Daoism–Taoism romanization issue
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Daoism/Taoism | |
---|---|
Chinese name | |
Hanyu Pinyin | Dàojiào |
Wade–Giles | tao4 chiao4 |
Yue: Cantonese | |
Yale Romanization | dou6 gaau3 |
Middle Chinese | |
Middle Chinese | dáw kæ̀w |
Old Chinese | |
Baxter–Sagart (2014) | *[kə.l]ˤuʔ s.kˤraw-s |
Transcriptions | |
---|---|
Revised Romanization | dogyo |
McCune–Reischauer | togyo |
Transcriptions | |
---|---|
Revised Hepburn | dōkyō |
Kunrei-shiki | dôkyô |
The English words Daoism (/ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/ ⓘ) and Taoism (/ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/, /ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/ ⓘ) are alternative spellings for the same-named Chinese philosophy and religion. The root for Daoism or Taoism is the Chinese word 道 ("path" or "way"), which was transcribed tao or tau in the earliest systems for the romanization of Chinese and dao or dau in 20th century systems.
Phonology
To explain why English Taoism is pronounced (
As a result, phonemic gaps can affect borrowed words. English has /l/ and /r/ consonants and Chinese has /l/ but not /r/, thus, Chinese uses /l-/ to transcribe both /l-/ and /r-/ English loanwords; for example, léishè 雷射 "laser" and léidá 雷達 "radar". Conversely, Japanese has the /r-/ phoneme but not /l-/, with borrowings of rēza レーザ and rēdā レーダー.
In
The present Chinese unaspirated denti-alveolar stop in pinyin dào 道 is commonly transcribed with the IPA symbol [ "sheath; case; cover".
Instead of aspiration,
(Yuan 1981: 251).In English, aspiration is allophonic, meaning an alternative pronunciation for a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, [pʰ] as in pin and [p] as in spin are allophones for the phoneme /p/ because they cannot distinguish words. English-speakers treat them as the same sound, but they are phonetically different; the first is aspirated and the second is unaspirated.
Romanizations
Scholars have been developing Chinese romanization systems for four centuries, and the unaspirated [taʊ] 道 "road; way" has many transcriptions.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, new and revised Chinese romanization schemes flourished. The Standard Chinese pronunciation of 道 is variously transcribed as
While many scholars prefer the more familiar spelling "Taoism", arguing that it is now an English word in its own right, the term "Daoism" is becoming increasingly popular. In one work, "Daoism" was preferred to "Taoism" principally for technical, phonological and conventional reasons, but also because it was thought the modern term "Daoism" helped highlight a departure from earlier Western interpretations of the philosophy (Girardot, Miller, and Liu 2001: xxxi). Miller later added that "Daoism" is his preferred usage as a distinction "from what 'Taoism' represented in the 20th-century Western imagination" (Miller 2008: xiii). One commentator, who goes beyond the spelling distinction between Orientalist "Taoism" and academic "Daoism", discriminates "Taoism" with its common voiced /ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/ mispronunciation. Having explained that both "Daoism" and "Taoism" are pronounced "with a 'd' sound", i.e., /ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/, Komjathy describes a new religious movement labeled "American Taoism" or "Popular Western Taoism" (a term coined by Herman 1998) in which "Taoism" is pronounced with a "hard 't' sound", /ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/ (2014: 1, 206).
Borrowings
Within the
The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.) records the progression of occurrences over the succeeding centuries: Tao 1736, Tau 1747, Taouism and Taouist 1838, Taoistic 1856, Tao-ism 1858, Taoism 1903, Daoism 1948, Dao and Daoist 1971.
Linguists distinguish between hypercorrection, the erroneous use of a nonstandard word form due to a belief that it is more accurate than the corresponding standard form (for instance, the /fra:ns/ pronunciation for France /fræns/), and hyperforeignism, the misapplication of foreign loanword pronunciation patterns extended beyond their use in the original language (such as dropping the "t" in claret /ˈklærɪt/). Taoism is neither a hypercorrection because it originated from a spelling misunderstanding rather than a phonemic modification, nor a hyperforeignism because it is not an attempt to sound more Chinese (Carr 1990: 68).
