But if it's just daily life, it seems that not many people care.
However, Marx and Engels are conventional and cannot be written in anything else. Another example is Sherlock Holmes.
Bernoulli, some translated into Bernoulli.
The following is information about the translation of foreigners' names:
The translation of foreigners' names is an important issue. In the past, the main reference book for people to translate English names was probably the Translation Manual of English Names compiled by the Translation Information Section of Xinhua News Agency and published by the Commercial Press (our library has dozens of books, with the call number H3 15.9-62/X37). This book is relatively simple, with no other content except Chinese translation. At best, it is a "manual". The Dictionary of English Names (K811-61/g28) published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in June 2002 is much richer in content. First, use phonetic notation. English names often do not conform to the general pronunciation rules, so phonetic notation is very important. The second is to explain the meaning of words. Although names are only distinguishing symbols, they often have certain meanings. Just as China people's words "Guo Dong", "stupidity" and "Zhou Cong" all express certain meanings, English words "Charles", "John" and "Peter" all have their own meanings. Thirdly, the explanation of etymology reflects the formation history of the English-speaking nation and many religious and cultural problems related to it. Fourth, list the variant forms and nicknames of the same word, often more than one. This is also very useful. For example, readers can know that the name "Bill" of former US President Bill Clinton is actually a nickname for "William". Finally, the author also wrote two short articles, Historical Evolution of English Names and Types of English Surnames, which are also of great benefit to readers.
However, this dictionary also has many shortcomings. First, as a "name dictionary", it contains "names" (according to the English title of the dictionary, Christianity
Names are relatively complete, but surnames are far from complete; However, for readers in China, they need surnames more. Generally speaking, it is not difficult for us to look up "names" because many English dictionaries are accompanied by detailed or abbreviated names, and some also introduce their sources, variants, nicknames and so on. It is worth noting that these names are called "lists"
Common names "(for example, Oxford Modern Advanced Learning Dictionary.
English) or "personal name" (for example, Chambers 20th century.
Dictionary), only "first name" (first name), no "last name" (last name) column. In this way, we can find the name Winston in these dictionaries, but we can't find the surname Churchill. What the average China reader needs to check is probably the name of the famous British Prime Minister. This list of names without surnames may be useful for readers whose mother tongue is English, but it may not be suitable for readers whose foreign language is English in China.
Throughout the ages, Europeans generally call kings or emperors by their first names rather than surnames. There is a simple reason. Kings of the same dynasty all have the same surname. For example, the Tudor kings in Britain (1485 ~ 1603) all had Tudor surnames, while the Stuart kings (1603 ~ 6503) were different for ordinary people. In addition to calling family members and close friends by their first names, surnames are generally used in other occasions, and their first names are only used when it is necessary to distinguish people with the same surname. For example, there are two famous Cromwells in British history, one is Henry VIII's favorite, and the other is thomas Cromwell, who played an important role in the break between the British royal family and the Vatican.
Cromwell, about 1485 ~ 1540), and the other was oliver cromwell, a military dictator who was more than 100 years later.
Cromwell,1599 ~1658); If you don't specify "Thomas" or "Oliver", it is difficult to distinguish. People are familiar with Napoleon, whose full name is Napoléon Bonaparte.
Bonaparte, 1769 ~ 182 1), experienced a process from Taoist surname to proper name in his life. He used to be called Mr. Bonaparte, and even after he became a general, he was only called General Bonaparte. He was called Emperor Napoleon only after he became emperor. It seems that only Italians have made an exception on this issue. They only call their four most outstanding cultural celebrities by their first names, not their surnames. These four people are the poet Dante.
Alighieri, 1265 ~ 132 1) and Leonardo da, the three great painters of the Renaissance.
Da Vinci, 1452 ~ 15 19), Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 ~ 1564), Raphael.
Sanzio, or Santi, 1483 ~ 1530, usually translated as Raphael in English). It is worth noting that except Leonardo China who changed his surname to Leonardo da Vinci, we all respect the habits of Italians. Italian names often have the word "di" or "da", which is roughly similar to the French word "de" or German word "von", and its meaning is roughly equivalent to the English word "of" or "from", indicating where they belong or come from. In fact, "Da Vinci" is the name of the town where the great painter was born, "Leonardo da Vinci".
