Qeng Ho, what does it mean?
Don HARLOW
skribis:
>Erich Schneider <er...@caltech.edu> writes:
>
>> "Jay Malik" <jma...@ameritech.net> writes:
>>
>> > This question is for readers of Vernor Vinge.
>> >
>> > What does Qeng Ho mean in Chinese? Is it Mandarin? What are the characters?
>> >
>> > Your help is appreciated and sorry if this question has been asked before.
>>
>> Actually I believe the correct pinyin spelling is "Qeng He"
>> (pronounced something like "chung huh").
>
>I checked the web and found the following page:
>
>http://www.chinapage.org/chengho.html
>
>which has the pinyin spelling "Zheng He", which would be pronounced
>something like "jung huh". And it looks like he only got as far as
>modern Tanzania in Africa. Still, pretty neat.
>
"Only"? That's further than either Columbus or da Gama sailed -- and a
century before them.
I believe the fact that Qeng Ho was a person is mentioned in "A Fire
Upon the Deep".
-- Don HARLOW
http://www.webcom.com/~donh/don/don.html
Ću mi rajtas reklami kelkajn miajn proprajn verkaĽojn?
Ursoj, pri la stranga konduto de kaliforniaj ursoj ... kaj homoj:
http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/Literaturo/Noveloj/ursoj.html
Tenebrio, homoj en utopio devas fronti realecon:
http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/Literaturo/Noveloj/tenebrio.html
El la taglibro de Tobias Finch, kiu okazis apud (San Francisco) en 1579:
http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/Literaturo/Noveloj/tobias_e.html
Ne ordinara ter', kiel oni devos vivi post la Katastrofo:
http://www.best.com/~donh/Esperanto/Literaturo/Noveloj/Ne_ordinara_ter.html
Jay Malik
>
> http://www.chinapage.org/chengho.html
>
> which has the pinyin spelling "Zheng He", which would be pronounced
> something like "jung huh". And it looks like he only got as far as
> modern Tanzania in Africa. Still, pretty neat.
Thanks for the help; I really appreciate it.
Erich Schneider
> >I checked the web and found the following page:
> >
> >http://www.chinapage.org/chengho.html
> >
> >which has the pinyin spelling "Zheng He", which would be pronounced
> >something like "jung huh". And it looks like he only got as far as
> >modern Tanzania in Africa. Still, pretty neat.
> >
> "Only"? That's further than either Columbus or da Gama sailed -- and a
> century before them.
I said "only" because I was following up myself, and in my first post
I said I thought his fleet got as far as modern South Africa.
--
Erich Schneider er...@caltech.edu Caltech Information Technology Services
David Mitchell
<jma...@ameritech.net> writes
>This question is for readers of Vernor Vinge.
>
>What does Qeng Ho mean in Chinese? Is it Mandarin? What are the characters?
>
>Your help is appreciated and sorry if this question has been asked before.
>
"Qeng Ho", means "Look over there... Qeng!"
;-)
--
==========================================================================
David Mitchell ===== A life spent making mistakes is not only
================================ more honourable but more useful than a
da...@edenroad.demon.co.uk ===== life spent doing nothing. - GBS
==========================================================================
Cambias
<da...@edenroad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <01bf79ef$e941a000$52a2b3c7@newmicronpc>, Jay Malik
> <jma...@ameritech.net> writes
> >This question is for readers of Vernor Vinge.
> >
> >What does Qeng Ho mean in Chinese? Is it Mandarin? What are the characters?
> >
> >Your help is appreciated and sorry if this question has been asked before.
> >
> >- JM
>
> "Qeng Ho", means "Look over there... Qeng!"
>
I had always assumed that it was a variant spelling of Cheng Ho, the name
of the famous Muslim Chinese admiral who commanded the Treasure Fleets,
China's last maritime explorations. If anyone knows another derivation,
please share it with us.
Cambias
Michael S. Schiffer
>In article <iOxfiRAu...@edenroad.demon.co.uk>, David Mitchell
><da...@edenroad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> In article <01bf79ef$e941a000$52a2b3c7@newmicronpc>, Jay Malik
>> <jma...@ameritech.net> writes
>> >This question is for readers of Vernor Vinge.
>> >What does Qeng Ho mean in Chinese? Is it Mandarin? What are the characters?
>> "Qeng Ho", means "Look over there... Qeng!"
>I had always assumed that it was a variant spelling of Cheng Ho, the name
>of the famous Muslim Chinese admiral who commanded the Treasure Fleets,
>China's last maritime explorations. If anyone knows another derivation,
>please share it with us.
