Linguistic question on different names for the U.S.
From: Tuan Hoang
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 9:42 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear List,
The dynastic Ð?i Nam th?t l?c chánh biên includes a report on an American visit to Vietnam in 1832.
It reads in part:
Nhã di lý - Nu?c ?y ? Tây Duong, ho?c xung là Hoa K?, ho?c xung là Ma ly can, ho?c xung là Tân Anh cát l?i, d?u là bi?t hi?u v?y.
My rough translation:
United States - That country is in the West, or called the Flowered Banner, or called Ma-ly-can, or called New England: all of these designations.
My understanding:
Nhã di lý: Transliteration of Etats-Unis.
Hoa k?: Loose translation of the Star-Spangled Banner.
Tân Anh cát l?i: Literal translation of New England.
Ma ly can: ?
My questions:
1. Ma ly can: What was it supposed to mean? Where did it come from?
2. Hoa k?: What might have accounted for "flower" instead of "star"?
3. Are my takes on the names correct or incorrect? What else could be said about them?
4. In addition to this quartet, were there other Vietnamese names for the U.S.?
As always, thanks ahead for your replies.
~Tuan Hoang
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From: Christoph Giebel
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 9:53 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
ad 1: 'murcan (ie., "American," similar to gubmint/government)
C. Giebel
UW-Seattle
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From: Joseph Hannah
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:01 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Could Ma-ly-can be "(A)merican"?
Not sure how you get "Nhã di lý" from "Etats-Unis" ...
Joe Hannah
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From: Tuan Hoang
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:02 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Christoph, do you mean the popular M? qu?c (so popular that I didn't include in the list)?
I understand it came directly from Chinese, but wonder when it became popular in Vietnamese usage.
~Tuan Hoang
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From: Tuan Hoang
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:18 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Joe: Yes, that makes good sense. As for Nhã di lý, I got it from Thái Van Ki?m, Ð?t Vi?t Tr?i Vi?t (Saigon, 1960).
BTW, Ki?m noted the Vietnamese names for two of the American visitors: Edmund Roberts was translated as Nghia-d?c-môn-la-bách and Georges Thompson became Ð?c-giai-tâm-gia.
Gotta love these translations of Western names! There should be a prize for someone that can figure out the intricacies of such translations. At the least, there should be a collection of them.
~Tuan Hoang
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:37 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Tuan:
For Edmund Roberts, you need to go through Chinese (as you would for Tay Ban Nha or Phi Luat Tan and many seemingly strange translations of proper names). Yi-de-men Lo-bei is closer to Edmund Roberts than the Sino-Vietnamese!
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: David Brown
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 12:59 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
In Japanese, the US is Bei-koku, or Rice-country. I believe I recall someone telling me that in Chinese, Mei-guo is also Rice-country. So, is there a linguistic explanation of how the US become Beautiful-country in Vietnamese? Or was it just serendipity? David Brown
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 1:11 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Mei guo does not mean rice country (which would be me with a circumflex and nga accents in Sino-Vietnamese); it means beautiful "my" with a nga accent.
I confess I don't know how Hoa Ky came to mean USA in Vietnamese.
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From: Frank
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 1:34 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Doesn't Mark Bradley have a whole chapter on Vietnamese names for the U.S.? Or at least a few pages... if I could only find it on my shelves.
Frank Proschan
37 place Jeanne d'Arc
75013 Paris
FRANCE
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From: Ngô Thanh Nhàn
Date: 2011/2/22
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear David,
I read somewhere that America (stress is on /me/) plus
"Vietnamese eat syllables" may be the cause for M?
(beautiful).
One explanation I gave in my thesis
American -> á-m?-l?i/l?-gia
which was reduced to /mi/ or /m?/.
Best,
Nhan
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From: Walter james Mc intosh
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 1:35 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Earlier we spoke of how Ngo Dinh Diem utilized a Southern Dialect in his public speechs. Another great radio voice using the Southern dialect was Rose Nguyen (Nguyen Thi Hong) of VOA, (Dai Tieng Noi Hoa Ky ) but when Rose pronounced America she pronounced it as Hue Ky . I always thought her voice was just a joy to listen to.
Mac McIntosh
The Lighthouse, Bluff, NZ
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 1:41 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hue Ky is definitely a southern pronunciation. Southerners distorted a lot of words to avoid taboos. So Hoang became Huynh; mai became moi; and hoa became hue. And of course, Hue is a distortion of Hoa as in Thuan Hoa, a name that dates from the conquest of Champa (there is a Shun-hua district in Xinjiang, which is still considered the periphery, unlike Hue in "mien Trung."
