Unicode Archives: 04.3.21-04.3.27
04.3.27.22:22: SOLDIERS
SOLDIER
ORIENTOGRAPHY (read
right to left):
עובד
עובד
Transliteration (letter-for-letter, right to
left, writing only what is present in the original Hebrew spelling):
dbv` dbv` (the letter ו vav stands for [o], so the letter ב bet represents [v] rather than [b] here)
Transcription of pronunciation (supplying
the missing vowels):
`Oved `oved
Translation:
‘a worker (male) works’
עובדת
עובדת
Transliteration: tdbv` tdbv`
Transcription: `Ovedet `ovedet
Translation: ‘a worker (female) works’
עובדים
עובדים
Transliteration: mydbv` mydbv` (the letter י yod stands for [i])
Transcription: `Ovdim `ovdim
Translation: ‘workers (male)
work’
עובדות
עובדות
Transliteration: tvdbv` tvdbv` (the letter ו vav stands for [o] twice in
each word)
Transcription: `Ovdot `ovdot
Translation: ‘workers (female)
work’
Shared
triconsonantal root: עבד `ayin-bet-dalet (`-b-d)
Other examples: `eved ‘slave’, `avad ‘to work’,
`ibed ‘to process’, `ubad ‘to be
processed’. The vowels
change, but the consonantal core remains unchanged (except for the b~v
variation of the second consonant).
The roots of
David’s other examples were:
למד lamed-mem-dalet (l-m-d): lomed ‘learner’, ‘learns’; m’lamed ‘teacher’, ‘teaches’.
חיל het-yod-lamed
(h-y-l): hayal ‘soldier’; also in hayil ‘army’.
לחם lamed-het-mem (l-h-m): lohem ‘fighter’, ‘fights’; also in milhamah ‘war’.
04.3.27.7:21: SOLDIERS
SOLDIER
ORIENTOGRAPHY:
‘soldier’
(noun):
Mandarin: 士兵 shi4bing1 (lit. ‘gentleman-soldier’;
non-officer), 軍人 jun1ren2 (lit.
‘army-person’)
Japanese: 兵士 heishi (< earlier *peishi; ‘lit. ‘soldier-gentleman’; non-officer); 軍人 gunjin (lit. ‘army-person’)
Korean: 兵士 병사 pyŏngsa
(‘lit. ‘soldier-gentleman’; non-officer); 軍人 kunin (lit. ‘army-person’)
Vietnamese: 兵士 binh sĩ (‘lit. ‘soldier-gentleman’), also軍人quân nhân (lit. ‘army-person’) or native người lính (lit. ‘person soldier’).
Note that the non-Chinese languages use the same Chinese elements but in the reverse order. Other
words of this type are:
‘language’: Md 語言 yu3yan2 (< Middle
Chinese *ngïəq + *ngïən) but Japanese 言語 gengo (<
earlier *ngge + *ngə), Korean 言語 언어 ŏnŏ (< earlier
ngən + ngə) and Vietnamese 言語 ngôn ngữ.
‘introduce’:
Md 介紹 jie4shao4 and
Viet 介紹giới thiệu but Japanese as紹介shoukai and
Korean 紹介 소개 sogae.
‘to soldier’
(verb):
Mandarin: 當兵 dang1 bing1, lit. ‘serve-as soldier’
* = unattested forms:
Japanese (theoretical): *兵士するheishi-suru
Korean (theoretical): *兵士하다 병사하다 pyŏngsa-hada
Would be homophonous with the existing
verb 病死하다 병사하다 pyŏngsa-hada ‘die
of illness’ (lit. ‘sick-die-do’).
04.3.21.21:05: BEYOND
THE GATES OF KIM JONG IL
LOGONOTES:
金正日을 죽여라!
Kim Cŏng Ir-ŭl
cugyŏra! (c = ‘ch’ as in my Sanskrit and Pijin romanization systems)
‘Kill Kim
金 김 Kim: 性 김 sŏng Kim ‘surname Kim’; literally ‘metal’ or
‘gold’.
正 정 Cŏng: 바를 정 parŭl cŏng
‘straight cŏng’.
日 일 Il: 날 일 nal il
‘day il’; also
‘sun’.
을 -ŭl: native Korean suffix for direct objects. The -l of
죽여라! cugyŏra!:
native Korean:
‘kill!’:
죽 cuk- ‘kill’ (k > g before the following vowel)
이 -i- (causative suffix)
어라 -ŏra (imperative [command] suffix).
The originals of
other lines:
“金正日을 打倒하자!”
Kim Cŏng Ir-ŭl
tha-do-ha-ja!
