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Checking references for intended status: Informational ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues found here. Summary: 0 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 1 warning (==), 1 comment (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Network Working Group H. Deng 3 Internet-Draft Z. Cao 4 Intended status: Informational Huawei 5 Expires: June 29, 2017 P. Hoffman 6 VPN Consortium 7 December 26, 2016 9 Pronouncing and Using Chinese Personal Names 10 draft-deng-chinese-names-05 12 Abstract 14 This document gives general rules for how to pronounce Mandarin 15 Chinese names in conversation, and how to determine which name is 16 someone's surname. It also covers some other related topics about 17 Chinese names. The intent is to allow IETF participants who are not 18 familiar with Chinese to communicate better with Chinese 19 participants. 21 Status of This Memo 23 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 24 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 26 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 27 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 28 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 29 Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 31 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 32 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 33 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 34 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 36 This Internet-Draft will expire on June 29, 2017. 38 Copyright Notice 40 Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 41 document authors. All rights reserved. 43 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 44 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 45 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 46 publication of this document. Please review these documents 47 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 48 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 49 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 50 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 51 described in the Simplified BSD License. 53 Table of Contents 55 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 56 2. Pronouncing Chinese Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 57 2.1. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 58 2.2. Introduction to the Pinyin System . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 59 2.3. Pronouncing Pinyin Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 60 2.3.1. Pronouncing the Initial Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 61 2.3.2. Pronouncing the Final Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 62 2.3.3. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 63 3. Using Chinese Personal Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 64 4. Difference Between Written and Spoken Order . . . . . . . . . 8 65 5. Women's Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 66 6. Inferring Gender from Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 67 7. Use of English Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 68 8. Writing the Four Tones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 69 9. Using Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 70 10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 71 11. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 72 12. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 73 13. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 74 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 76 1. Introduction 78 In typical conversations in the IETF, people's names are used 79 heavily. In face-to-face meetings, people will speak about other 80 participants by name both formally and informally ("Mr. Smith 81 says..." or "Bob says..."), and the same is true about how people 82 sometimes refer to each other on working group mailing lists. Most 83 times, people want to use other people's names correctly, to be both 84 more precise and more polite. 86 The number of Chinese participants in the IETF, both in face-to-face 87 meetings and on mailing lists, has greatly increased in recent years. 88 Many non-Chinese participants have a difficult time knowing how to 89 pronounce a Chinese name that they encounter on a mailing list, RFC, 90 or name badge. In fact, many people don't know how to tell which of 91 the two names in a printed Chinese name is the surname and which is 92 the personal name. And yet most people want to be able to use each 93 others' names correctly. 95 This document covers general rules for Mandarin Chinese names. The 96 rules are widely applicable, especially to those whose names are 97 based on the pinyin romanization. The rules do not necessarily 98 apply, however, to Cantonese, Hakka, or the dialects native to Taiwan 99 or Shanghai. They also do not apply to non-Han ethnic groups, even 100 where those ethnicities use romanizations based on pinyin. 102 There are many other documents that cover similar material, such as 103 [ChineseNames]. Also, this document mostly discusses Chinese 104 personal names, but the pronunciation section applies to Chinese 105 company names as well. It is hoped that this document makes typical 106 communications between non-Chinese and Chinese in the IETF easier and 107 more natural. 109 2. Pronouncing Chinese Names 111 2.1. Background 113 Nearly all Chinese people normally spell their names with Han 114 characters, which are non-phonetic ideographic characters. However, 115 many Chinese people also spell their names using Latin characters. 116 Converting Han characters to Latin character equivalents is called 117 romanization [Romanize]. 