Chen vs Tan ?
Are you confused
about the pronunciation of the Chinese names in Singapore? Have you wondered why
chen(陈) is pronounced Tan? Why do Singaporeans pronounce Lin(林) Lim? It
may sound familiar to local people, but quite otherwise to us those from China.
So, here I want to briefly talk something about why they pronounce the xing(姓) in this
way.
To begin with,
we should first know where most Chinese Singaporeans come from. In fact, most
of them stem from the southern part of China and have started migrating to Singapore
since Ming dynasty. Afterwards, to facilitate the communication and for the
needs of their work, they all had to convert their Chinese names into Roman
words.
Then, a problem emerged: how to convert? During
that period of time, however, no standard Chinese was widespread all over the
country. For this reason, people mostly converted in accordance with the
pronunciation in their hometown. Take two of the most common xings, chen and lin (both of them
are spelt in compliance with hanyupinyin here) for example. If you are from
Minnan(闽南) area, you convert them into Tan and Lim respectively. If your
ancestors speak yueyu(粤语), however, you pronounce them Chan and Lam. There are also many
other ways to convert these xings, due to that people are from different parts
of China and speak various dialects.
Currently, with the popularization of
Mandarin or Putonghua, a growing number of people choose to change their mings
into the way pronounced in mandarin. But few people change their xings, which
are still pronounced in dialects.
For me, I don’t
see any need to change Tan into Chen. Since Singaporeans are living in an area
that is very distinct from China, they don’t have to comply with Chinese. In
other words, they can form their own culture of giving and spelling names. After
all, it also composes an important part of their own unique culture.
The first time I knew Tan equivalent to Chen in Chinese, I was also surprised. And I also notice, my host family, who are both Chinese, give their son a Singaporean style name(Lim). As the saying goes, Do in Roma as Roma does, we need to adapt this new Xings.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the name is a distinct symbolic representation of our countries and culture.
I have one question after reading your essay : why did the early immagrants have to convert their Chinese name into Roman words? Was that due to the British colonists use Roman words? In addition, I finally get to know why my xing is called Tan or Chan in Singapore. haha. I also agree with you that this particular costom is exactly a charming culture which attract us most.And it is not a matter of which is right or wrong.
ReplyDeleteFor your question, one reason is that it very inconvenient for them to communicate wtih others. As for why must it be Roman words? I have no idea. And i have searched for information about this on the internet, but could not get the answer. Sorry for this.
DeleteI am pleased to hear that you find the reason why Chen is called Tan or Chan. Also, i feel happy we share the same opinion about this issue.
I think you could do a research about this topic. it is must be of a lot of fun. and i think some words you should not use HANYUPINYU, like yueyu, xings, because it will add difficulty for those who do not know Chinese at all, and they do have a fixed word in English, why do not use it?
ReplyDeleteGreat thanks to you for visiting my blog,first!
DeleteYeah! It indeed is of great fun to do research on this. But i would rather reccomend it to my joniors, as it may be helpful to them next year.
For that i should not use HANYUPINYIN, personally speaking, i don't quite agree. Since Chinese is being increasingly widely spread throughout the globe, people are trying to use hanyupinyin to describe sth related to Chinese, such as Beijing(why don't they call it Peking) and erhu. In the near future, they may get accutomed to it. I assure you. Haha!