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From: Liam C. Kelley
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 2:02 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hoa Ky is another term which Chinese coined (Huaqi guo, ???) - "the flowered banner kingdom." My guess would be that it was a description of the flag with all of the stars (which kind of look like flowers) on it.
Liam Kelley
University of Hawaii
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From: Lisa Nguyen
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 2:24 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
According to "History of the Flag of the United States of America" by US naval officer George H. Preble, sometime in 1780s, the US flag was first brought to Canton, China via the merchant ship Empress of China. From there, the stars-n-stripes flag became known as the [??] or "flower flag."
"...When the thirteen stripes and stars first appeared at Canton much curiosity was excited among the people. News was circulated that a strange ship had arrived from the farther end of the world, bearing a flag as beautiful as a flower. Everybody went to see the kaw-kee-cheun, or flower-flag ship. This name at once established itself in the language and America is now called kaw-kee-koh, the flower-flag country, and an American, kaw-kee-koch-yin, flower flag country man, -- a more complimentary designation than that of red-headed barbarian, the name first bestowed on the Dutch..."
(Source: "History of the Flag of the United States")
Now it seems that [??] is the Chinese term for Citibank...but i digress.
lisa
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From: Marc J. Gilbert
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 2:47 PM
To: Lisa Nguyen <lisa.nguyen@stanford.edu>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
In works in English on the first contacts between Vietnam and the U. S. mention is often made of the “flower flag” and designation of “flower flag people” in connection with the ill-starred visit of the U.S.S. Constitution, as it few the blue field with the circle of stars when it fired on Vietnamese seeking the arrest of fleeing Catholic priests who sought protection under its guns.
Marc
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From: Daniel C. Tsang
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 3:52 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yes, it helps to know Chinese to uncover the derivation for Flower Flag. Citibank, as Lisa notes, is widely known in China and Chinese diaspora as the Flower Flag bank...see image from San Francisco Chinatown, where a sign identifies Citibank as Hoa Ky Nhan Hang: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superaventuras/303126810/in/set-72157600272172697/
dan
--
Daniel C. Tsang, Distinguished Librarian
Data Librarian
Bibliographer for Asian American Studies,
Economics, & Political Science
468 Langson Library
University of California, Irvine
PO Box 19557
Irvine CA 92623-9557
USA
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From: Jalel Sager
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 5:50 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
For what it is worth, it is "mi gook" (??), or "beautiful country," in Korean as well, which I assume came from the classical Chinese?
Jalel Sager
University of California, Berkeley
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From: Daniel C. Tsang <dtsang@uci.edu>
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 6:21 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yup Jalel. Beautiful Country is the Chinese term for America. dan
dan
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From: will pore
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 6:22 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yes, everyone who has even the slightest smattering of the history of East Asia can figure out that Vietnamese 'My quoc,' Korean Miguk (or Migook as US Army grunts write it) and Japanese 'Beikoku' (They substituted 'Bikoku' ("rice grain country" during World War II) all derive from Chinese characters pronounced 'Meiguo,' which because of the characters used does mean "beautiful country." But "beautiful country" has nothing to do with the Chinese estimate of America and everything to do with the perceived sound of the name of the country to Chinese ears when the first Americans mouthed it. Incidentally, 'meiguo' cannot be considered classical Chinese, the US-Chinese encounter did not occur until well after the "Classical Age."
Will Pore
--
William F. Pore, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Global Studies
College of Economics and International Trade
Pusan National University
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From: Jalel Sager
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:10 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks for the answer to my question, Dan. In my experience in Korea, the term "hanja" was often translated as "classical Chinese"--though "literary Chinese" seems far more precise, as Will Pore kindly points out (likely on behalf of affronted sinologists everywhere).
Jalel
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From: will pore
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:37 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Koreans now don't have near the knowledge of Chinese characters they did a few years ago. 'Hanja' in Korean (Chinese 'hanzi') simply means Chinese characters, not either literary or classical Chinese. 'Hanmun' (Chinese: 'hanwen') means classical Chinese in Korean.
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From: Tuan Hoang
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 9:14 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The various comments are interesting and enlightening as usual. Much thanks! On Frank Proschan's question, Mark Bradley does make a note of M? Qu?c in his book, plus a few others such as Lam Khang for Lincoln and De-Thuy for the Delaware River.
