Tuesday, July 20, 2010

So is it "P" or "Wh" that You Really Want? ( 你到底要"穢屎"還是"配屎"啦 )

由於韓文沒有f音,遇到外來字彙有f時,基本原則就是用p音代替,例如fork就變成po-ke(포크),可有時候卻是用wh,例如fighting便被發成whaiting(화이팅),但是近來也越來越多人使用pighting (파이팅)。不管怎樣,我都覺得很好笑。不是我惡毒笑人家語言裡沒有的音,而是沒有這個音還愛濫用外來文才好笑。

講真,那麼愛用外來文,自以為新潮,倒不如發明一個符號去代表F音,那才叫做與時俱進,外來文也可以用得更爽嘛。沒音就創造新字母新符號甚至新文字,很多語言都是這樣。

舉個pwh各執一詞的例子。化妝品的 face(臉部) 分類裡有 foundation(底妝),MAC採用p音,把face翻做pace(페이스,"屎"),foundationpoundation(운데이션,"嗚dation"),Christian Dior也是如此使用;Bobbi Brown則是採用wh音,face便被翻做whace(훼이스,"屎"),foundationwhoudation(운데이션,"dation"),Estee Lauder也是如此使用。

As there's no f equivalent in Korean, while transliterating foreign words that contains f sounds, Koreans usually use p or wh instead. Therefore, fork becomes pork, fighting becomes whiting. Unsurprisingly, there are all kinds of confusions while transliterating foreign words, which make those foreign words look fairly  awkward and funny. My personal suggestion is that, given such Korean fascination about importing foreign words, why not create an alphabet for "F" (also V, please)?


Literally reads "Ko-Li-Ah Tim Pai-Ting!" (="Korea Team, Fighting!")

No comments:

Post a Comment