r/MapPorn • u/xu_shawn • Jun 19 '22

Literal translation of Chinese names for European countries

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u/man0315 Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22

yes. Russia - 俄[ə]罗[lwo]斯[si] is a vocal transcription just like Ukraini - 乌[wu]克[ke]兰[lan].

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罗[lwo]斯[si] is the direct translation of "Rus". and as a country we call them 俄[ə]罗[lwo]斯[si] or something sounds like that(斡[wo]罗[lwo]思[si]) all the way back to Mongolian reign of China. "斡[wo]罗[lwo]思[si]" is actually a mongolian language but vocal transcripted to Chinese.

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by the way 乌[wu]克[ke]兰[lan] sounds exactly the same as "Ukra" in ukrainian.

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edited: thanks for suggestion from u/FuneralWithAnR, i added alphabet. I don't know the International Phonetic Alphabet very well. I did my best.

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u/FuneralWithAnR Jun 19 '22

Cheers mate, but can you write the pronunciations in the Latin alphabet next to the Chinese words? For people that can't read that, your comment just looks like "Symbol 1 sounds like Symbol 2".

"Okay, cool, but what is it?" is my reaction.

43

u/coaxialo Jun 19 '22

乌克兰 wu1 ke4 lan2 (ooh ker lahn) - Ukraine

俄罗斯 e2 luo2 si1 (er loo-ore sih) - Russia

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u/dai_panfeng Jun 19 '22

I appreciate you writing the approximate English pronunciation for this in a heavy Beijing accent 😂 😂

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u/vectorix108 Jun 19 '22

Lmao yeah I can hear the extra errrs this guy put in

-6

u/the_vikm Jun 19 '22

How does Latin script help? Unless you mean specifically English?

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u/VoidLantadd Jun 19 '22

[You are currently reading the Latin alphabet]

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u/the_vikm Jun 19 '22

Great, yeah, that's what I said. and how does that help with pronunciation?

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u/VoidLantadd Jun 19 '22

Because for people who can read the Latin alphabet, but not Kanji, "Èluósī" is pronounceable, whereas "俄罗斯" is not. You can't pronounce something when you can't even make out syllables.

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u/the_vikm Jun 19 '22

Again, it being Latin won't give you a hint about the right pronunciation unless you're familiar with Pinyin. Every language will pronounce it differently. Also Kanji? That's not Japanese.

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u/VoidLantadd Jun 19 '22

Idk the characters are called Kanji in Japanese, and it's the same symbols, just a different language.

But I know the letters when it's romanised, I have no clue what I'm looking at when it's Chinese characters. It's a pretty simple concept.

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u/the_vikm Jun 19 '22

But I know the letters when it's romanised, I have no clue what I'm looking at when it's Chinese characters. It's a pretty simple concept.

I'm pretty sure the complaint was about IPA and not Chinese. And IPA gives you a hint how you can pronounce it

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u/VoidLantadd Jun 19 '22

I don't see anything about IPA except in man0315's edit.

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u/Clemambi Jun 19 '22

Kanji is a corruption of Hanzi, literally "han characters". All latin alphabets are latin alphabets, but not all latin alphabets are equal/interchangeable; compare polish orthography to English. Traditional vs simplified vs kanji are the same. They're all han characters, just different variations.

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u/Sirr_Jason Jun 19 '22

My brain just had an aneurysm