Ironically, the name most formal and closest to the original - H?p Ch?ng Qu?c (which could be translated as "Country of Different Kinds" or "Nation of United Races") - is used far less than Hoa K? or Nu?c M?. Too long to roll off the tongue, perhaps? Will Pore and others: Is the same true in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese?
~Tuan Hoang
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From: will pore
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:07 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Tuan Hoang and List:
Yes. The United States of America, in all countries that use/or used to use Chinese characters, is rendered the same on the basis of the Chinese "original": 'Meiguo hezhong guo' (Vietnamese: My Hop Chung Quoc). 'Hezhong/hop chung,' literally a unified mass, is better understood as meaning federal.
Will
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 4:15 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The Wikipedia entry stresses that the accent on Chung should be sac, not hoi, but as Tuan's post suggest, the latter has been more commonly used--hence the need for Wikipedia clarification. Still, Hoa Ky or My (quoc) are more prevalent.
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From: Tuan Hoang
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 7:10 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Will Pore and Hue-Tam: Thank you for these small but important points on federalism and the accent of Chung. Mexico is similarly rendered as H?p Chúng Qu?c Mêhicô in official documents: the only other case today, I think. Anyway, dau nang followed by two dau sac: three consecutive "hard" accents that make it tough for speakers.
~Tuan Hoang
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 7:33 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yes, I think it's hard to pronounce correctly, hence the distortion. It is interesting, however, that "States" (bang) became "People" (chung, as in dan chung).
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 7:53 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Another interesting linguistic issue: hiep/hop.
We say hoi hop, but hiep hoi. We say (or should) Hop Chung Quoc but Lien Hiep Quoc.
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From: David Brown
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 7:59 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
In Hanoi, the apartment Tuyet and I had in 2008-10 was in the Chung cu Lien Hop Quoc. I asked if that was an error and was told it is an acceptable variant. David Brown
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 8:23 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yes, they are variants. What interests me is why one is used over another in different combinations.
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From: Sinh Vinh
Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 7:33 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I just would like to say something about Tuan’s query.
In Japanese, the United States of America is now called
America Gasshukoku (J. : ???????) , or in Sino-Vietnamese
“America Ho?p Chu?ng Quô´c.” They don’t call it Gasshukoku (i.e. Ho?p Chu?ng Quô´c)
only.
The Japanese also call the U.S. as Beikoku (V. Mê~ Quô´c ??; Mê~ is “rice”)
because Beikoku, i.e. Mê~ Quô´c is a short form of America Gasshukoku.
To make the point a bit clearer,
at first the Japanese wrote America in Chinese characters; i.e. ???????,or in Sino-Vietnamese “A´-Mê~-Lo?i-Gia Ho?p Chu?ng Quô´c.”
After that, America is written in katakana, rather than in
Chinese character, then we have ???????.
(Nuo´c) My~, i.e. My~ Quô´c (??) or Hoa Ky` (??) are obviously a Chinese creation.
But we know that the Vietnamese tend to adopt things from China, or things once China have adopted already.
Sinh
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From: Ngô Thanh Nhàn
Date: 2011/2/25
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Th?y Sính,
Thank you for“???????,or in Sino-Vietnamese “A´-Mê~-Lo?i-Gia Ho?p Chúng Quô´c.”
This goes along with the theory of phonetic reduction whereby
"???? Á-M?-L?i-gia" ==> ?? M? qu?c.
Thus
-- M? qu?c ?? comes from ???? Á-M?-L?i-Gia
-- M? qu?c ?? comes from ???? Á-M?-L?i-Gia
depending how a "dialect" transcribed the sound "a-mé-ri-ca".
Best,
Nhan
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From: Hoang t. Dieu-Hien
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 11:53 AM
To: nhan@temple.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I'm not a linguist or historian. So my comment will bear ignorance in these areas and will reflect what was taught in schools in the South, not what was linguistically correct.
When I was growing up in Viet Nam (Southern) in the 60s and 70s, we were taught that the full official name for the United States of America was
Ho+.p Chu?ng Quo^/c Hoa Ky\
with a ho?i on Chu?ng, not sa(/c. I wonder how that came to be and since when?
For Southerners, My~ Quo^/c came to be used more frequently only after 1975.
BTW, for United Nations, I have seen both Lie^n Hie^.p Quo^/c and Lie^n Ho+.p Quo^/c.
Hie^.p and Ho+.p seem to be a regional difference to me (North and South) for the meaning of "coming together".
