# Why the odd spelling of many asian names? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 15, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129 "2012-11-15T21:02:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/21 "2012-11-16T00:48:54Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > I’m still unsure why x stands for sh in western alphabetical representations of chinese words. My WAG is that the Chinese wanted (if possible) to use a single letter, rather than a two-letter combination like “sh”, and the letter x was not needed for anything else. Pinyin similarly uses the letters j and q for sounds which are not generally written as j or q in other languages. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/22 "2012-11-16T00:57:56Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > So old Spanish (not the one in use since pinyin has been in use), a couple of yucatan languages and portuguese. Also sh representing a sound which is more akin to the sound in loch, which is already represented by an x in several languages. I’m still unsure why x stands for sh in western alphabetical representations of chinese words. > > I also thought it sometimes stood for ch, as in church. Am I wrong? A friend in Barcelona spells her name Meritxell (which is actually Catalan) and it is pronounced ch as in church. In emails she will spell things like Chinese with an X, Xinese and Xile for Chile. It definitely throws you off. In addition I worked with a Vietnamese girl whose surname was Nyugen, she said it is pronounced Nuwen, (with very little emphasis on the U). ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/23 "2012-11-16T01:06:39Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > My WAG is that the Chinese wanted (if possible) to use a single letter, rather than a two-letter combination like “sh”, and the letter x was not needed for anything else. Pinyin similarly uses the letters j and q for sounds which are not generally written as j or q in other languages. No. Mandarin has two sounds that are more or less indistinguishable to an English speaker. If you write one with _sh_, how are you going to write the other? It turns out _x_ is available, and there is already a precedent in Portuguese for using it for these kinds of sounds. As an example, the province of [Shānxī](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zh-Shanxi.ogg). ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/24 "2012-11-16T01:20:19Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > [Originally Posted by SciFiSam](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=15702645)\
> > So old Spanish (not the one in use since pinyin has been in use), a couple of yucatan languages and portuguese. Also sh representing a sound which is more akin to the sound in loch, which is already represented by an x in several languages. I’m still unsure why x stands for sh in western alphabetical representations of chinese words. \
> > \
> > I also thought it sometimes stood for ch, as in church. Am I wrong? > > \
> \
> A friend in Barcelona spells her name Meritxell (which is actually Catalan) and it is pronounced ch as in church. In emails she will spell things like Chinese with an X, Xinese and Xile for Chile. It definitely throws you off. \
> \
> In addition I worked with a Vietnamese girl whose surname was Nyugen, she said it is pronounced Nuwen, (with very little emphasis on the U). Yup, both catalan and portuguese use x for ch, not sh. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/25 "2012-11-16T01:32:02Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Yup, both catalan and portuguese use x for ch, not sh. Assuming I understand what you are saying, you are wrong. Portuguese does use the letter x for the sound /ʃ/ (as in “ship”). Remember that Portuguese spelling and pronunciation vary widely, esp. Brazil vs. everywhere else. Same for Catalan. Can I make a quick plea to learn IPA if you’re going to discuss sounds? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/26 "2012-11-16T03:47:57Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yep, [Nguyễn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n). And it’s not pronounced “hwin” in the native language. The “ng” is exactly the right sound in English orthography, except that it doesn’t occur in an initial position in English. I have never heard it pronounced as “hwin,” in English, either. Usually, it’s “win” or “nuwen.” And if it’s spelled that way in the original language, it’s dern pretentious to ask someone to spell it a different way. I understand that this may have been done a lot in the past where, say, the French Mailloux became Mayhew upon emigration to an English speaking country to help Anglophones pronounce the name correctly rather than saying “Mail-ooks”, but nowadays the spellings of names are more than trivial to change legally and are often a point of pride. Should William Smith, when visiting or living in Mexico, be required to spell his name Uiliam Smit to help the poor Spanish speakers so they don’t get flustered when seeing the “W” which barely exists in their language and the “th” that doesn’t exist except in some European dialects and even then is spelled differently? It’s certainly possible in many (all?) jurisdictions to legally change the spelling of your name to make it easier to pronounce in the local language via a legal name change, but doing that should be the choice of the person. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/27 "2012-11-16T03:53:43Z")