119 Non-Chinese speakers seeing the romanized spelling of Chinese names 120 often have a difficult time pronouncing them correctly. The 121 essential problem is that there have been two major standards for 122 romanization from Chinese. An older system, "Wade-Giles", was widely 123 used until the "pinyin" system was adopted in the mid-1960s, but 124 pinyin is now much more common. This document focuses on pinyin 125 spellings [Pinyin]. 127 2.2. Introduction to the Pinyin System 129 Pinyin is the official phonetic system for transcribing the sound of 130 Chinese characters into Latin script in China. It is often used to 131 teach Standard Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign 132 publications and may be used as an input method to enter Chinese 133 characters (Hanzi) into computers. "Pinyin" literally means 134 "spelled-out sounds." 136 Pinyin was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised 137 several times. The International Organization for Standardization 138 adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982. 140 Note that there are many ways to learn to pronounce Chinese words. 141 Some methods are tailored for English speakers, many others are 142 tailored for other languages. There are numerous resources online 143 for those who want to explore beyond what is given here. 145 2.3. Pronouncing Pinyin Words 147 This section describes a simple way to pronounce a syllable in 148 pinyin. The basic steps are to divide the pinyin syllable into an 149 initial sound and a final sound, and combine the two sounds together. 151 The examples of the sounds are all from spoken American English. Of 152 course, there are variations in that, but it is maybe the most 153 recognizable to readers of this document. Also, there are many 154 regional variations in China on pronunciation of some of the sounds, 155 so these tables cannot be considered definitive. 157 Spoken Chinese also has tones (shifts in pitch) within a syllable. 158 The four main tones of Chinese are first tone (even), second tone 159 (rising), third tone (down then up), and fourth tone (falling). 160 These four tones are used to clarify the meanings of words. Since 161 many characters have the same sound, tones are used to differentiate 162 words from each other. The tones are sometimes difficult to learn, 163 just as it is often difficult for non-native speakers of many 164 languages to learn intonations and pitches. Many non-Chinese 165 speakers just pronounce all syllables with the first tone (even). 167 2.3.1. Pronouncing the Initial Sound 169 The following table lists the initial sounds. 171 Pinyin | English approximation 172 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 173 b | unaspirated "p", as in "spit" 174 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 175 p | strongly aspirated "p", as in "pit" 176 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 177 m | as in English "mummy" 178 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 179 f | as in English "fun" 180 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 181 d | unaspirated "t", as in "stop" 182 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 183 t | strongly aspirated "t", as in "top" 184 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 185 n | as in "nit" 186 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 187 l | as in "love" 188 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 189 g | unaspirated "k", as in "skill" 190 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 191 k | strongly aspirated "k", as in "kill" 192 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 193 h | as in "hay" 194 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 195 j | no equivalent in English; like "ge" in garage 196 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 197 q | no equivalent in English; like "pun*ch y*ourself" 198 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 199 x | no equivalent in English; like "wi*sh y*ou" 200 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 201 zh | like "ch" (a sound between "*ch*oke" and "*dr*ew", but 202 | with the tip of the tongue curled more upwards 203 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 204 ch | as in "chin", but with the tongue curled upwards; similar 205 | to "nur*tu*re" in English, but more strongly aspirated 206 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 207 sh | as in "shoe", but with the tongue curled upwards; similar 208 | to "marsh" in American English 209 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 210 r | similar to the "z" in "azure" and the "r" in "reduce" 211 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 212 z | similar to something between "su*ds*" and "ca*ts*" 213 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 214 c | like the "ts" in "cats" 215 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 216 s | as in "sun" 217 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 218 w | as in "water" 219 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 220 y | as in "yes" 221 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 223 Figure 1: Pronouncing Pinyin Initials 225 2.3.2. Pronouncing the Final Sound 227 Final sounds are generally more difficult to pronounce than initial 228 sounds. But unlike English where there are often many ways to 229 pronounce a final (such as the "ough" sound in "cough" and "rough" 230 and "though" "through"), final sounds in Chinese are more regular. 