Obama? Owbama? The Politics of Transliteration

http://www.bruce-humes.com/?p=1465

The US President’s upcoming visit to the Middle Kingdom has engendered a ripple or two in linguistic and media circles. Currently, Chinese headline writers refer to the current White House occupant as “Ow-ba-ma” (奥巴马), the first syllable rhyming with “cow.”

Since Obama himself and most native English speakers read the name with a long “O”, as in “open,” China’s version appears inaccurate...

Comments

# 1.   

What is the point? Chinese is no English. How many English speakers can pronounce Chinese correctly?

Joy, November 16, 2009, 4:27a.m.

# 2.   

Rather more important than personal names, which are always going to be phonetically mangled, are the concepts embedded in organization names. One I just learned about: the word used in China for White House is 白宫 [White Palace], to which the US has strong ideological objections. Apparently on official White House correspondence in Chinese it's 白房子. Hilary's job title is another bone of contention.

Phil Hand, November 17, 2009, 3:10a.m.

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