinese characters, separately is very common, if not mandatory. In Vietnamese, country names above are copied from Chinese:
- Austria → Áo (from Chinese 奥 Ào)
- Poland → Ba Lan (from Chinese 波兰 Bōlán)
- Belgium → Bỉ (from Chinese 比 Bǐ)
- Denmark → Đan Mạch (from Chinese 丹麦 Dānmài)
- Russia → Nga (from Chinese 俄 É)
- Finland → Phần Lan (from Chinese 芬兰 Fēnlán)
- Netherlands → Hà Lan (from Chinese 荷兰 Hélán)
- Norway → Na Uy (from Chinese 挪威 Nuówēi)
- Portugal → Bồ Đào Nha (from Chinese 葡萄牙 Pútáoyá)
- Turkey → Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ (from Chinese 土耳其 Tǔěrqí)
- Spain → Tây Ban Nha (from Chinese 西班牙 Xībānyá)
- Greece → Hy Lạp (from Chinese 希腊 Xīlà)
- Italy → Ý (from Chinese 意 Yì)
You could see that pronunciations in Vietnamese are sometime
quite far from their original sounds. Especially Russia, Portugal and Turkey.
This is because, for copied-from-Chinese country names,
most of the country names are translated into Chinese using
Modern Standard Chinese (with few exception like Denmark, Sweden, etc), while Vietnamese simply copied the Chinese characters and applied
Sino-Vietnamese readings. Sino-Vietnamese readings are rules of reading Chinese characters formed hundreds years ago, based on pronunciations of
Middle Chinese.
* For newer country names, Vietnamese have other systems: Copying characters, but reading them in Vietnamese ways. For example: Ireland is written as Ireland, but read as “Ai len”
. This is similar to copying Chinese characters and giving them their own readings. There are also Vietnamized country names, which are written and read in a same way. For example: Czech is both written and read as “Séc”. This is not copied from Chinese. The Chinese name 捷克 (Jiékè) would have been read as Tiệp Khắc using Sino-Vietnamese readings.
What important here is, these copied-from-Chinese country names, despite being
“foreign” names, are still written in
syllables, but not
long words.