One document matched: draft-deng-chinese-names-03.xml
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<front>
<title abbrev="Chinese names">Pronouncing and Using Chinese Personal
Names</title>
<author fullname="Hui Deng" initials="H." surname="Deng">
<organization>China Mobile</organization>
<address>
<postal>
<street>Xuanwumenxi Ave. No.32</street>
<city>Beijing</city>
<region/>
<code>100053</code>
<country>China</country>
</postal>
<email>denghui@chinamobile.com</email>
</address>
</author>
<author fullname="Zhen Cao" initials="Z." surname="Cao">
<organization>Leibniz Uni-Hannover</organization>
<address>
<email>zhencao.ietf@gmail.com</email>
</address>
</author>
<author fullname="Paul Hoffman" initials="P." surname="Hoffman">
<organization>VPN Consortium</organization>
<address>
<email>paul.hoffman@vpnc.org</email>
</address>
</author>
<date month="April" year="2015"/>
<abstract>
<t>This document gives general rules for how to pronounce Mandarin
Chinese names in conversation, and how to determine which name is
someone's surname. It also covers some other related topics about
Chinese names. The intent is to allow IETF participants who are not
familiar with Chinese to communicate better with Chinese
participants.</t>
</abstract>
</front>
<middle>
<section title="Introduction">
<t>In typical conversations in the IETF, people's names are used
heavily. In face-to-face meetings, people will speak about other
participants by name both formally and informally ("Mr. Smith says..."
or "Bob says..."), and the same is true about how people sometimes refer
to each other on working group mailing lists. Most times, people want to
use other people's names correctly, to be both more precise and more
polite.</t>
<t>The number of Chinese participants in the IETF, both in face-to-face
meetings and on mailing lists, has greatly increased in recent years.
Many non-Chinese participants have a difficult time knowing how to
pronounce a Chinese name that they from a mailing list, RFC, or name
badge. In fact, many people don't know how to tell which of the two
names in a printed Chinese name is the surname and which is the personal
name. And yet most people want to be able to use each others' names
correctly.</t>
<t>This document covers general rules for Mandarin Chinese names. The
rules are widely applicable, especially to those whose names are based
on the pinyin romanization. The rules do not necessarily apply, however,
to Cantonese, Hakka, or the dialects native to Taiwan or Shanghai. They
also do not apply to non-Han ethnic groups, even where those ethnicities
use romanizations based on pinyin.</t>
<t>There are many other documents that cover similar material, such as
<xref target="ChineseNames"/>. Also, this document mostly discusses
Chinese personal names, but the pronunciation section applies to Chinese
company names as well. It is hoped that this document makes typical
communications between non-Chinese and Chinese in the IETF easier and
more natural.</t>
</section>
<section title="Pronouncing Chinese Names">
<section title="Background">
<t>Nearly all Chinese people normally spell their names with Han
characters, which are non-phonetic ideographic characters. However,
many Chinese people also spell their names using Latin characters.
Converting Han characters to Latin character equivalents is called
romanization <xref target="Romanization"/>.</t>
<t>Non-Chinese speakers seeing the romanized spelling of Chinese names
often have a difficult time pronouncing them correctly. The essential
problem is that there have been two major standards for romanization
from Chinese. An older system, "Wade-Giles", was widely used until the
"pinyin" system was adopted in the mid-1960s, but pinyin is now much
more common. This document focuses on pinyin spellings <xref
target="Pinyin"/>.</t>
</section>
<section title="Introduction to the Pinyin System">
<t>Pinyin is the official phonetic system for transcribing the sound
of Chinese characters into Latin script in China. It is often used to
teach Standard Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications
and may be used as an input method to enter Chinese characters (Hanzi)
into computers. "Pinyin" literally means "spelled-out sounds."</t>
<t>Pinyin was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised
several times. The International Organization for Standardization
adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982.</t>
<t>Note that there are many ways to learn to pronounce Chinese words.