Though I have wondered (especially in the course of a recent project
which involved looking at a lot of romanizations of that name...)
whether that particular one comes from any other source, or if it's
one Vinge made up. And if so, why did he make one up? The Qeng Ho
weren't using English, and I can't think of a reason to
idiosyncratically romanize their Chinese. Especially since it looks
like it's supposed to be pronounced (by US readers, at least) the same
way we'd pronounce "Cheng Ho".
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS GURPS Alternate Earths 2 is out, featuring
ms...@mediaone.net six new alternate histories!
msch...@condor.depaul.edu <http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/altearths2/>
Courtenay Footman
>In article <cambias-2102...@d4132.dialup.cornell.edu>, cam...@SPAHMTRAP.heliograph.com (Cambias) wrote:
>>In article <iOxfiRAu...@edenroad.demon.co.uk>, David Mitchell
>><da...@edenroad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>> In article <01bf79ef$e941a000$52a2b3c7@newmicronpc>, Jay Malik
>>> <jma...@ameritech.net> writes
>>> >This question is for readers of Vernor Vinge.
>
>>> >What does Qeng Ho mean in Chinese? Is it Mandarin? What are the characters?
>
>>> "Qeng Ho", means "Look over there... Qeng!"
>
>>I had always assumed that it was a variant spelling of Cheng Ho, the name
>>of the famous Muslim Chinese admiral who commanded the Treasure Fleets,
>>China's last maritime explorations. If anyone knows another derivation,
>>please share it with us.
>
>Though I have wondered (especially in the course of a recent project
>which involved looking at a lot of romanizations of that name...)
>whether that particular one comes from any other source, or if it's
>one Vinge made up. And if so, why did he make one up? The Qeng Ho
>weren't using English, and I can't think of a reason to
>idiosyncratically romanize their Chinese. Especially since it looks
>like it's supposed to be pronounced (by US readers, at least) the same
>way we'd pronounce "Cheng Ho".
>
This is not an "idosyncratic" romanization of Chinese; it is the standard,
modern romanization of Chinese, called pinyin. Unfortunately, in pinyin,
"q" is pronounced "ch".
--
Courtenay Footman I have again gotten back on the net, and
c...@lightlink.com again I will never get anything done.
(All mail from non-valid addresses is automatically deleted by my system.)
Erich Schneider
> This is not an "idosyncratic" romanization of Chinese; it is the standard,
> modern romanization of Chinese, called pinyin. Unfortunately, in pinyin,
> "q" is pronounced "ch".
"Unfortunately"?
Andrew Plotkin
> c...@adore.lightlink.com (Courtenay Footman) writes:
>
>> This is not an "idosyncratic" romanization of Chinese; it is the standard,
>> modern romanization of Chinese, called pinyin. Unfortunately, in pinyin,
>> "q" is pronounced "ch".
>
> "Unfortunately"?
Yes, unfortunately.
Perhaps it would be clearer to say: Unfortunately, in pinyin, the "ch"
sound is spelled "q" instead of "ch".
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
Michael S. Schiffer
>In article <88s9q...@news1.newsguy.com>, Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
>>Though I have wondered (especially in the course of a recent project
>>which involved looking at a lot of romanizations of that name...)
>>whether that particular one comes from any other source, or if it's
>>one Vinge made up. And if so, why did he make one up? The Qeng Ho
>>weren't using English, and I can't think of a reason to
>>idiosyncratically romanize their Chinese. Especially since it looks
>>like it's supposed to be pronounced (by US readers, at least) the same
>>way we'd pronounce "Cheng Ho".
>This is not an "idosyncratic" romanization of Chinese; it is the standard,
>modern romanization of Chinese, called pinyin. Unfortunately, in pinyin,
>"q" is pronounced "ch".
Yes, but (for example) the pinyin romanization of Cheng Ho is Zheng
He, not "Qeng Ho". I don't know enough to say whether Qiwi or Trixia
are properly romanized (and in the case of Trixia at least it's
probably an arbitrary decision anyway) but I know Qeng Ho isn't
pinyin, isn't Wade-Giles, and isn't Yale. Thus I'm wondering if he
just made it up (either deliberately as a weird future romanization,
or with insufficient knowledge of pinyin) or if it shows up in some
some source I'm not aware of.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS GURPS Alternate Earths 2 is out,
ms...@mediaone.net with six new alternate histories!