If one understands that the Mandarin pinyin system is just an approximation. It is not Chinese pronounced like you would in English. Once you get past that hurdle, then it’s much easier. Hence, it is Beijing and not Bayjing (as in San Francisco “Bay” and the “jing” in jingle bells). Think of “x” as a placeholder for a sound. It’s really got nothing to do with how one says “x-ray” ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/28 "2012-11-16T03:56:53Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Are there any major languages which use the western alphabet who pronounce x as sh? English, french, german, danish, dutch, spanish, no. Why x for sh then? It’s common in India. A name once spelled Lakshmi or Laksmi may now be spelled Laxmi. Confused the hell out of me 30 years ago. I got used to it. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/29 "2012-11-16T04:29:31Z")
> [@dstarfire](#): > > Why are so many asian names spelled oddly when written with the roman alphabet? > > Why weren’t the normal spelling rules (for whatever country first translated the name) used when the name was first expressed using the roman alphabet? Is this just another of those abuses inflicted on immigrants in the early 1900’s? > > I’d really like to find and hurt the idiot that decided a name pronounced as “Hwin” should be spelled as Nguyen. So basically your mind is being blown by the revelation that not every language written in the Latin alphabet is pronounced using English pronunciation rules (such as they are). ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/30 "2012-11-16T04:39:45Z")
> [@Lukeinva](#): > > A friend in Barcelona spells her name Meritxell (which is actually Catalan) and it is pronounced ch as in church. In emails she will spell things like Chinese with an X, Xinese and Xile for Chile. It definitely throws you off. > > In addition I worked with a Vietnamese girl whose surname was Nyugen, she said it is pronounced Nuwen, (with very little emphasis on the U). There’s an interesting linguistic phenomenon: When someone hears a foreign language they may hear the sounds of the foreign language like the sounds of their own. That includes the word-initial [ng], which isn’t present in English. There’s also the issue that plenty of Vietnamese people living in the US have gotten used to pronouncing their names the way the general English-speaking population would pronounce that name. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/31 "2012-11-16T04:43:58Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > No. Mandarin has two sounds that are more or less indistinguishable to an English speaker. If you write one with _sh_, how are you going to write the other? It turns out _x_ is available, and there is already a precedent in Portuguese for using it for these kinds of sounds. Just out of curiosity, when I’m watching a subtitled Chinese movie (don’t ask me if I’m hearing Mandarin or Cantonese), the word that I see translated as “yes” sounds like the speaker is saying, roughly, “sure”. Which “sh” sound is being used? Also, is Japanese unique among east-Asian languages in being, I’d guess you’d say a “syllabic” language (that is, the words are constructed from a limited pool of available syllables)? Because the romanized Japanese seems very straightforward compared to other nearby languages - it’s essentially pronounced just like it’s spelled. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/32 "2012-11-16T05:08:20Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Just out of curiosity, when I’m watching a subtitled Chinese movie (don’t ask me if I’m hearing Mandarin or Cantonese), the word that I see translated as “yes” sounds like the speaker is saying, roughly, “sure”. Which “sh” sound is being used? > > Also, is Japanese unique among east-Asian languages in being, I’d guess you’d say a “syllabic” language (that is, the words are constructed from a limited pool of available syllables)? Because the romanized Japanese seems very straightforward compared to other nearby languages - it’s essentially pronounced just like it’s spelled. “Thank you” in Mandarin is _xie xie_. It’s the second consonant in Shangxi. /sh/ is pronounced with the tongue curled back, whereas for /x/ you place the tip of your tongue close to your teeth. Neither sounds are exactly the same as English /sh/. Japanese is not unique among East-Asian languages. Korean is phonetically very similar to Japanese, and its writing system, Hangul, is actually a proper alphabet that uses a very small number of symbols. Ainu is also fairly similar, as is the Ryukyu language of Okinawa. Note that the fact that Japanese uses a syllabary and not an alphabet is pretty much an accident of history: early Japanese scribes used Chinese characters (that’s all they knew about) to write down Japanese poetry. The current syllabaries derived from this early system. It’s very easy to write Japanese with an alphabet, whether it’s the roman alphabet or even Hangul. (As a matter of fact, the roman alphabet is _much_ better suited to write Japanese than English, as Japanese phonology is close to latin.) ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/33 "2012-11-16T05:54:54Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > In the case of Džordžs V. Bušs, Latvians have decided to change the spelling of foreign names to reflect their spelling rules, probably because those rules are much more consistent than those of English. Not only that, but they stuck -_s_ on the end of each name. This is required by Latvian noun case inflections. It’s the same Indo-European masculine singular ending -_s_ as in Greek _basis, cosmos, Anaxagoras_, or Latin _Julius, animalis, princeps_. Latvian is doing the same thing as the Latinizing of foreign names, like Gerhard Kramer\>Gerardus Mercator. The -_s_ ending allows the foreign name to function with Latin or Latvian grammar, as the case\* may be. \*no pun intended. English and most other languages have nothing like that, so we can hardly take Latvian as a model for respelling foreign names. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/34 "2012-11-16T09:13:41Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Just out of curiosity, when I’m watching a subtitled Chinese movie (don’t ask me if I’m hearing Mandarin or Cantonese), the word that I see translated as “yes” sounds like the speaker is saying, roughly, “sure”. Which “sh” sound is being used? My guess is you’re hearing Pudonghua, aka Mandarin, and the word is _是_, which is _Shì_ in Pinyin. > [@](#): > > Also, is Japanese unique among east-Asian languages in being, I’d guess you’d say a “syllabic” language (that is, the words are constructed from a limited pool of available syllables)? Because the romanized Japanese seems very straightforward compared to other nearby languages - it’s essentially pronounced just like it’s spelled. Japanese is a language isolate, so the languages nearby don’t really have a bearing on its syllabic inventory. The hirigana writing system was designed to represent every possible syllable in the spoken language. As it happens, those sounds are quite close to English, as far as the consonants are concerned. The _ふ_ is sometimes transliterated as _fu_ and sometimes as _hu_. That’s because the actual sound in Japanese is sort of in-between the two. As far as vowels are concerned, my first Japanese instructor at university taught us that the Japanese vowels are closer to Italian vowels than to English vowels. So, for a native English speaker, Japanese isn’t really pronounced as it’s spelled; it’s just close to it. Since we’re discussing various languages in this thread, [here](http://www.branah.com) is a nifty tool to type in a number of languages. Some of the virtual keyboards on that site require you to change the encoding of your browser. For the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), [here is the IPA full keyboard](http://ipa.typeit.org/full/) and [here is a reduced set](http://ipa.typeit.org/full/). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/35 "2012-11-16T10:22:03Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Are there any major languages which use the western alphabet who pronounce x as sh? English, french, german, danish, dutch, spanish, no. Why x for sh then? Spanish does, sometimes. X is our most confusing consonant: it can be spanish-J, ks, sh, or s depending on the origin of the word (I think I’m not missing any versions). **Lukeinva** , I’ve heard some people pronounce Meritxell as Meritchel, but it’s usually non-Catalan speakers. What’s used to represent “ch” is the “tx” group, not the x alone (Basque official spellings do this too, although in older documents you find ch more commonly). ---
**Author:** ![Myglaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/36 "2012-11-16T11:37:16Z")
just seen [this](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coraline-2D-Version-Only-DVD/dp/B002DUCIDC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353064855&sr=8-1) on The Beeb 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/37 "2012-11-16T11:54:40Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > It’s common in India. A name once spelled Lakshmi or Laksmi may now be spelled Laxmi. From goddess of infinite prosperity to a brand of laxatives. Sic transit gloria mundi… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Coustralee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Coustralee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coustralee)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/38 "2012-11-16T11:57:35Z")
i once knew a Nguyen, in aussie it got pronounced Newyun. I know if a dr Ng, at the surgery they call him Dr Energy, makes things a lot easier ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/39 "2012-11-16T13:40:28Z")
I can understand _Nguyen_ being appropriate because the initial letters resemble the unasalized “ng” of “sing”, but can someone explain the first name _Ng_ to me? It seems to me that there ought to be a vowel. Is it really the case that this name is properly pronounced by that mere nasalized “ng” in “sing”? Or is there an implied _schwa_ or something? I notice that sometimes the name _Ing_ appears, which looks like a attempt to throw that vowel into the name so that we Westerners can relax, but there’s probably more to it. ---
**Author:** ![arseNal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@arseNal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arseNal)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129/40 "2012-11-16T14:04:21Z")
Yeah, what’s with the wacky spellings of those wacky [del]asian[/del][English, Irish, American, and Australian](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_in_English_with_counterintuitive_pronunciations) names?? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-odd-spelling-of-many-asian-names/641129.md?page=3)