Some methods are tailored for English speakers, many others are
tailored for other languages. There are numerous resources online for
those who want to explore beyond what is given here.</t>
</section>
<section anchor="Pronouncing" title="Pronouncing Pinyin Words">
<t>This section describes a simple way to pronounce a syllable in
pinyin. The basic steps are to divide the pinyin syllable into an
initial sound and a final sound, and combine the two sounds
together.</t>
<t>The examples of the sounds are all from spoken American English. Of
course, there are variations in that, but it is maybe the most
recognizable to readers of this document. Also, there are many
regional variations in China on pronunciation of some of the sounds,
so these tables cannot be considered definitive.</t>
<t>Spoken Chinese also has inflections (usually called "tones") within
a syllable. The four tones of Chinese are "level" (no inflection),
"rising", "down then up" (sometimes called "departing"), and "falling"
(sometimes called "entering"). These four tones are used to clarify
the meanings of words. Since many characters have the same sound,
tones are used to differentiate words from each other. The tones are
sometimes difficult to learn, just as it is often difficult for
non-native speakers of many languages to learn intonations and
pitches. Many non-Chinese speakers just pronounce all syllables with
the level tone. The four tones are covered in great detail in other
documents, such as <xref target="FourTones"/>.</t>
<section title="Pronouncing the Initial Sound">
<t>The following table lists the initial sounds.</t>
<figure anchor="fig.initial" title="Pronouncing Pinyin Initials">
<artwork><![CDATA[
Pinyin | English approximation
---------------------------------------------------------------------
b | unaspirated "p", as in "spit"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
p | strongly aspirated "p", as in "pit"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
m | as in English "mummy"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
f | as in English "fun"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
d | unaspirated "t", as in "stop"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
t | strongly aspirated "t", as in "top"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
n | as in "nit"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
l | as in "love"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
g | unaspirated "k", as in "skill"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
k | strongly aspirated "k", as in "kill"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
h | as in "hay"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
j | no equivalent in English; like "ge" in garage
---------------------------------------------------------------------
q | no equivalent in English; like "pun*ch y*ourself"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
x | no equivalent in English; like "wi*sh y*ou"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
zh | like "ch" (a sound between "*ch*oke" and "*dr*ew", but
| with the tip of the tongue curled more upwards
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ch | as in "chin", but with the tongue curled upwards; similar
| to "nur*tu*re" in English, but more strongly aspirated
---------------------------------------------------------------------
sh | as in "shoe", but with the tongue curled upwards; similar
| to "marsh" in American English
---------------------------------------------------------------------
r | similar to the "z" in "azure" and the "r" in "reduce"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
z | similar to something between "su*ds*" and "ca*ts*"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
c | like the "ts" in "cats"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
s | as in "sun"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
w | as in "water"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
y | as in "yes"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
]]></artwork>
</figure>
</section>
<section title="Pronouncing the Final Sound">
<t>Final sounds are generally more difficult to pronounce than
initial sounds. But unlike English where there are often many ways
to pronounce a final (such as the "ough" sound in "cough" and
"rough" and "though" "through"), final sounds in Chinese are more
regular.</t>
<t><figure anchor="fig.final" title="Pronouncing Pinyin Finals">
<artwork><![CDATA[
Pinyin | English approximation
---------------------------------------------------------------------
a | as "a" in "father"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
i | as "ee" in "see"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
e | as "er" in "her"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ai | similar to "eye", but a bit lighter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ei | as "ey" in "hey"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ao | approximately as "ow" in "cow"; the "a" is much more
| audible than the "o"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ou | as in "so"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
an | as "on" in "con"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
en | as "en" in "taken"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ang | as "ong" in "monger"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
eng | like in "en" above with "g" added
---------------------------------------------------------------------
er | similar to the sound of "ar" in "bar"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ia | as "ya" in "yard" but with a brighter beginning
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ie | as "ye" in the slang "yep" but with a brighter beginning
---------------------------------------------------------------------
iao | similar to the slang "yow" but with a brighter beginning
---------------------------------------------------------------------
iu | similar to the slang "yo" but with a brighter beginning
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ian | similar to "yen" but with a brighter beginning
---------------------------------------------------------------------
iang | like "ian" above with a "g" added
---------------------------------------------------------------------
in | as "een" in "seen"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ing | as in "sing"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
u | as "oo" in "soon"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
v | like "you" ### Paul thinks this should be removed
| ### because it doesn't appear in other tables
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ua | as "wa" as in "water" but with the "w" lighter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
uo | as in "woe", but with the "w" lighter and the "o" shorter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
uai | as in "why" but with the "w" lighter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ui | as in "way" but with the "w" lighter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
uan | as in "wan" but with the "w" lighter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
un | as in "won" but with the "w" lighter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
uang | as in "wrong" without the "r" and the "w" lighter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ong | starts with the vowel sound in "book" and ends with the
| nasal sound in "sing"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
]]></artwork>
</figure></t>
</section>
<section title="Examples">
<t>One of the authors of this document has the first name "Zhen" and
the last name "Cao". For the first name, divide "Zhen" into initial
"zh" and final "en", looking them up in <xref target="fig.initial"/>
and <xref target="fig.final"/>, respectively. From the tables, "zh"
pronounces like "ch", and "en" follows its pronunciation in "taken".
