<blockquote>
<p>So can you have &quot;transliterations&quot; which are neither phonetically nor semantically meaningful, in Chinese? How common is that?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>&quot;transliterations&quot; by definition must be phonetically similar to the original text. <strong>Most transliterations do not make any sense in the Chinese language</strong>.</p>
<p>For example, &quot;阿迪达斯&quot; for &quot;Adidas&quot;</p>
<p>Each character in &quot;阿迪达斯&quot; contains its own meaning(s) but put them together doesn't create any meaningful context</p>
<p>A transliteration that has some meaning is rare, and a transliteration that  matches the original text semantically is even rarer</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And how common is purely phonetic transliterations?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most transliterations are purely phonetic</p>
<p>~</p>
<p>IKEA --&gt; 宜家 is a great one</p>
<p>Revlon --&gt; 露華濃 (came from 「雲想衣裳花想容，春風拂檻<strong>露華濃</strong>」-- a famous Chinese poem that describes a beautiful lady)</p>
<p>It is a great partial transliteration (Revlon --&gt;華濃) that semantically related the original words. It requires great literary skill to come up with such an elegant brand name</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-10-18T08:31:19.177Z
How do you know it is a phonetic word you are reading and not the sequence of characters with their base meanings, is my next question :)
Lance Pollard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-10-18T08:18:31.580Z
2022-10-18T08:18:31.580Z
Tang Ho
<p>I am working on a fantasy language and taking inspiration languages such as Chinese, specifically in regard to how it imports foreign words into its language. After reading <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_into_Chinese_characters" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Transcription into Chinese characters</a>, most of the article is about &quot;phono-semantic matching&quot;, where the Chinese rendition of a foreign word somewhat matches both the phonetic sound of the word, as well as the meaning.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>shēngnà &quot;sonar&quot;, uses the characters 声 shēng &quot;sound&quot; and 纳 nà &quot;receive, accept&quot;.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many other examples are given like this, such as for IKEA:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>宜家 Yíjiā, &quot;suitable/proper for a home&quot;.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The article says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The expansion of Buddhism within China during the later Han and Three Kingdoms period required the transcription of a great many Sanskrit and Pali terms. According to the Song-era scholar Zhou Dunyi,[11] the monk and translator Xuanzang (of Journey to the West fame) handed down guidelines of &quot;Five Kinds of Words Not to Translate&quot; (simplified Chinese: 五种不翻; traditional Chinese: 五種不翻). He directed that transcription should be used instead of translation when the words are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Arcane, such as incantations</li>
<li>Polysemous</li>
<li>Not found in China</li>
<li>Traditionally transcribed, not translated</li>
<li>Lofty and subtle, which a translation might devalue or obscure</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>But it doesn't say much as far as I can tell about what words are purely phonetically transcribed, vs. which ones are purely semantically transcribed, vs. which are a mixture of both semantically and phonetically transcribed.</p>
<p>My question can be boiled down to two aspects:</p>
<ul>
<li>What happens when you phonetically transcribe something and it turns out to mean something bad in Chinese?</li>
<li>What happens when you semantically transcribe something and it loses meaning or is not quite accurate?</li>
</ul>
<p>It seems that if you end up with a bad-meaning word after phonetic transcription, you could modify/diverge from the phonetics even more to arrive at a potential better candidate. It seems that if you semantically transcribe with no phonetics, you might create confusion, I don't know. So then you end up with a word that is neither semantically or phonetically similar to the original foreign word, maybe like &quot;Costco&quot;, who's Chinese name seems unrelated in any respect other than meaning.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Costco as 好市多 Hǎoshìduō, &quot;market of many great things&quot;.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So I guess you could call that semantically similar.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_nomenclature_in_Chinese" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Organic Chemistry nomenclature in Chinese</a> has many words which have seemingly completely unrelated/random meanings, like:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>肼 hydrazine   (井 jǐng 'a well')</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So can you have &quot;transliterations&quot; which are neither phonetically nor semantically meaningful, in Chinese? How common is that? And how common is purely phonetic transliterations?</p>

<terminology><transliteration>
How common is non-meaning-based (i.e. purely phonetic) transliteration of foreign words into Chinese?
# How common is non-meaning-based (i.e. purely phonetic) transliteration of foreign words into Chinese?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-10-18)

I am working on a fantasy language and taking inspiration languages such as Chinese, specifically in regard to how it imports foreign words into its language. After reading [Transcription into Chinese characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_into_Chinese_characters), most of the article is about "phono-semantic matching", where the Chinese rendition of a foreign word somewhat matches both the phonetic sound of the word, as well as the meaning.

> shēngnà "sonar", uses the characters 声 shēng "sound" and 纳 nà "receive, accept".

Many other examples are given like this, such as for IKEA:

> 宜家 Yíjiā, "suitable/proper for a home".

The article says:

> The expansion of Buddhism within China during the later Han and Three Kingdoms period required the transcription of a great many Sanskrit and Pali terms. According to the Song-era scholar Zhou Dunyi,[11] the monk and translator Xuanzang (of Journey to the West fame) handed down guidelines of "Five Kinds of Words Not to Translate" (simplified Chinese: 五种不翻; traditional Chinese: 五種不翻). He directed that transcription should be used instead of translation when the words are:
>
> 1. Arcane, such as incantations
> 2. Polysemous
> 3. Not found in China
> 4. Traditionally transcribed, not translated
> 5. Lofty and subtle, which a translation might devalue or obscure

But it doesn't say much as far as I can tell about what words are purely phonetically transcribed, vs. which ones are purely semantically transcribed, vs. which are a mixture of both semantically and phonetically transcribed.

My question can be boiled down to two aspects:

* What happens when you phonetically transcribe something and it turns out to mean something bad in Chinese?
* What happens when you semantically transcribe something and it loses meaning or is not quite accurate?

It seems that if you end up with a bad-meaning word after phonetic transcription, you could modify/diverge from the phonetics even more to arrive at a potential better candidate. It seems that if you semantically transcribe with no phonetics, you might create confusion, I don't know. So then you end up with a word that is neither semantically or phonetically similar to the original foreign word, maybe like "Costco", who's Chinese name seems unrelated in any respect other than meaning.

> Costco as 好市多 Hǎoshìduō, "market of many great things".

So I guess you could call that semantically similar.

The [Organic Chemistry nomenclature in Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_nomenclature_in_Chinese) has many words which have seemingly completely unrelated/random meanings, like:

> 肼 hydrazine (井 jǐng 'a well')

So can you have "transliterations" which are neither phonetically nor semantically meaningful, in Chinese? How common is that? And how common is purely phonetic transliterations?

**Tags:** terminology, transliteration


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2022-10-18. Score: 1

> So can you have "transliterations" which are neither phonetically nor semantically meaningful, in Chinese? How common is that?

"transliterations" by definition must be phonetically similar to the original text. **Most transliterations do not make any sense in the Chinese language**.

For example, "阿迪达斯" for "Adidas"

Each character in "阿迪达斯" contains its own meaning(s) but put them together doesn't create any meaningful context

A transliteration that has some meaning is rare, and a transliteration that matches the original text semantically is even rarer

> And how common is purely phonetic transliterations?

Most transliterations are purely phonetic

~

IKEA --> 宜家 is a great one

Revlon --> 露華濃 (came from 「雲想衣裳花想容，春風拂檻**露華濃**」-- a famous Chinese poem that describes a beautiful lady)

It is a great partial transliteration (Revlon -->華濃) that semantically related the original words. It requires great literary skill to come up with such an elegant brand name

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: How do you know it is a phonetic word you are reading and not the sequence of characters with their base meanings, is my next question :)  

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