The pronunciation of Taoism as /ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/ instead of /ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/ is not unique and typifies many Chinese borrowings in English (e.g.,
Lexicography
English dictionaries provide some insights into the Daoism/Taoism pronunciation issue. For over a century, British and American lexicographers glossed the pronunciation of Taoism as (/ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/), but gradually began changing it to (/ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/) and added Daoism entries.
One scholar analyzed Taoism pronunciation glosses in general-purpose English dictionaries, comparing twelve published in Great Britain (1933–1989) and eleven published in the United States (1948–1987). After standardizing the various dictionary
Nine of the twelve British-English dictionaries gloss the pronunciation of Taoism as (/ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/), and three give (/ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/, /ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/). The eleven American-English references haves more varied glosses: (/ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/, /ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/) six times, (/ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/) twice, (/ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/, /ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/) twice, and (/ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/) once (OAD, 1979). The respective first accurate American and British lexicographic glosses for Taoism were "douizm; tou-" (Webster's Second, 1934) and "Also Daoism and with pronunc. (dau•iz'm)" (OED supplement, 1986). Within the present sample of English-language dictionaries, the American publications were faster to rectify the mistaken (/ˈtaʊ.ɪzəm/) pronunciation to (/ˈdaʊ.ɪzəm/) (Carr 1990: 64–65).
Besides (/t/) and (/d/) pronunciation variations for the consonant T in Taoism, the dictionaries also glosses the vocalic (/aʊ/) diphthong as (/au/), (/ɑu/), and the triphthong (/ɑːəu/), which may be owing to the old Taouism, Tauism, and Tavism variant spellings (Carr 1990: 64). For instance, the 1989 OED2 mixed gloss "(ˈtɑːəʊɪz(ə)m, ˈdaʊɪz(ə)m)" combines the (/ɑːəʊ/) pronunciation from the 1933 OED1 Taoism entry and the (/aʊ/) from the 1986 OED supplement.
References
- Carr, Michael. 1990. "Whence the Pronunciation of Taoism?" Dictionaries 12:55–74.
- Cohen, Gerald. 1989. "Gung Ho Revisited, Part 1". Comments on Etymology 29.3:1–42.
- Girardot, N. J., James Miller and Liu Xiaogan, eds. 2001. Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape. Harvard University Press.
- Gallagher, Louis J. (trans.); Trigault, Nicolas (1953), China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci, Random House, New York (Only snippet view on Google Books)
- Herman, Jonathan R. 1998. "Review of Tao Te Ching: A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way". Journal of the American Academy of Religion 66.3: 686–89.
- Komjathy, Louis. 2014. Daoism: A Guide for the Perplexed. A&C Black.
- Miller, James. 2008. Daoism: A Beginner's Guide. Oneworld Publications.
- Norman, Jerry. 1988. Chinese. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Purchas, Samuel. 1625. A discourse of the Kingdome of China, taken out of Ricius and Trigautius, containing the countrey, people, government, religion, rites, sects, characters, studies, arts, acts; and a Map of China added, drawne out of one there made with Annotations for the understanding thereof, found in Hakluytus posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes.
- Witek, John W, ed. 2001. Dicionário Português-Chinês, Michele Ruggiero and Matteo Ricci, S. Local, Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, IPOR, Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco.
- Yip, Moira (1993), "Cantonese Loanword Phonology and Optimality Theory", Journal of East Asian Linguistics 2.3: 261–291.
- Yong, Heming and Jing Peng, 2008. Chinese Lexicography: A History from 1046 BC to AD 1911, Oxford University Press.
- Yuan Jia Hua (1981), "English Words of Chinese Origin", Journal of Chinese Linguistics 9.2: 244-286
External links
- Daoism or Taoism?, James Miller, Queen's University
- Popular Western Taoism. Louis Komjathy, Center for Daoist Studies
- Why we say "Beizhing" and not "Beijing", Victor H. Mair discusses "Taoism" mispronunciations, Language Log, 2 May 2019