Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 September 11

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September 11

All combinations of Greek letters for transliteration

I'm checking algorithms to transliterate Greek (especially names) to Latin letters. There are sets of rules for this, but it seems unsure whether they cover all possible cases. For example:

• υ is converted as v before β, γ, δ, ζ, λ, μ, ν, ρ and all vowels.
• υ is converted as y when the vowel before υ has an accent or υ has dialytika (ϋ).

In theory, these two rules could conflict and you would have to decide which one has priority. Does it also happen in practice? There are many situations like these, but as of now I failed to find a satisfying list what does occur and what does not. Does anybody know such a list? --KnightMove (talk) 13:37, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I can't tell you about a list of rules or cases, but about the two rules you quote above, the second one is meant as an exception to override the first (i.e. αυλός 'flute' > avlos, but άυλος 'non-material' > aylos). Also, the first rule only applies under the additional condition that the <υ> is preceded by either <ε>, <α>, or (rarely) <η>. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:58, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Just for clarification, this is for modern Greek, right? E.g. I thought $\beta \to$ v for modern, but $\beta \to$ b for ancient Greek. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, modern Greek. --KnightMove (talk) 17:57, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

How did Chinese names americanize/anglicize prior to the development of pinyin?

How did Chinese names americanize/anglicize prior to the development of pinyin? Sometimes, you read about Chinese people who came to the US in the early or mid-twentieth century, and their family names tend to be a bit different than more recent Chinese immigrants, who all use pinyin letters for their family names and may adopt a traditional English name as a given name. Examples of old Chinese immigrants that passed down their names in America would be like "Hwang" or "Tsai" or "Tsao" or "Lo". 140.254.227.46 (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Some info and refs at Pinyin#History_before_1949, and also at Chinese_surname#Variations_in_romanization. Chang_Apana is one early Chinese American who seemed to basically conform to the Pinyin rules. My understanding is that even recent immigrants to the USA may have a variety of preferences, e.g. I've known Chengs and Changs, Hsia/Xia, and Lee/Li. Perhaps differences in original immigration time explain these differences, but I suspect preference plays a key role. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

The most widely used systems of romanization before pinyin were Wade-Giles for Mandarin Chinese and Standard Romanization for Cantonese. Many early Chinese immigrants to the United States spelled their names using one of these systems, though many others romanized their names idiosyncratically by adopting a spelling whose pronunciation in American English would approximate the pronunciation of their name in their home dialect. Note that most Chinese immigrants to the United States before the late 20th century spoke dialects of Cantonese. Marco polo (talk) 17:17, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Also keep in mind (as seen in the stanrd romanization link above), Taiwan didn't adopt the use of Pinyin until the early 2000s, and used mostly Wade-Giles. So a lot of Taiwanese immigrants after 1949 would still have used "Hwang," "Tsai," "Tsao," "Lo," "Cheng," "Chang," etc. --Wirbelwind(ヴィルヴェルヴィント) 20:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)