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
<http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/altearths2/>
Coyu
>Yes, but (for example) the pinyin romanization of Cheng Ho is Zheng
>He, not "Qeng Ho". I don't know enough to say whether Qiwi or Trixia
>are properly romanized (and in the case of Trixia at least it's
>probably an arbitrary decision anyway) but I know Qeng Ho isn't
>pinyin, isn't Wade-Giles, and isn't Yale. Thus I'm wondering if he
>just made it up (either deliberately as a weird future romanization,
>or with insufficient knowledge of pinyin) or if it shows up in some
>some source I'm not aware of.
Possible idea: in the Zone universe, it's a Chinese-ish borrowing from
English-ish speakers. Vinge can build worlds that well.
How many Earth languages have left descendants in the Zones?
We know that even some Norwegian variant has survived...
Phil Hatch
read it for the first time yesterday. And having seen this thread, his
explanation jumped out at me.
Phil
On Mon, 21 Feb 2000 09:10:12 -0500, cam...@SPAHMTRAP.heliograph.com
(Cambias) wrote:
>In article <iOxfiRAu...@edenroad.demon.co.uk>, David Mitchell
><da...@edenroad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> In article <01bf79ef$e941a000$52a2b3c7@newmicronpc>, Jay Malik
>> <jma...@ameritech.net> writes
>> >This question is for readers of Vernor Vinge.
>> >
>> >What does Qeng Ho mean in Chinese? Is it Mandarin? What are the characters?
>> >
>> >Your help is appreciated and sorry if this question has been asked before.
>> >
>> >- JM
>>
>> "Qeng Ho", means "Look over there... Qeng!"
>>
>I had always assumed that it was a variant spelling of Cheng Ho, the name
>of the famous Muslim Chinese admiral who commanded the Treasure Fleets,
>China's last maritime explorations. If anyone knows another derivation,
>please share it with us.
>
>Cambias
Michael S. Schiffer
>In article <88uba...@news2.newsguy.com>, Michael S. Schiffer
>[ms...@mediaone.net] spaketh...
>> Yes, but (for example) the pinyin romanization of Cheng Ho is Zheng
>> He, not "Qeng Ho".
>The modern pinyin for Cheng/Qeng Ho is "Cheng He." Qeng is not a valid
>pinyin word, as you mention, but Cheng is....
Is this a recent change? The sources I used which used pinyin (most
of which are back at the library and are thus impossible to cite) gave
it as Zheng, and Britannica Online, at least, still does. (Luckily it
wouldn't have mattered for my purposes, since for GURPS Alternate
Earths 2 we used a modified Yale romanization: e.g., "Jeng Ho".)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS GURPS Alternate Earths 2 is out, featuring
ms...@mediaone.net six new alternate histories!
msch...@condor.depaul.edu <http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/altearths2/>
Erich Schneider
> Possible idea: in the Zone universe, it's a Chinese-ish borrowing from
> English-ish speakers. Vinge can build worlds that well.
>
> How many Earth languages have left descendants in the Zones?
> We know that even some Norwegian variant has survived...
It's stated in _Fire_ that all Humans in the Beyond are descendants of
the Nyjorans, who were the descendants of "Tuvo-Norsk" asteroid miners
and who speak "Samnorsk", which I understand means something like
"unified Norse", a fusion of the two main versions of Norwegian,
Bokmål and Nynorsk.
There's probably lots of weird stuff in the Slow Zone.
Erich Schneider
> In article <88u9e0$gsa$4...@nntp3.atl.mindspring.net>, Andrew Plotkin
> [erky...@eblong.com] spaketh...
> > Yes, unfortunately.
> >
> > Perhaps it would be clearer to say: Unfortunately, in pinyin, the "ch"
> > sound is spelled "q" instead of "ch".
> >
>
> Not really - modern pinyin used both "ch" and "q" - it sounds weird, but
> there are two "chr" sounds in chinese - thick, and light.
Indeed. "q" is like our "ch" in "church". "ch" is the retroflex
version; instead of your tounge touching the point between the roof of
your mouth and your teeth, it touches the roof of your mouth (i.e.
it's pointing straight up toward the top of your head).
It's the same thing with "x"/"sh" and "j"/"zh".
Trent Goulding
>> modern romanization of Chinese, called pinyin. Unfortunately, in pinyin,
>> "q" is pronounced "ch".
It's idiosyncratic in the sense that in pinyin, a "q" is never
followed by an "a", "e", or "o". Hence, in pinyin, you will never
see the romanization "qeng." The sound exists in Mandarin, it just
gets romanized as "cheng." It's confusing that the initial sounds
represented in pinyin by "q" and "ch" both get pronounced as "ch",
but there you go.