"Cao" is broken into "c" and "ao". Another of the authors has the
first name "Hui" and the last name "Deng". "Hui" can be divided into
"h" (initial) and "ui" (final), while "Deng" is divided into "d" and
"eng". (The third author's name is not in pinyin, of course.)</t>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="Using" title="Using Chinese Personal Names">
<t>In China, when giving somebody's full name, usually his or her family
name is put first, and the given (personal) name last. One of the
Chinese authors of this document has the given name "Hui" and the family
name "Deng", and the other Chinese author has the given name "Zhen" and
the family name "Cao"; when one speaks of them in China, they say "Deng
Hui" and "Cao Zhen". (Because this document is in the IETF, the authors
cannot show their names using the Chinese characters that they would
normally use.)</t>
<t>Almost all family names have only one Chinese character, with only a
few having two characters. For given names, however, both one-character
names and two-character names are common.</t>
<t>Thus, most Chinese people's names have two to three Chinese
characters (although a few people's names have four characters). When
saying the name of someone whose name has two characters, it is normal
to say both names, with the family name first. However, when saying the
name of someone whose hame has three or more characters in informal
conversation, it is normal to only say the given name.</t>
<t>For example, "Hui Deng" has two characters, and in China is normally
called "Deng Hui". Another example would be a name such as "Xiaodong
Duan". This is a name of three characters ("Xiaodong" is the given name
and has two characters, and "Duan" is the family name and has one
character). In this case, Chinese people speaking his name in informal
conversation would normally family name, and just call him by using his
given name, Xiaodong.</t>
<t>If people are not familiar with each other, or are introducing each
other for the first time, it is common to use the full name, regardless
of the number of syllables.</t>
<t>As a side note, the discussion above points out a problem with IETF
protocols that only have one field for a person's name, instead of
multiple fields for given name, family name, and so on. A Chinese person
has to decide which order to put their name in the single field: they
order they would normally put them in China, or the order that they want
people outside of China to understand them. Future revisions of these
protocols might allow for better distinctions in the names of people who
do not follow the European customs of "given name comes first".</t>
</section>
<section title="Difference Between Written and Spoken Order">
<t>Because both Chinese and English speakers might try to conform with
other cultures, Chinese people will often write their given name first
and their family name second, like the use of "Hui Deng" and "Zhen Cao"
in this document. Non-Chinese speakers will then say the names in the
order they read them in the written document, but that will be the
reverse of the way that Chinese people would say them.</t>
<t>A useful and growing convention is to write the family name in all
capitals. Thus, you might see "Hui DENG" or "DENG Hui" instead of "Hui
Deng".</t>
</section>
<section title="Women's Names">
<t>Few Chinese women change their family names to their husband's family
name when they marry; normally, they just keep their family name. Today,
some Chinese children have both their father's and mother's family name,
then given name.</t>
</section>
<section title="Use of English Names">
<t>Some Chinese people have informally adopted English given names for
use in business. The name might be one that sounds like the Chinese name
(such as "Sheldon" for "XiaoDong" or "Lisa" for "Lixia") or might be a
name whose meaning is similar to the Chinese meaning (such as "Lilly"
for a Chinese woman's name that means a type of flower). These names are
rarely the legal name of the person, and Chinese people usually don't
use the English name when speaking to other Chinese people.</t>
</section>
<section title="Writing the Four Tones">
<t>The four tones introduced in <xref target="Pronouncing"/> are
sometimes indicated in Chinese names as the numbers 1 though 4. Even is
1, rising is 2, down then up is 3, and falling is 4. Thus, a name such
as "Deng" might be written as "Deng2" to indicate a rising tone.</t>
<t>The four tones are also sometimes indicated with Latin punctuation
that is meant to show the movement of the sound. Even is with a macron
(a horizontal bar), rising is with a acute accent, down then up is with
a caron (like a small raised "v"), and falling is with a grave accent.
