19

In their comment to an answer on the question "Are foreign personal names usually written in katakana rather than Romaji?", user sawa says:

... Chinese names should be written in kanji rather than katakana and read by the Japanese pronunciation. For example, 金大中 is キムデジュン, not きんだいちゅう, but 毛沢東 is もうたくとう, not マオジードン. ...

This got me wondering, since each Japanese character generally has at least two readings is there always one clear reading for pronouncing such names?

I expect of course that the "on" readings would be used, but often there is more than one on reading for the same character.

From the comments so far (no answers yet) this is indeed very interesting, and on Zhen Lin's prompting I would like to include Korean names as well despite their being discounted in the older linked question.

Community
  • 1
hippietrail
  • 15,025
  • 29
  • 94
  • 143
  • +1 interesting question. i never asked myself that. – ixtmixilix Sep 05 '11 at 13:21
  • In my experience, non-historical figures tend to have readings in line with contemporary Chinese/Korean pronunciation (compare "オン・カホウ" vs "ウェン・チアパオ" for 温家宝) -- not sure when the dividing line between "historical" and "non-historical" is, though, 'cause it's true that Mao is もうたくとう. Will be interested to see answers here. – Matt Sep 05 '11 at 13:34
  • @Matt Are you sure? I never heard of 温家宝 read as ウェン・チアパオ in a Japanese context. –  Sep 05 '11 at 13:44
  • @hippietrail: I've read once that there is a tendency towards kan-on readings. Have you surveyed the Japanese Wikipedia? Also, kun-yomi is possible, e.g. with Taiwanese placenames. For instance, 高雄 was called たかお during the colonial era. I have no idea if カオシュン is more common amongst native speakers now though. – Zhen Lin Sep 05 '11 at 15:05
  • @hippietrail: Also, you might want to edit the question title to enlarge the scope. Kim Dae-jung is, well, Korean, not Chinese. – Zhen Lin Sep 05 '11 at 15:07
  • @Zhen Lin 高雄 was originally pronounced close to 'takao' and written with different Chinese characters in Taiwan. The Japanese assigned the characters 高雄 which is read as takao under Japanese pronounciation and hence easier for Japanese to read. After the Japnese colonization, the Taiwanese people retained the character but read it in the Chinese pronounciation, which is 'kaosiung'. So, originally, takao was a Chinese reading. It does not come from the kun-reading. It is the characters that were assigned. –  Sep 05 '11 at 16:00
  • @sawa: I am aware of that, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a kun-yomi reading. They could have picked, say, 多港. The original characters aren't so difficult either: 打狗. There's also the case of Fengyuan (豐原), which was from the start a Japanese place name, as far as I know. – Zhen Lin Sep 05 '11 at 16:15
  • @sawa Yes. For example: http://www.asahi.com/international/update/0810/TKY201108100602.html It may come down to different house styles. – Matt Sep 05 '11 at 20:35
  • @Matt In your link, the Chinese style reading is added as a secondary reading; it's in a pair of parentheses. –  Sep 05 '11 at 22:35
  • @sawa I believe that this is just because they use parentheses for furigana online. Try this article: http://www.cnn.co.jp/world/30003749.html - 払拭（ふっしょく） is treated exactly the same way as 温家宝（ウェン・チアパオ）. I have also seen Chinese readings as furigana in books about politics and (recent) history. – Matt Sep 05 '11 at 22:54
  • @Matt Furigana is usually given in hiragana, not katakana. In addition, if it is given somewhere in the text in hiragana, it is even less likely that furigana will be given in katakana in other parts. Katakana is clearly not mearnt to be furigana. But politics and history books require accuracy and the situation may be different. –  Sep 05 '11 at 23:17
  • @sawa Good point, but to distinguish between non-Japanese-pronunciation proper nouns and regular words (or Japanese-pronunciation proper nouns), katakana is used even in furigana. On page 3 of "金素雲『朝鮮詩集』の世界" (I had it handy), we find "山田詠美" with "えいみ" beside the given name, but 春香伝 with "チュンヒャンジョン" as furigana. On p4 several Korean names appear with katakana furigana. This is a book for a general audience so it is hardly an arcane academic exception. I do not say that you are wrong as such, just that the treatment of CCK names may be better viewed as a style issue, not an orthographic rule. – Matt Sep 05 '11 at 23:36
  • 1
    @sawa: “Furigana is usually given in hiragana, not katakana.” Your argument is begging the question. I do not know whether the parenthesized “ウェン・チアパオ” in the Asahi article is intended to be a furigana or an alternate notation (I would guess the latter), but if one wants to write ウェン・チアパオ as furigana, no one would write it in hiragana. So ウェン・チアパオ being in katakana is no evidence that it is not a furigana. – Tsuyoshi Ito Sep 06 '11 at 14:27
  • 1
    @TsuyoshiIto The fact that no one will write ウェン・チアパオ in hiragana is the very evidence that it is not a furigana. If it is furigana, what is the reason no one writes it in hiragana? I don't see any reason other than that it is not furigana. –  Sep 06 '11 at 14:45
  • 4
    I have a friend from China whose family name is 楊. Some call her ようさん and others やんさん. I also know 沈san, and some call him ちんさん and others しんさん. –  Jul 06 '12 at 23:05

4 Answers4

15

Due to a policy called mutualism (treat back the way you are treated), Chinese names are written in the corresponding Japanese kanji, and are pronounced with the most typical Japanese on-reading. Korean names are written in katakana that describes an approximation of the Korean pronunciation. There are some exceptions for readings that have been established earlier, and for academic contexts.