"Da Vinci" means "Da Vinci of Da Vinci" or "Da Vinci of Da Vinci"; Just say "da"
Wenxi means "sparrow" (similar to our "Zhouzhuang people" and "Nanxun people"). G2HQl)
To sum up, it is obvious that when compiling an English name dictionary, China people should pay equal attention to their own names and pay more attention to their surnames. However, this is also a difficult point. Many other Americans, including some celebrities' surnames, can't be found in this dictionary. Among them, there are several former US secretaries of state and defense ministers, most of whom are familiar to China people, such as Kissinger, Schulz, Weinberg, and 199 1 General Schwarzkov, commander of the US military in the Gulf War. They are all Americans, and their surnames can only be counted as British surnames; But these surnames are not native English, but German surnames brought into the United States with the arrival of German immigrants. From their surnames, we can know that these senior American officials belong to "German Americans".
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Herman Joseph, American, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine from 65438 to 0946.
Mueller, 1890 ~ 1967), was born in new york. His name "Herman" still retains the practice of double writing of German consonants (meaning that the vowel in front is short), but his surname (Muller) is already "English" and the German vowel "ü" is replaced by "U". Also can't find the famous American geochemist Rhodes (Edwin
Roedder), he told me that he is a descendant of German immigrants. For generations, he didn't speak a word of German and thought he was a pure American. Similar problems also exist in the descendants of immigrants from France, Italy and other European countries, as well as the descendants of a large number of Spanish immigrants. The United States is the official language, so far there is no regulation.
Language), but a country where English is widely used; Although English is widely used, there are still a large number of non-English immigrants from the past to the present. Many of these immigrants will take an English name when they come to the United States, but keep their original non-English surnames (for example, the former China movie star Chen Chong is now "Joan".
Chen "). These surnames are usually spelled in English letters. Symbols not found in English and Chinese in the original text, such as inflected vowels in German, opening and closing notes in French and Spanish, may be preserved at first, but they are often lost after a long time. Some of their pronunciations remain basically unchanged, and more of them become "English" after a period of time. Weinberg, transliterated as Weinberg in Chinese, is an example. The word "ei" in Weinberg is pronounced as "ei" in English, not in German. All these make American surnames very diverse and complicated; But people have to admit that they are all British surnames. -especially those whose spelling and pronunciation have always been "English".
Secondly, as we have said before, English is the most commonly used language in the world, so no matter what nationality the foreigner was originally and what language he was named in, we often get in touch with their names through English books, newspapers, radio and television. In this way, as an English name dictionary (not an English name dictionary), we can't help but include these non-English names that have been translated into English, such as Columbus, Marx, Engels, Einstein and Strauss. Unfortunately, all these surnames are not found in this English name dictionary. In the preface, the author even said that "due to the limitation of space, this book is mainly based on the surnames and common Christian names of all nationalities in the British Isles." But in this way, the use value of dictionaries will be greatly reduced, at least "folded in half", maybe more. The Handbook of Xinhua News Agency, which is much smaller than this dictionary, is more practical in this respect, because Columbus, Kissinger, Engels, Einstein, Schultz and so on can all be found. However, this manual still lacks French contemporary famous figures such as Charles de Gaulle and Pompidou, Spanish famous painters such as Picasso and Dali, and Russian famous writers such as Tolstoy and sholokhov. Because Latin alphabet is also used, it may be said that the names of French, Spanish, Italian and other countries seen in English literature are mixed "original", which is not English translation (in many cases, it is true that some of them retain phonetic symbols that English does not have, or use different fonts), but Russian names are no longer spelled with Cyrillic alphabet (Slavic alphabet), but with Latin alphabet, which can only be regarded as English translation.