‘Kim Jong Il-dir obj hit-down-do-let’s!’
‘Overthrow Kim Jong Il!’
(打倒 타도thado is lit.
‘hit-down’; 하자 haja is native Korean for ‘let’s do …!’)
“數十 年간 눌려서 살아왔던 怨恨을 갚자!”
Su-ship nyŏn-gan nully-ŏsŏ sar-a-wat-tŏn
wŏnhan-ŭl kap-ca!
‘number-ten
year-period oppressed (lit. ‘squeezed, pressed, pushed’)-having
been liv-ing-come-having grudge-dir obj repay-let’s!’
‘Let’s
avenge decades of living through oppression!’
“이제 이 北朝鮮을 人民의 나라로 되돌리자!”
Ije i Puk Cosŏn-ŭl inmin-ŭi nara-ro
toe-dol-li-ja!
‘this-time
this North Korea-dir obj people-of nation-into
become-turn-cause-let’s!’
‘Now
let’s make
“이제 우리 北朝鮮은 金正日이 남아 있어서는 希望이 없다!”
Ije uri Puk Cosŏn-ŭn Kim Cŏng Ir-i nam-a iss-ŏsŏ-nŭn hŭimang-i ŏpta!
‘Now we North
Korea-as-for Kim Jong Il-subj remain-ing is-because-as-for hope-subj not-exist!’
(Korean 없다 ŏpta, like Japanese nai, expresses ‘is no’ in
one word without a dummy subject equivalent to English there.)
‘Now as long as
he remains, there is no hope for our
Indeed. I still say – make Kim Jong Il a ‘wolf’s head’ (weargesheafod). Or as Koreans might say, an 이리 머리 iri mŏri (native Korean: ‘wolf-head’) or 狼頭 낭두 nang-du (Sino-Korean:
‘wolf-head’).
04.3.21.3:36: “ARE
WE REALLY MUSLIMS?”
SITE TITLE
LOGONOTES:
伊斯蘭之光 Yisilan zhi guang ‘Light of
Islam’:
伊斯蘭Yisilan: Phonetic
transcription of ‘Islam’:
伊 Yi: ‘he, she’ (archaic); almost always a transcription
character for foreign i today: e.g., 伊拉克 Yilake ‘Iraq’ and 伊朗 Yilang ‘Iran’.
斯 si: ‘this’ (archaic); almost always a transcription character
for foreign s today: e.g., 斯里蘭卡 Sili Lanka ‘Sri Lanka’.
蘭 lan: ‘orchid’. Used in 荷蘭 Helan ‘Holland’, last seen here.
之 zhi: ‘of’ (archaic; but follows possessor rather than possessed;
X zhi Y = ‘Y of X’,
‘X’s Y’; its modern descendant in Mandarin is pronounced de and is spelled as 的 ‘target’).
光 guang ‘light’.
PARTIAL CAPTION LOGONOTES (the
cartoon is 無題 wuti ‘titleless’):
“我們真是穆斯林嗎？”
Women zhen shi
Musilin ma?
‘Are we really Muslims?’:
我們 women: ‘we’.
我 wo: ‘I’.
們 -men: suffix indicating plurals of people (not things).
真 zhen: ‘real(ly)’.
是 shi: ‘is’.
穆斯林 Musilin: phonetic transcription of
‘Muslim’:
穆 mu: ‘solemn’; also used to transcribe Mu- in 穆罕默德 Muhanmode ‘Muhammad’ (lit.
‘solemn seldom silent virtue’).
斯 si: ‘this’ (archaic; see above).
林 lin: ‘woods’; also a surname and the second half of 少林 Shaolin, lit. ‘few-woods’ (yes, the 功夫 kung fu temple).
嗎 ma: a spoken question mark.
04.3.21.2:36: ENTERING
THE GATES OF KIM JONG IL
AUTHOR LOGONOTES:
李友情 이우정 Lee U-jong looks like a pseudonym to me:
李 이 Lee (pronounced ‘ee’ in Korean)
means ‘plum’ and is equivalent to Chinese Lee and Vietnamese Lý.
It has nothing to do with the surname of 伊斯蘭 Yisilan-ic chaplain James Yee,
which might be the 客家 Hakka (lit. ‘guest-house’) pronunciation of 余 Mandarin yu ‘I [archaic]’. I’ve seen his name spelled on
Chinese sites as “詹姆士.余 Zhanmushi Yu” (with
a period used to separate the names since Chinese doesn’t insert spaces
between words) but there’s no way to know whether余 is the actual spelling of Yee
or is just a guess on the part of the journalist. (詹姆士 Zhanmushi
‘verbose matron man’ is a phonetic transcription of
‘James’. Here’s a post I did long ago about Chinese renditions
of詹姆斯龐德 James Bond.)