Conversely, Japanese names are incorporated into Chinese, being written with the corresponding Chinese characters, and read in the Chinese pronunciation, whereas Korean incorporates Japanese names into Hangul with approximation of the Japanese reading.

However, mutualism in Japanese is not consistent. Japanese has double standard, and this mutualism only seems to apply to east Asian languages. For example, English incorporates Japanese names in the given name-family name order, and if mutualism were to be applied, Japanese should incorporate English names in family name-given name order such as オバマバラク or ブッシュジョージ instead of バラクオバマ or ジョージブッシュ, but it is not done in that way. This may be reflecting some kind of bias in Japanese.

macraf
  • 6,487
  • 6
  • 21
  • 48
  • For official things like ID and sending mail, I think Korean names are written in kanji (there might be a space provided for the reading). – Louis Waweru Jul 07 '12 at 04:37
10

According to Wikipedia,

[...]

また、朝日新聞は中国人名のルビを中国語読みで表記している。（グループ会社のテレビ朝日は日本語読み）

[...]

日本漢字音による読みは原則として漢音を用いるが、金日成、済物浦、銭其琛をそれぞれ「きんにっせい」、「さいもっぽ」、「せんきしん」と読むように呉音や慣用音が用いられることも稀にある。また個別の慣用によって、北京をペキン、香港をホンコンと読んだり、台湾の高雄を「たかお」と訓読みしたりする場合がある。

Here is my translation, additions in square brackets:

[...]

On the other hand, the Asahi Shimbun prints Chinese names with ruby annotation giving the Chinese pronunciation. (Asahi Television, which is in the same group, uses Japanese readings.)

[...]

As a general rule, Japanese readings [of these names] use kan-on, but in rare instances go-on and kan'yō-on are also used: for example, Kim Il-sung (金日成), Jemulpo (済物浦), and Qian Qichen (銭其琛) are read respectively as Kin Nissei, Saimoppo, and Sen Kishin. [Pure kan-on readings for these would be Kin Jissei, Seibuppo, and Sen Kichin.] Also, it is customary to call Beijing (北京) Pekin, Hong Kong (香港) Honkon, and there are cases where kun-yomi is used, such as Kaohsiung (高雄) in Taiwan, which is called Takao.

The same article also describes the corresponding phenomenon in Korean and Chinese.

Zhen Lin
  • 4,830
  • 1
  • 26
  • 31
7

This answer won't be very helpful if you're looking for a general rule that is followed.

There was a Chinese girl in my Japanese class, and she asked the teacher how she should write and pronounce her name. However, the teacher replied with something that seems plainly obvious now that I know of it. The teacher told her that it's her name so it's her decision.

The teacher did explain the most commons ways to her though:

  • Write her Chinese name with the corresponding Japanese kanji and read it as a Japanese approximation of the Chinese pronunciation
  • Write her Chinese name with the corresponding Japanese kanji and read it as a Japanese name

I have no idea which way is more common, so I can't help you with that, but keep in mind that each person can decide what to do with their name. If you aren't sure, it's probably best to just ask the person.

atlantiza
  • 3,367
  • 4
  • 26
  • 40
  • So you are saying that it is grammatically valid to arbitrarily assign *any* readings to a kanji? – Pacerier Jul 08 '12 at 00:54
  • 2
    @Pacerier I don't see how this is related to grammar. A person's name is, well, a name. Maybe you could call it a word, but I don't see how the name by itself is related to grammar. Could you explain your question a little more? – atlantiza Jul 08 '12 at 01:57
  • 1
    Hmm, maybe I should have used the term "linguistically valid"... – Pacerier Jul 08 '12 at 02:43
  • 1
    @Pacerier: as atlantiza said, it doesn't have much to do with grammar... But as for "can one assign *any* arbitrary reading to a kanji (in a name)", the answer is a clear and resounding yes. This is true for Japanese as well as foreigners. I believe it is explicitly stated in the naming rules that, as long as you are using kanji from the accepted set, you can assign any pronunciation you want. It is done by parents who want their child to have a quirky name (and endless headaches dealing with administration officials later on). – Dave Jul 09 '12 at 02:46
  • @Dave Cool, does this apply to names of places as well? – Pacerier Jul 09 '12 at 10:38
  • @Pacerier If you're talking about the name of some place that you own (shop, restaurant, etc.) then I do believe that you could do this. – atlantiza Jul 10 '12 at 19:47
  • @Pacerier: I think you are looking at this in the wrong direction. For names of places (unless you mean 'business', as covered by atlantiza above), you rarely pick a kanji and its pronunciation. These things evolve "on their own" over time and, as a result, you tend to get all sorts of exotic readings, yes. – Dave Jul 11 '12 at 01:48
0

They usually convert the kanji directly with the corresponding japanese pronunciation.

Alessandro Cuzzocrea
  • 9
  • 2