Thirdly, there are some careless places in the Chinese translation of English names. For example, the name "Charles" is often used, and "Charles" has only one Chinese translation. In fact, the name was originally translated as "Charlie" in Chinese. In the early days, there were many Zhang Charlie and Song Charlie among the comprador who took foreign names. Later, although "Charlie" was popular, it was translated into "Charlie" as the name of the king. The words "1660 after the restoration of charles ii" appear in the article "Historical evolution of English names" in front of this dictionary, but there is no such word "Charlie" in the text. Today, it can be said that "Charlie" and "Charles" are both established translations; As a king's name, it is generally translated as "Charlie", while as other people's names, it is often translated as "Charlie". The problem is that the current British Crown Prince is also called "Charles", and we translate it into "Prince Charles"; But he will succeed to the throne and become king in the future, and he is only restoring "Charles"
After "II", it should be "Charles III III". Will we be translated as "Charles III"? Or translated as "Charles III"? E[ 0\
Interestingly, Charles de Gaulle's name is also "Charles", so his full name is "Charles de"
Charles de Gaulle. Although we only call him "Charles de Gaulle" in general, we still say "Charles de Gaulle" in a few cases. It turns out that many names in European languages have a common source. "Charles" comes from Teutonic, which means "gentleman." Carlos in Spanish? Carlos, "Carl" in German? Carl, although French is spelled "Charles" like English, the pronunciation is different. The French letter combination "ch" sounds similar to English "sh", but the suffix "s" is not pronounced, so the French word "Charles" cannot be translated into "Charlie" or "Charles", but should be translated into "Charles". The founder of Marxism, we translated it into "Karl Marx" in German (Karl
Marx 18 18- 1883). Similarly, many UIS
The Spanish translation of "Charles V" should be translated into "Carlos V". -He can also be called "Carl"
V "(Karl V), because he is not only the Spanish king, but also elected as the emperor by the" Electors "of the First Reich of Germany, so it is reasonable to give him a German name. ! ;
Similar to "Charles", there are many names in different languages in Europe that have the same source but different forms, and many of them are common names. When translating, it is not appropriate to translate in English. Here are a few more examples for readers' reference: Y"6Ls.
John: It comes from Hebrew, and its original meaning may be "Yag us".
Gracuiys. Among other languages in Europe, the closest form to English is German, which is called "Johann" or "Johannes"; The Chinese translation of "John" is similar to German in pronunciation, but far from English. It also often appears as a nickname "Hans", which is also often used as a formal Christian name. French is Jean, Spanish is Juan, Italian is Giovanni, Dutch is Jan and Russian is Ivan. So we can know the "Janssen" of Holland and Belgium? Yang Sen, Russia's "Ivanov"? Ivanov or Ivanov is actually equivalent to "Johnson" in English.
c & lt+; 2
Henry: It comes from Germanic language, which means "house"
Ruler. Now German is called Heinrich, and there are nicknames such as Heiz and Hinz. The French word "Henri" and the French letter "H" are silent, and "en" sounds very similar to the Chinese word "Ang", so we now translate the name of the famous striker of the French national football team into "Henry", which is actually not in line with the French pronunciation. Italian is "Enrico", Spanish is "Enrique" and Dutch is "Hendrik", which is farther from "Henry".
Peter: It comes from Greek, which means "rock". German, Russian and English are all called "Peter", French is called "Pierre", Spanish is called "Pedro", Italian is called "Pietro" and Norwegian is called "Peer". Russian "Petrov" means exactly the same as English "Peterson".
SCW # Yes
James: It comes from Hebrew, which means "follower replaces, or"
Liar. German "Jacob", French "Jacques" (Jacques is the name of the current French President Jacques Chirac, we obviously can't call him "James Chirac"), Italian "Jacob", "giacomo" or "Yakimo", Spanish "Jacob".
Lewis: from Germanic language, "famous"
Soldier. German "Ludwig", French "Louis", Italian "Luigi" and Spanish "Louis". There are also common names such as French "Louis" suffix consonants are not pronounced, English names (and their variants) are translated into "Philip", and French should be translated into "Philip"; From 1052, in nearly 300 years, six French kings have this name (Philip I to VI).
The translation of foreigners' names is a very complicated problem, and it is natural to be confused in a certain period of time. But after a long time, it can no longer be regarded as a natural thing. The name is the most important identification symbol. However, in recent years, writers and translators "do whatever they want", while relevant government departments let themselves drift and "do nothing".
The problems in the translation of foreigners' names are as follows: R.
1) If it has been translated by convention, you need to translate a new name. Alexander pope, a famous English poet,
1688 ~ 1744) is translated as "slope", which is different from Poe, such as the famous American poet edgar allan poe.
1809- 1849). Chinese and foreign periodical Cui Wen 1997No. 18 "Hitler's Will", the famous German Nazi Goering (Hermann
Guo Gòring) translated into "gobin", Goebbels (Joseph Goebbels) translated into "Gaubert", ribbentrop (Gertrud von
Ribbentrop) is translated as "Rihbentrop". I don't know whether it is because of lack of basic common sense or to deliberately cause confusion. Where there is an established practice, it should be translated from "vulgar"; Even if the original translation is inappropriate, there is no need to change it, such as the English translation of "John"
John "and" Johnson "are translated into" Johnson ". Hba_8
2) Mistake the occupation or title as a name. A China reporter in London called Diana's brother Earl Spencer "Earl Spencer", apparently taking Earl as his name (see Wen Hui Reading Weekly 1997).