Vinge either got advice that was slightly off, or he is indeed doing
a slightly idiosyncratic evolution with his romanization.
--
Trent Goulding goul...@2001.law.ucla.edu
Andrew Plotkin
Obviously I have been Led Astray. Thanks for the explanation.
(On the other hand, it *still* wouldn't have been bad if "ch" was like our
"ch" in "church", instead.)
Don HARLOW
>Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
>
>>Yes, but (for example) the pinyin romanization of Cheng Ho is Zheng
>>He, not "Qeng Ho". I don't know enough to say whether Qiwi or Trixia
>>are properly romanized (and in the case of Trixia at least it's
>>probably an arbitrary decision anyway) but I know Qeng Ho isn't
>>pinyin, isn't Wade-Giles, and isn't Yale. Thus I'm wondering if he
>>just made it up (either deliberately as a weird future romanization,
>>or with insufficient knowledge of pinyin) or if it shows up in some
>>some source I'm not aware of.
>
>Possible idea: in the Zone universe, it's a Chinese-ish borrowing from
>English-ish speakers. Vinge can build worlds that well.
>
>How many Earth languages have left descendants in the Zones?
>We know that even some Norwegian variant has survived...
>
Note that the language used and spread by the Qeng Ho is called "Nese"
(a shortened "Chinese"?). To Kjet Svensndot (aFUtD, paperback, p.
431), in the language spoken by Pham Nuwen "The tones jumped up and
down, almost like a Dirokime twittering." Sounds awfully much as
though the main language of the Qeng Ho region of human space is,
indeed, some variant or descendant of (toned) Chinese. Or possibly
Vietnamese: many of the Qeng Ho names (in aDitS) seem to be Vietnamese
in origin (e.g. the Vinh families, Pham Nuwen [Nguyen?] himself),
though others are Chinese and at least one (Sammy Park) appears to be
of Korean origin. No Japanese names that I remember, however...
Bruce Lin
> It's idiosyncratic in the sense that in pinyin, a "q" is never
> followed by an "a", "e", or "o". Hence, in pinyin, you will never
> see the romanization "qeng." The sound exists in Mandarin, it just
> gets romanized as "cheng." It's confusing that the initial sounds
> represented in pinyin by "q" and "ch" both get pronounced as "ch",
> but there you go.
[Um, for the purposes of this email, I'm going to go by pinyin, where the
consonant "q" sounds like "ch" and the consonant "ch" sounds more like
"chr" (um, more of a "trial" sound than "Christ" sound) Anyway, on to the
main point.]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that in the actual language of
Mandarin Chinese, a "q" sound is never followed by an "eng", so there's
never any need to write "qeng", let alone mis-romanize it as "cheng". In
fact, I don't think there are any examples of words where the "q" sound is
followed by sounds transliterated as a, e, or, o.
In other words, no words exist in Mandarin that have the sound "qeng".
Some words are written in pinyin as "cheng", but they sound like they
should (i.e. [chreng])
Having said that, pinyin is often annoyingly idiosyncratic. If it were up
to me, the sounds represented by "j, q, x" would be written "j, ch, sh"
and the parallel set "zh, ch, sh" would be "jr, chr, shr"
Bruce
linguistic-dictator-in-training
Coyu
>It's stated in _Fire_ that all Humans in the Beyond are descendants of
>the Nyjorans, who were the descendants of "Tuvo-Norsk" asteroid miners
>and who speak "Samnorsk", which I understand means something like
>"unified Norse", a fusion of the two main versions of Norwegian,
>Bokmål and Nynorsk.
What does the prefix "Tuvo-" mean? I glossed it as "Tuva" at the time,
the land Feynman became enamored with.
I also linked Samnorsk with the Sami/Saami.
Courtenay Footman
>c...@adore.lightlink.com (Courtenay Footman) writes:
>
>> This is not an "idosyncratic" romanization of Chinese; it is the standard,
>> modern romanization of Chinese, called pinyin. Unfortunately, in pinyin,
>> "q" is pronounced "ch".
>
>
It is unfortunate because it is completely unintuitive; if one knows what
is going on, fine, but one will never figure it out just by looking at
it. If the use of "q" for "ch" was not a problem, threads like this would
not exist.
Trent Goulding
>Trent Goulding <goul...@2001.law.ucla.edu> wrote:
[more "Qeng Ho" stuff]
>> It's idiosyncratic in the sense that in pinyin, a "q" is never
>> followed by an "a", "e", or "o". Hence, in pinyin, you will never
>> see the romanization "qeng." The sound exists in Mandarin, it just
>> gets romanized as "cheng." It's confusing that the initial sounds
>> represented in pinyin by "q" and "ch" both get pronounced as "ch",
>> but there you go.
