How to pronounce Weiqi
mar...@concentric.net
the 'q' a 'ch' sound or a 'k' sound?
In an idle moment when my hip was not bothering me it occurred to me
that the game we call Go would more properly be referred to by the name
its originators gave it, namely Weiqi.
This is not meant to be anti-anyone or the beginning of a crusade to
rename the game. Rather, as a point of curiosity on my part, has anyone
endorsed or encouraged the idea of adopting the Weiqi name as the
"proper" universal name? For example, the rec.games.go newsgroup might
be the rec.games.weiqi newsgroup.
Please, let's not have more than two or three responses (if that many)
and then let's gracefully permit this thread to evaporate from the
newsgroup before we become tangled in it.
Joachim Pimiskern
mar...@concentric.net schrieb:
> Would someone please provide the correct pronunciation for Weiqi? Is
> the 'q' a 'ch' sound or a 'k' sound?
weiqi is pronounced like way-chee, if it was an English word.
Greetings,
Joachim
John Fairbairn
<mar...@concentric.net> wrote in message
news:9f8o1j$l...@freepress.concentric.net...
> Would someone please provide the correct pronunciation for Weiqi? Is
> the 'q' a 'ch' sound or a 'k' sound?
>
thereof. The reason is that in one old romanisation system k was used for ch
(and j). This is why we have Peking, which was never meant to be pronounced
like an incontinent royal person, but like Beijing.
Chinese don't bother as much about tones as most books make out, but it is
my experience that they do have trouble understanding what you are talking
about if you say weiqi in the usual English way, with a falling intonation.
You have to put a rising tone on the qi to get a smile of recognition.
The old two-finger trick of playing a stone in the air Japanese style rarely
seems to work in China, either. Anyone know the equivalent Chinese signal?
Charles Matthews
John Fairbairn wrote
> <mar...@concentric.net> wrote in message
> > Would someone please provide the correct pronunciation for Weiqi? Is
> > the 'q' a 'ch' sound or a 'k' sound?
> >
> The q is a ch sound, but you will see weiqi written as weiki or variations
> thereof. The reason is that in one old romanisation system k was used for
ch
> (and j).
Also "why-kee", which I take to be Cantonese pronunciation.
Charles
Ironco
It is pronounced: Way Chee. The q is used in the Pinyin system of Romanization
mainly used in mainland China. Weiqi can also be written as Wei Ch'i (Wade Giles),
Wei Chi (Yale) and sometimes rarely: Wei Ki (which confuses people because it
should have a CH sound like In CHicken).
There are many, way too many misconceptions about Wei qi and Go. I see
history books written that are completely wrong about the level of the Chinese
players in 17th and 18th century China. Books always say that Wei qi or Go
reached its zenith in Japan in the 18th century with the Shogun's support.
This is wrong. Even Wu Qing Yuan (Go Seigen) said that Huang Longshi should
have been rated a 13Dan.
History books also get it wrong when it comes to saying that the Japanese
invented clamshell stones as well as being credited with bi-convex stones.
Wei qi stones from the Tang dynasty were unearthed near the ancient capitol of
Xian. Some stones were made from clamshells some from jade. They were bi-convex
just like the stones used today in Japan.
Yes, I would like to see the Chinese get more credit than they do in the
history books and books written about go.
I endorse the use of the word Wei Qi or Wei Ch'i or Wei Chi as the official
title of the world's oldest board game!
Sincerely,
Ole David Skallan
Ironco
Floatcloud2000
The "ch" sound for pronouncing "q" is incorrect. The proper pronunciation is
"ts" sound. I don't know if English speakers can say "ts" and not sound like
"ch". As in "cats", not "catch". Don't roll your toungue, straight toungue,
your upper and lower teeth should not touch, leave a little gap. If your teeth
closed, then it's the "c" in Mandarin.
Foreigners have trouble distinguishing "ch", "c", "q".
-MY Choy
mullens
contribute sound samples of the correct pronunciation of their respective names
for Go or the invitation "Game of Go ?" so that readers can select those that
sound most attractive to place on their web-sites using the mouseover function
maybe ?
Of course I am not asking that "binary files" be sent to the newsgroup.
Richard
Harry Fearnley
mar...@concentric.net wrote:
> Would someone please provide the correct pronunciation for Weiqi? Is
> the 'q' a 'ch' sound or a 'k' sound?
>
It is like the English "ch" -- "tsh"
>
> In an idle moment when my hip was not bothering me it occurred to me
> that the game we call Go would more properly be referred to by the name
> its originators gave it, namely Weiqi.
>
> This is not meant to be anti-anyone or the beginning of a crusade to
> rename the game. Rather, as a point of curiosity on my part, has anyone
> endorsed or encouraged the idea of adopting the Weiqi name as the
> "proper" universal name? For example, the rec.games.go newsgroup might
> be the rec.games.weiqi newsgroup.