I have now overstretched my linguistic knowledge. Will retreat to be enlightened by the experts.
Thanks for the question, Tuan.
Die^.u-Hie^`n
--
Hoang t. Dieu-Hien
Lecturer/Fieldwork Coordinator
University of Washington Tacoma
Nursing Program
Box 358421
Tacoma WA 98402-3100
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From: Bradley Davis
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 1:01 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
The names of the US were the subject of a short piece by "H?ng Giao" in the journal _Ngôn Ng? & Ð?i S?ng_, s? 1, 1994, p24. The title is "V? ba tên g?i 'M?,' 'Hoa K?' và 'H?p Chúng Qu?c.'"
Bradley Davis
Visiting Scholar
Eastern Washington University
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From: Sinh Vinh
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 4:42 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>, nhan@temple.edu
I was growing up in South Vietnam, before 1975, and before 1954.
I know that there are/were people around me who say Ho?p Chu?ng Quô´c, and saying
Ho?p Chu?ng Quô´c My~ Châu, or Ho?p Chu?ng Quô´c Hoa Ky`.
Until this question is discussed, I never thought it might be a problem.
I checked various dictionaries, and they all have
Ho?p Chu´ng Quô´c. These are dictionaries published, or re-published, in Southern Vietnam,
like Thiê`u Chu?u (Ha´n Viê?t Tu` Ðiê?n), Ða`o Duy Anh, Nguyê~n Van Khôn, etc.
I am not a linguist, but knowing something about languages. In this case,
people think might that Chu?ng is right, but it is wrong. Thank you for asking the question.
Liên Hiê?p Quô´c and Liên Ho?p Quô´c are more often a problem. To make a long
short, Liên Ho?p Quô´c is right, and Liên Hiê?p Quô´c is wrong. They sound alike.
This case also show that knowing Chinese characters is helpful.
Liên Ho?p Quô´c is written as ???. Liên Hiê?p Quô´c is written as ???,
which does not exist in the dictionary.
I hope you it clarified the matter,
Sinh
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 6:00 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sinh is right about Lien Hiep and Lien Hop; interestingly, wikipedia gives both spellings, but all other googling brings up only Lien Hiep Quoc. I grew up hearing only Lien Hiep Quoc and never Lien Hop Quoc.
By the same token, the few times I heard the US referred to by its whole official name, it was H?p Ch?ng Qu?c rather than the correct H?p Ch?ng Qu?c . I do believe it's because the former is easier to pronounce. We also said Hoa K? and used M? Châu only to refer to the American continent. Most times, it was just M? rather than M? Qu?c.
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From: will pore
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 6:38 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The Chinese character Professor Sinh uses for Lien in Lien Hop Quoc and Lien Hiep Quoc should be Wade-Giles 4008 not 4009, which he has used. The meanings of the two liens are indeed somewhat similar, but 4009 is not standard. I have seen the 'hiep quoc' character combination, but cannot find it now. It is, as he said, not found in a dictionary, at least not one I have.
Will Pore
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From: Mr. Lam
Date: Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 3:03 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I am sorry to add my contribution to a post which may already be too long! Hopefully, this will be the last one.
The confusion stems from the fact that both versions make sense:
Ho?p or hiê?p chu?????ng (ho?i) quô´c: country of many ethnies
Ho?p or hiê?p chu´´ng (sa´c) quô´c: ???country of many
Only one reading, however, should be acceptable and that is the one with the dâ´u sa´c.
It is in fact the direct translation of the motto "e pluribus unum" which the Chinese must have seen inscribed on American coins.
As for hiê?p or ho?p, again the two versions are acceptable, for two reasons
The sino-vietnamese word hiê?p can be pronounced ho?p.
The second reason comes from the reprehensible custom of the Vietnamese people to not pronounce or write the names of important personalities: kiêng huy´. That explains why even to this day some people pronounce yê´n sa´ng instead of a´nh sa´ng, can do?m instead of can da?m, tôn gia´o instead of tông gia´o, tho`i gio` instead of thi` gio` in deference to the given names of the four first emperors of the Nguyê~n dynasty.
To complicate matters further, that rule does not apply only to kings' names but also to important local personalities. For example, in the region where I grew up, people said tra`ng ho?c and never truo`ng ho?c, because the biggest landowner's name was "truo`ng"......
You may imagine my consternation when one of the American students I supervised in Hanoi told me that in remembrance of our good time in VN, she would name the dog she will buy after she returns home TBLam.
Truong buu Lam