>
>[Um, for the purposes of this email, I'm going to go by pinyin, where the
>consonant "q" sounds like "ch" and the consonant "ch" sounds more like
>"chr" (um, more of a "trial" sound than "Christ" sound) Anyway, on to the
>main point.]
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that in the actual language of
>Mandarin Chinese, a "q" sound is never followed by an "eng", so there's
>never any need to write "qeng", let alone mis-romanize it as "cheng". In
>fact, I don't think there are any examples of words where the "q" sound is
>followed by sounds transliterated as a, e, or, o.
I'm struggling to see how this differs in any material way from what
I said above...
And the issue of the retroflexive "r" that gets inserted into a
nice, "pure" Beijing accent doesn't seem to me that germaine to this
level of discussion. For the purposes of most Western language
speakers, particularly those who don't know any Mandarin, the sounds
represented in pinyin by "q" and "ch" are functionally the same.
>Having said that, pinyin is often annoyingly idiosyncratic. If it were up
>to me, the sounds represented by "j, q, x" would be written "j, ch, sh"
>and the parallel set "zh, ch, sh" would be "jr, chr, shr"
Pinyin does have its non-intuitive spots, but so does every other
romanization system that's been devised, in my opinion. It's an
inherent difficulty of trying to represent the sounds of a
non-Western language using a Western script.
Pinyin is not the romanization that I first learned, but it is the
one that I've come to prefer; certainly over the Wade-Giles system,
which I think is just horribly clunky.
--
Trent Goulding goul...@2001.law.ucla.edu
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
> But Chinese does not have an alphabreic writing system
>and so it is impossible to make a pinyin system that the average Joe will
>quickly pick up - there's just no way this is gonna happen.
I'd say that what really makes it impossible is that Chinese phonemes
just don't match English phonemes.
--
The Misenchanted Page: http://www.sff.net/people/LWE/ Minor update 2/18/00
My latest novel is DRAGON WEATHER, ISBN 0-312-86978-9
Bill Woods
> Je 22 feb 2000 17:17:31 GMT, co...@aol.com (Coyu) skribis:
>
> >Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
> >
:
>
> >Possible idea: in the Zone universe, it's a Chinese-ish borrowing from
> >English-ish speakers. Vinge can build worlds that well.
> >
> >How many Earth languages have left descendants in the Zones?
> >We know that even some Norwegian variant has survived...
> >
> Note that the language used and spread by the Qeng Ho is called "Nese"
> (a shortened "Chinese"?). To Kjet Svensndot (aFUtD, paperback, p.
> 431), in the language spoken by Pham Nuwen "The tones jumped up and
> down, almost like a Dirokime twittering." Sounds awfully much as
> though the main language of the Qeng Ho region of human space is,
> indeed, some variant or descendant of (toned) Chinese. Or possibly
> Vietnamese: many of the Qeng Ho names (in aDitS) seem to be Vietnamese
> in origin (e.g. the Vinh families, Pham Nuwen [Nguyen?] himself),
> though others are Chinese and at least one (Sammy Park) appears to be
> of Korean origin. No Japanese names that I remember, however...
There's a planet named Canberra, and a Qeng Ho named Patil.
There's also a planet named Neumars, with a city or person
named Vilnios. Way off at the edge of the Qeng Ho's range
is Gunnar Larson's world, Trygve Ytre.
--
Bill Woods
"There is a deepness in the sky, and it extends forever."
-- Sherkaner Underhill
mam-remove...@world.std.com
: This is not an "idosyncratic" romanization of Chinese; it is the standard,
: modern romanization of Chinese, called pinyin. Unfortunately, in pinyin,
: "q" is pronounced "ch".
But in pin1yin1 (the standard Chinese [i.e., People's Republic of China]
romanization of Mandarin) "qeng" is not a possible syllable. The sound
written as "q" (an aspirated palatal affricate) can ONLY be followed by a
high front vowel or glide, written "i" or "u". "qeng" is as impossible in
Mandarin as "chvwatz" is in English.
The same applies, BTW, to "Xeng", the name of the founder of Avantism in
Poul Anderson's "Inherit the Stars" (name?) series.
-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and
Philological Busybody
a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel
--
If you're reading this in a newsgroup: to reply by mail,
remove the obvious spam-blocker from my edress.