>
I have not expressed a view on this question, but I have expressed
a view on a related one:
I strongly encourage people who have web pages about this game to
use all three names -- "weiqi", "baduk", and "go" on their page,
particularly in the HTML Keyword metatags. If you do this it makes
it much easier to find your web page. The word "go" is obviously useless
on its own -- it is a very common English word. "igo" is better, but is an
acronym meaning variously "Inter Governmental Organisation", and
"International Golf Organisation" (or some such). "Weiqi" is not very
good, and will obviously get worse -- it is also a Chinese name.
"Baduk" seems to exist only as the Korean name of this game, and
also as a word in the Basque language (and therefore rarely found
on the internet.
If we have to use only one of these, clearly it should be "Baduk".
Similar arguments apply to the use of a name for the game in the
academic literature.
Recently I have had a related idea: in all specialist Go pages we
deliberately include a word that does not exist -"BadukGoWeiqi", say.
This would make it easy to find such web pages using search engines.
This idea could be extended so that pages that contained certain
kinds of information contained agreeed keywords -- something like
the Dewey decimal system used in many western libraries.
For example:
BadukGoWeiqi.GR.NC : Game Records without Commentary
BadukGoWeiqi.GR.CN : Game Records with commentary in Chinese
BadukGoWeiqi.CL.DE : Go Club (CL) in Germany (DE)
BadukGoWeiqi.SCI.CGT Scientific approach, using Combinatorial Game Theory
etc
Clearly for this to work, it will need much more thought.
Harry
bear
John Fairbairn wrote:
> <mar...@concentric.net> wrote in message
> news:9f8o1j$l...@freepress.concentric.net...
> > Would someone please provide the correct pronunciation for Weiqi? Is
> > the 'q' a 'ch' sound or a 'k' sound?
> >
> The q is a ch sound, but you will see weiqi written as weiki or variations
> thereof. The reason is that in one old romanisation system k was used for ch
> (and j). This is why we have Peking, which was never meant to be pronounced
> like an incontinent royal person, but like Beijing.
>
> Chinese don't bother as much about tones as most books make out, but it is
> my experience that they do have trouble understanding what you are talking
> about if you say weiqi in the usual English way, with a falling intonation.
> You have to put a rising tone on the qi to get a smile of recognition.
Rising tone??
Could you provide an example? As an English speaker, I have no idea what
this might sound like.
Thanks.
>
>
> The old two-finger trick of playing a stone in the air Japanese style rarely
> seems to work in China, either. Anyone know the equivalent Chinese signal?
--
_-_-bear
http://www.bearlabsUSA.com
Louise Bremner
> Recently I have had a related idea: in all specialist Go pages we
> deliberately include a word that does not exist -"BadukGoWeiqi", say.
> This would make it easy to find such web pages using search engines.
...provided, of course, that people who don't know much about the game
and who are searching the web for more information, know about the
keyword in order to include it in the search.
________________________________________________________________________
Louise Bremner (log at gol dot com)
If you want a reply by e-mail, don't write to my Yahoo address!
Harry Fearnley
Louise Bremner wrote:
> Harry Fearnley <ha...@goban.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Recently I have had a related idea: in all specialist Go pages we
> > deliberately include a word that does not exist -"BadukGoWeiqi", say.
> > This would make it easy to find such web pages using search engines.
>
> ...provided, of course, that people who don't know much about the game
> and who are searching the web for more information, know about the
> keyword in order to include it in the search.
Hi Louise!
Yes -- to be of any use it would have to advertised in the FAQ, etc ...
Harry
Steve MacGregor
> Would someone please provide the correct pronunciation for Weiqi? Is
> the 'q' a 'ch' sound or a 'k' sound?
Nearest I can tell, it's "way-chee". Some time back, I was thinking
about writing a treatise on Go in Esperanto, and needed to invent
words for some of the terms, including the name of the game. Later, I
found that someone (a Japanese) had already done this, and had done an
excellent job. The name of the game is "goo" or "la go-ludo" in his
book, but in the bibliography, he lists a former treatise by a
Chinese, who named the game "vejc^io". I was going to call it
"c^irkau~s^ako" (surrounding-chess), translating the Chinese name
rather than just transliterating it.
By the way, the Japanese author translated "ko" as "ripeta minaco"
(repeated attack), but I would have used "nodo" (node, knot), working
from one of the first English books I found on the game, which used
the term "knot".
It was a very interesting book. I especially liked the
Japanese-Esperanto glossary in the back, which listed many terms in
kanji, which I had seen before only in katakana. Among other things,
this helped me understand the Japanese term for endgame, "yose". The
Chinese characters mean "gathering and binding", so I would translate
"yose" as "tying up loose ends".
--
____ "Go: It's all fun and games,
(_) /: ,/ till someone loses an eye!"
/___/ (_) Steve MacGregor, Phoenix, AZ
<http://www.steve-and-pattie.com>