232 Pinyin | English approximation 233 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 234 a | as "a" in "father" 235 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 236 i | as "ee" in "see" 237 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 238 e | as "er" in "her" 239 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 240 ai | similar to "eye", but a bit lighter 241 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 242 ei | as "ey" in "hey" 243 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 244 ao | approximately as "ow" in "cow"; the "a" is much more 245 | audible than the "o" 246 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 247 ou | as in "so" 248 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 249 an | as "on" in "con" 250 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 251 en | as "en" in "taken" 252 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 253 ang | as "ong" in "monger" 254 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 255 eng | like in "en" above with "g" added 256 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 257 er | similar to the sound of "ar" in "bar" 258 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 259 ia | as "ya" in "yard" but with a brighter beginning 260 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 261 ie | as "ye" in the slang "yep" but with a brighter beginning 262 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 263 iao | similar to the slang "yow" but with a brighter beginning 264 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 265 iu | similar to the slang "yo" but with a brighter beginning 266 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 267 ian | similar to "yen" but with a brighter beginning 268 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 269 iang | like "ian" above with a "g" added 270 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 271 in | as "een" in "seen" 272 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 273 ing | as in "sing" 274 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 275 u | as "oo" in "soon" 276 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 277 v | Like the vowel in French "tu" or German "suess", 278 | produced by placing the tongue as for the "i" vowel 279 | while rounding the lips as for the "u" vowel. 280 | More commonly displayed as "ü" 281 | Since 2012, appears in Chinese passports as "yu" 282 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 283 ua | as "wa" as in "water" but with the "w" lighter 284 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 285 uo | as in "woe", but with the "w" lighter and the "o" shorter 286 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 287 uai | as in "why" but with the "w" lighter 288 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 289 ui | as in "way" but with the "w" lighter 290 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 291 uan | as in "wan" but with the "w" lighter 292 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 293 un | as in "won" but with the "w" lighter 294 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 295 uang | as in "wrong" without the "r" and the "w" lighter 296 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 297 ong | starts with the vowel sound in "book" and ends with the 298 | nasal sound in "sing" 299 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 301 Figure 2: Pronouncing Pinyin Finals 303 2.3.3. Examples 305 One of the authors of this document has the first name "Zhen" and the 306 last name "Cao". For the first name, divide "Zhen" into initial "zh" 307 and final "en", looking them up in Figure 1 and Figure 2, 308 respectively. From the tables, "zh" pronounces like "ch", and "en" 309 follows its pronunciation in "taken". "Cao" is broken into "c" and 310 "ao". Another of the authors has the first name "Hui" and the last 311 name "Deng". "Hui" can be divided into "h" (initial) and "ui" 312 (final), while "Deng" is divided into "d" and "eng". (The third 313 author's name is not in pinyin, of course.) 315 3. Using Chinese Personal Names 317 In China, when giving somebody's full name, usually his or her family 318 name is put first, and the given (personal) name last. One of the 319 Chinese authors of this document has the given name "Hui" and the 320 family name "Deng", and the other Chinese author has the given name 321 "Zhen" and the family name "Cao"; when one speaks of them in China, 322 they say "Deng Hui" and "Cao Zhen". 324 Almost all family names have only one Chinese character, with only a 325 few having two characters. For given names, however, both one- 326 character names and two-character names are common. 328 Thus, most Chinese people's names have two to three Chinese 329 characters (although a few people's names have four characters). 330 When saying the name of someone whose name has two characters, it is 331 normal to say both names, with the family name first. However, when 332 saying the name of someone whose name has three or more characters in 333 informal conversation, it is normal to only say the given name. 335 For example, "Hui Deng" has two characters, and in China is normally 336 called "Deng Hui". Another example would be a name such as "Xiaodong 337 Duan". This is a name of three characters ("Xiaodong" is the given 338 name and has two characters, and "Duan" is the family name and has 339 one character). In this case, Chinese people speaking his name in 340 informal conversation would normally omit family name, and just call 341 him by using his given name, Xiaodong. 343 If people are not familiar with each other, or are introducing each 344 other for the first time, it is common to use the full name, 345 regardless of the number of syllables. 347 As a side note, the discussion above points out a problem with IETF 348 protocols that only have one field for a person's name, instead of 349 multiple fields for given name, family name, and so on. A Chinese 350 person has to decide which order to put their name in the single 351 field: the order they would normally put them in China, or an order 352 they hope will help non-Chinese correctly identify the given and 353 family names. Future revisions of these protocols might allow for 354 better distinctions in the names of people who do not follow the 355 European customs of "given name comes first". 