Year165438+1October 8th). The above article published by Cui Wen in Chinese and foreign journals mistook Madame Jung, the secretary of the great dictator, for her name and transliterated it as "Frau". "Southern Weekend"1997165438+10/4 "Millennium Times" article, the first invention of movable type printing in Europe 1445 Gutenberg (Johann
Gutenberg), mistranslated as goldsmith Gutenberg, in fact, "Goldsmith" in the original text is German "Goldschmied", which means "goldsmith and jeweler", and the translator obviously mistook his occupation for his name. There is another big newspaper this year. In an article about the British marshal Montgomery in World War II, he put his marshal rank (Field
Marshal) was mistaken for a name, transliterated as "Field Marshal". In addition, it is often seen that the aristocratic address "Lord" is translated into "Rod" as a title. _9B
3) Translate the names of European languages such as German, French and Spanish according to English pronunciation. This problem often occurs when CCTV Sports Channel reports the names of foreign athletes. For example, the French football player "Petit" (meaning "small", similar to English "small" and German "Klein") is translated into "Petit". In fact, the French suffix consonant "t" is silent. Why is it "special"?
Here are some suggestions:
1) besides the standardization of Chinese, the language and writing working committee should also undertake the task of translation standardization, and the first is the standardization of Chinese translation of foreigners' names. Related to this is the Chinese translation of place names. On the one hand, many place names come from people's names, for example, there are many places named after Columbus in Latin America; On the other hand, many names, especially surnames, are derived from place names.
2) The translated names should be translated from the user's mother tongue as far as possible and follow the principle of "the name follows the nationality of the subject". For example, Charles, Heinrich and John mentioned above in this article. For the names that have been "anglicized", if the English pronunciation is quite different from the original, the translated names of the two languages should be listed separately. For example, a person whose surname is Weiss should be translated into Weiss if he is German and Weiss if he is American. The Spanish call the present British Crown Prince "Carlos", but obviously we should translate it into "Prince Charles" in English. On the other hand, the British call the current king of Spain "John"
Charles, we should translate it into Juan Carlos in Spanish.
3) Whatever has been translated into convention should follow the "custom". Even if the original translation is not suitable, don't change it. For example, as a trademark of dairy industry, we might as well translate "Johnson" into "Johnson (milk powder)", but as a name, it is better to translate it into "Johnson" that everyone is used to.
4) Be careful not to take some people's occupations, titles, titles, etc. As a name, mix it into the translated name. This seems simple, and it is easy to make mistakes if you are not careful, because there are indeed some names, especially surnames, which come from occupation, title and address. For example, Mei Sen is a masons and masons, and Smith is a blacksmith. German Schumacher is a shoemaker, Graf is an earl, and Fassbinder is a hoop maker. Some vats of wine in Germany are made of wood, so there is not only a famous film director named "Faβbinder" in Germany, but also people who take "Faβbinder" as their profession.
5) It is best to indicate the original text for future reference after Chinese translation, and you can also add the year of birth and death. WBqH=
We have to admit that the principle of "taking the name from the host's domicile" is sometimes not so easy to follow, and sometimes it does not conform to the established translation. For example, Christopher
Columbus was born into a Jewish family in Genoa and descended from Spanish immigrants. According to Italian, his last name should be "Cristofro"
Colombo. He used to work for Portugal. Because his plan to cross the Atlantic to the west and go to Asia failed to get the support of the Portuguese royal family, he had to turn to Spain, which was not yet unified at that time. Finally, Isabella I, Queen of Castile,
I, 145 1 ~ 1504) and "discovered" the new continent. But he didn't use Spanish "Cristobal"
Colomo ",but chose the classical forms of surnames" Columbus "and" Cologne "as its Spanish form (so his son's full name is Diego.
Cologne). There are many places in Latin America named "Cologne", obviously to commemorate him, such as the Columbus Islands in Ecuador mentioned above. Should the name "follow the nationality of the host" come from Italian or Spanish? If it comes from Spanish, is it "Colomo" or "Colón"? It seems that the English translation of "Columbus" is the best choice, but in this way, many place names with the word "Colón" in Latin America should be changed to "Columbus" instead of "Cologne".