(Because RFCs still cannot contain non-ASCII characters, these
characters cannot be shown here.)</t>
<t>The use of digits and punctuation to show tones is not very common,
but it is seen in some academic journals and sometimes on business
cards.</t>
</section>
<section title="Using Titles">
<t>Most Chinese people are called by different names according to the
relationship between them and the person addressing them. For example,
parents call their child by one name, but his or her friends may use a
different name, and work colleagues might use yet a different name.
These different names include titles (terms of respect), nicknames, and
so on. In Chinese culture, it is extremely common to show respect to
someone by using a proper title according to their occupation or status
in society.</t>
<t>These days, there are many commonly used titles. Two generic titles
that have similar meanings to "Mr." and "Ms./Mrs." are "Xiansheng" and
"Nvshi" (pronounced as "Xian1sheng1" and "Nv3shi4"). ### Is this really
Nu3shi4? ### These two titles are widely used either between people who
are unfamiliar with each other, or during the formal situations like a
conference.</t>
<t>Another two commonly used titles are "Jiaoshou" and "Laoshi"
(pronounced as "Jiao4shou4" and "Lao3shi1") which indicate that someone
is a professor or instructor. For example, if the surname of that person
is "Zhang", then you could call him or her "Zhang Jiaoshou" or "Zhang
Laoshi". Other titles which also have been widely used include "Laoban"
(pronounced "Lao3ban3") for a high-level manager in a company, "Zhuxi"
(pronounced "Zhu3xi2") for the chairman, and "Zong" for the president.
In most cases, the title comes after just the surname, but occasionally,
the title comes after both the given name and surname.</t>
</section>
<section title="Acknowledgements">
<t>Many people contributed to this document by offering initial
encouragement and ideas of what should be covered. The two Chinese
authors were also encouraged by some non-Chinese people who made an
effort to pronounce their names correctly before this document was even
published. Some of the people who contributed include: Aaron Ding
Cameron Byrne, Fred Baker, Haibin Song, Ida Leung, Jari Arkko, John
Klensin, Margaret Wasserman, Melinda Shore, Mikael Abrahamsson, Noel
Chiappa, Randy Bush, S. Moonesamy, Simon Perreault, Sri Gundave, Stephen
Sprunk, Ted Hardie, Ted Lemon, Vero Zheng, Wes George, Will Liu, Yu
Juan, and Yuanchen Ma. We apologize for others whose names we may have
misplaced.</t>
</section>
<section anchor="IANA" title="IANA Considerations">
<t>None.</t>
</section>
<section anchor="Security" title="Security Considerations">
<t>None.</t>
</section>
</middle>
<back>
<references title="Informative References">
<reference anchor="FourTones"
target="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_tones">
<front>
<title>Four Tones</title>
<author>
<organization>Wikipedia</organization>
</author>
<date month="August" year="2013"/>
</front>
</reference>
<reference anchor="ChineseNames"
target="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_name">
<front>
<title>Chinese Names</title>
<author>
<organization>Wikipedia</organization>
</author>
<date month="August" year="2013"/>
</front>
</reference>
<reference anchor="Romanization"
target="http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html">
<front>
<title>ALA-LC Romanization Tables</title>
<author>
<organization>U. S. Library of Congress</organization>
</author>
<date month="August" year="2013"/>
</front>
</reference>
<reference anchor="Pinyin"
target="http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/chinese.pdf">
<front>
<title>Chinese Rules of Application</title>
<author>
<organization>U. S. Library of Congress</organization>
</author>
<date month="August" year="2013"/>
</front>
</reference>
</references>
</back>
</rfc>
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