<p>Characters with "mouth radicals" are often chosen for transliterations. This is especially helpful to show that it is a proper noun rather than anything else, otherwise the reader might try and put meaning into characters that are simply there for their associated sounds.</p>

<p>A similar concept can be seen in Chinese onomatopoeia. For instance "choo-choo" the sound a steam train makes can be written: 呜呜 in Chinese, and again we see the mouth radical to indicate purely sound-based usage. 咩咩 is equivalent to the English "baa baa," the sounds that sheep make. A closer fit to English would be: 喵喵 the sound cats make. </p>

<p>As a note: this is quite an old transliteration practice. You wouldn't see places written this way today and if you look at most countries names they just simply are not translated like this. But, the mouth radical does hint at sound over meaning.</p>

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2019-12-31T03:13:46.250Z
Thank you! Do you have any other examples of this principle?
Zuriel
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2019-12-31T03:20:07.250Z
It is very helpful and thank you very much!!
Zuriel
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2019-12-31T03:20:53.657Z
By the way, 咩咩 sounds very different from "baa baa" :-)
Zuriel
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2019-12-31T03:26:53.747Z
Sheep have a different accent in the East, I guess. Must be the climate.
Mou某
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2019-12-31T03:42:36.447Z
@Zuriel m and b (and p) are related sounds.
dROOOze
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2019-12-31T03:53:21.460Z
@droooze, I still believe 咩 sounds very different from baa as "ㄟ" is so different from "ㄚ (a)".
Zuriel
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2019-12-31T03:54:26.357Z
@Zuriel would you say "mbee" (ㄟ vowel) sounds very different from "mbaa"?
dROOOze
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2019-12-31T03:57:17.553Z
@droooze, I say 咩 very differently from baa, and I say 呱呱 very differently from ribbit.
Zuriel
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2019-12-31T04:27:51.903Z
@Zuriel in Cantonese 咩 is pronounced like "meh" [mɛ]. Close enough to me. In my native language [ɓɛ] is the sound goats make (sheep are not native to our country), and I think it's pretty accurate.
范阮煌
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-31T03:12:53.653Z
2019-12-31T03:23:26.797Z
2019-12-31T03:23:26.797Z
Mou某
<p>In <a href="https://www.bible.com/bible/2283/DEU.1.%E7%A5%9E%E5%A4%A9%E8%81%96%E6%9B%B8" rel="nofollow noreferrer">神天聖書</a> (a classical translation of the Bible to Chinese), the Fifth Book of Moses was translated as:</p>

<p>摩西之第五書名曰吐嘚咡挼咪啞譯言復講法律傳</p>

<p>I guess that 吐嘚咡挼咪啞 is a transliteration of Deuteronomy. But I failed to see the reason that except for 挼, only characters with 口字旁 was used in this transliteration. Is there any reason?</p>

<word-choice><characters><transliteration>
Why characters with "口字旁" were chosen in this transliteration?
# Why characters with "口字旁" were chosen in this transliteration?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-12-31)

In [神天聖書](https://www.bible.com/bible/2283/DEU.1.%E7%A5%9E%E5%A4%A9%E8%81%96%E6%9B%B8) (a classical translation of the Bible to Chinese), the Fifth Book of Moses was translated as:

摩西之第五書名曰吐嘚咡挼咪啞譯言復講法律傳

I guess that 吐嘚咡挼咪啞 is a transliteration of Deuteronomy. But I failed to see the reason that except for 挼, only characters with 口字旁 was used in this transliteration. Is there any reason?

**Tags:** word-choice, characters, transliteration


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2019-12-31. Score: 3

Characters with "mouth radicals" are often chosen for transliterations. This is especially helpful to show that it is a proper noun rather than anything else, otherwise the reader might try and put meaning into characters that are simply there for their associated sounds.

A similar concept can be seen in Chinese onomatopoeia. For instance "choo-choo" the sound a steam train makes can be written: 呜呜 in Chinese, and again we see the mouth radical to indicate purely sound-based usage. 咩咩 is equivalent to the English "baa baa," the sounds that sheep make. A closer fit to English would be: 喵喵 the sound cats make.

As a note: this is quite an old transliteration practice. You wouldn't see places written this way today and if you look at most countries names they just simply are not translated like this. But, the mouth radical does hint at sound over meaning.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you! Do you have any other examples of this principle?  
> **username_0**: It is very helpful and thank you very much!!  
> **username_0**: By the way, 咩咩 sounds very different from "baa baa" :-)  
> **username_1**: Sheep have a different accent in the East, I guess. Must be the climate.  
> **username_2**: @username_0 m and b (and p) are related sounds.  
> **username_0**: @username_2, I still believe 咩 sounds very different from baa as "ㄟ" is so different from "ㄚ (a)".  
> **username_2**: @username_0 would you say "mbee" (ㄟ vowel) sounds very different from "mbaa"?  
> **username_0**: @username_2, I say 咩 very differently from baa, and I say 呱呱 very differently from ribbit.  
> **username_3**: @username_0 in Cantonese 咩 is pronounced like "meh" [mɛ]. Close enough to me. In my native language [ɓɛ] is the sound goats make (sheep are not native to our country), and I think it's pretty accurate.  

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