The 한글
hangul spelling consists of a
zero (ㅇ) indicating no initial
consonant and a letter i (ㅣ) which resembles a capital I.
Originally the name was
spelled in hangul as 리 Ri with r (ㄹ) instead of zero (ㅇ) (and is still spelled that way in North Korea). This reflects how the
name was first pronounced after being borrowed from Late Middle Chinese *Li. Early Korean had no l-sound and rendered Chinese l
as r. Later, Korean dropped r before i and shifted r
to l at the ends of
syllables. (Even earlier Korean may
have had both r and l,
but that’s a tale for another time.)
The author’s personal name 友情 우정 U-jong (lit.
‘friend-feeling’) is the Korean word for friendship, equivalent to
Mandarin youqing (pronounced
‘yoe-ching’), and Sino-Japanese yuujou.
(Vietnamese does not use the expected Sino-Vietnamese hữu tình; instead it has a Chinese/native blend tình bạn ‘feeling
friend’ reflecting Vietnamese word order. Tình
‘feeling’ is from 情 very late Late Middle Chinese *tsiny, but bạn
‘friend’ is native Vietnamese.) I’d hate to name a kid U-jong,
lest he turn out to be unfriendly.
TRANSLATOR LOGONOTES:
The translator
is 李英和 이영화 Lee
Young-hwa, an assistant professor at 關西 Kansai (‘Barrier-East’)
大學 University
(‘Great-Learning’). (N.B.: In accordance with Amaravati law, I
only use premodern spellings for Japanese.) The characters 英和 should be familiar to anyone who has ever used an English-Japanese
dictionary (英和辭典 Ei-Wa
jiten). 英 Ei is a partial phonetic transcription of
‘English’ and 和 Wa (Korean hwa)
‘harmony’ refers to Japan.
英 Ei (Korean 영 Young) can also mean ‘heroic’ or
‘flower’, so I suspect the name 英和 Young-hwa was intended to mean ‘Heroic Harmony’ or
‘Flowery Harmony’.
TITLE LOGONOTES:
マンガ金正日入門－北朝鮮將軍樣の真實
Manga Kimu Jon'iru nyuumon: Kita Chousen shougun-sama
no shinjitsu
lit.
‘unrestrained-picture Kim Jong Il enter-gate:
(A Comics Introduction to Kim Jong Il: The Truth about
the North Korean General)
might be translated
into Korean as:
漫畫金正日入門－北韓將軍님의真實
Sans hanja (Chinese characters):
만화 김정일 입문–북한 장군님의 진실
Manhwa Kim Jong Il immun: Pukhan canggun-nim ŭi
cinshil
Notice that in the hanja version, only 님 -nim (honorific suffix) and 의 -ŭi ‘of’ are written in
hangul. This is because these are the only two pure
Korean words in the entire title; the rest consists of loans from Chinese.
The Japanese
version is almost entirely composed of Chinese except for the honorific suffix -sama (for personages above mere -san-s) which is deceptively written
with the Chinese character 樣 ‘manner’ (not
used as an honorific suffix within Chinese itself) and の
‘of’ written in the hiragana
syllabary. Any Japanese word could
be written in the hiragana or katakana syllabaries (and an all-hiragana / katakana orthography is found
in children’s books), but by convention adults write only certain words
and parts of words in the syllabaries: e.g., manga can be written either in kanji
(Chinese characters) as 漫畫 (in premodern spelling) or katakana
as マンガ.
The Korean and
Japanese versions match almost graph for graph except for the honorific suffix
after 將軍 Jpn shougun
/ 장군 Kor canggun ‘general’ (see above) and
the Korean preference for 北韓 북한 Pukhan to 北朝鮮 북조선 Puk Chosŏn for ‘North
Korea’. (北 북 Puk means
‘north’. 韓 한 Han and 朝鮮 조선 Chosŏn are Korean pronunciations of Chinese
characters intended to be transcriptions of long-lost early indigenous names
for Korea and/or parts of Korea.)
The title of the second volume is almost identical except for the last word, 惡夢 Jpn akumu ‘nightmare’ (equivalent to 악몽 Korean angmong; lit. ‘evil-dream’).
The title of this
post refers to the word 入門 Jpn nyuumon (Kor immun) ‘introduction’ in the manga titles. It is a compound of 入 ‘enter’ and門
‘gate’.
For older posts, go to my archives.
© Copyright 2004 Marc H. Miyake