357 4. Difference Between Written and Spoken Order 359 Because both Chinese and English speakers might try to conform with 360 other cultures, Chinese people will typically write their given name 361 first and their family name second, like the use of "Hui Deng" and 362 "Zhen Cao" in this document. Non-Chinese speakers will then say the 363 names in the order they read them in the written document, but that 364 will be the reverse of the way that Chinese people would say them. 366 A useful and growing convention is to write the family name in all 367 capitals. Thus, you might see "Hui DENG" or "DENG Hui" instead of 368 "Hui Deng". 370 Another useful tips: if one only has been given a Pinyin email 371 address, it is more likely to be in the Chinese order if the domain 372 is a Chinese company or Chinese hosting service. 374 5. Women's Names 376 Few Chinese women change their family names to their husband's family 377 name when they marry; normally, they just keep their family name. 378 Today, some Chinese children have both their father's and mother's 379 family name, then given name. 381 6. Inferring Gender from Names 383 Technically you can't tell a Chinese person's genders only by their 384 names in Pinyin. 386 Several facts shape the above statement. First of all, every Chinese 387 character can be used in names. Secondly, some characters have been 388 used more frequently in boys' names, and some characters have more 389 frequent presence in girls' names. But generally they are mixed. 390 Third, when the characters are translated into Pinyin, it's hard to 391 tell the original Chinese characters which represent their meanings. 393 7. Use of English Names 395 Some Chinese people have informally adopted English given names for 396 use in business. The name might be one that sounds like the Chinese 397 name (such as "Sheldon" for "XiaoDong" or "Lisa" for "Lixia") or 398 might be a name whose meaning is similar to the Chinese meaning (such 399 as "Lilly" for a Chinese woman's name that means a type of flower). 400 These names are rarely the legal name of the person, and Chinese 401 people usually don't use the English name when speaking to other 402 Chinese people. 404 8. Writing the Four Tones 406 The four tones introduced in Section 2.3 are sometimes indicated in 407 Chinese names as the numbers 1 though 4. Even is 1, rising is 2, 408 down then up is 3, and falling is 4. Thus, a name such as "Deng" 409 might be written as "Deng2" to indicate a rising tone. 411 The four tones are also sometimes indicated with Latin punctuation 412 that is meant to show the movement of the sound. Even is with a 413 macron (a horizontal bar), rising is with an acute accent, down then 414 up is with a caron (like a small raised "v"), and falling is with a 415 grave accent. (Because RFCs still cannot contain non-ASCII 416 characters, these characters cannot be shown here.) 418 The use of digits and punctuation to show tones is not very common, 419 but it is seen in some academic journals and sometimes on business 420 cards. 422 9. Using Titles 424 Most Chinese people are called by different names according to the 425 relationship between them and the person addressing them. For 426 example, parents call their child by one name, but his or her friends 427 may use a different name, and work colleagues might use yet a 428 different name. These different names include titles (terms of 429 respect), nicknames, and so on. In Chinese culture, it is extremely 430 common to show respect to someone by using a proper title according 431 to their occupation or status in society. 433 These days, there are many commonly used titles. Two generic titles 434 that have similar meanings to "Mr." and "Ms./Mrs." are "Xiansheng" 435 and "Nvshi" (pronounced as "Xian1sheng1" and "Nv3shi4"). These two 436 titles are widely used either between people who are unfamiliar with 437 each other, or during the formal situations like a conference. 439 Another two commonly used titles are "Jiaoshou" and "Laoshi" 440 (pronounced as "Jiao4shou4" and "Lao3shi1") which indicate that 441 someone is a professor or instructor. For example, if the surname of 442 that person is "Zhang", then you could call him or her "Zhang 443 Jiaoshou" or "Zhang Laoshi". Other titles which also have been 444 widely used include "Laoban" (pronounced "Lao3ban3") for a high-level 445 manager in a company, "Zhuxi" (pronounced "Zhu3xi2") for the 446 chairman, and "Zong" for the president. In most cases, the title 447 comes after just the surname, but occasionally, the title comes after 448 both the given name and surname. 450 10. Acknowledgements 452 Many people contributed to this document by offering initial 453 encouragement and ideas of what should be covered. The two Chinese 454 authors were also encouraged by some non-Chinese people who made an 455 effort to pronounce their names correctly before this document was 456 even published. Some of the people who contributed include: Aaron 457 Ding, Bob Briscoe, Cameron Byrne, Dave Thaler, Fred Baker, Haibin 458 Song, Ida Leung, Jari Arkko, John Klensin, Margaret Wasserman, 459 Melinda Shore, Mikael Abrahamsson, Noel Chiappa, Nori Demizu, Randy 460 Bush, Randy Presuhn, S. Moonesamy, Simon Perreault, Sri Gundave, 461 Stephen Sprunk, Ted Hardie, Ted Lemon, Vero Zheng, Wes George, Will 462 Liu, Yu Juan, and Yuanchen Ma. We apologize for others whose names 463 we may miss or have misplaced. 465 11. IANA Considerations 467 None. 469 12. Security Considerations 471 None. 473 13. Informative References 475 [ChineseNames] 476 Wikipedia, "Chinese Names", August 2013, 477 . 479 [Pinyin] U. S. Library of Congress, "Chinese Rules of Application", 480 August 2013, 481 . 483 [Romanize] 484 Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 485 "Basic rules of the Chinese phonetic alphabet 486 orthography", June 2012, 487 . 490 Authors' Addresses 492 Hui Deng 493 Huawei 495 Email: denghui02@gmail.com 497 Zhen Cao 498 Huawei 500 Email: zhencao.ietf@gmail.com 502 Paul Hoffman 503 VPN Consortium 505 Email: paul.hoffman@vpnc.org