ON CERTAIN SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS OF FAR EASTERN ONOMASTICS

• Authors: Kuenstler M. J.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Almost the whole of Far Eastern onomastics is dominated by the Chinese language, and that is caused primarily by the domination of the Chinese culture in that region. In the Far East there are no eponymous place names at all, as a result of cultural differences and of the fact that in China, for instance, only about 400 different surnames exist (usually monosyllabic), while given names are created completely at will. The field of Chinese onomastics exists there, written with the characters of Chinese writing, constructed from Chinese lexical elements according to the principles of Chinese grammar, pronounced locally in accordance with local principles. This means that names written with the same characters of Chinese writing have a Chinese pronunciation in China, a Japanese pronunciation in Japan, and so forth; for example, Chinese Guangdao 'Wide Island' is in Japanese Hiroshima, and Chinese Huasha, Warsaw, is 'Flower Pollen', a toponym similar to many other Chinese names, such as Huashi 'Flower Stone', a town in the province of Guilin. For us 'Toyota', for example, and similar names are independent of language, while in the languages of the Far East these names are translated (in Chinese Fengdian 'Large Field').

Keywords

EN

CHINESE LANGUAGE DOMINATED ONOMASTICS; FAR EASTERN ONOMASTICS PECULIATITIES

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Instytut Języka Polskiego Polskiej Akademii Nauk
• Journal: Onomastica
• Year: 2006
• Volume: 51
• Pages: 65-72
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Kuenstler M. J.

• The author passed away

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

08PLAAAA03567247