It’s Chinese To Me!

Michael Ho

November 18, 2017

Basic Chinese for Researching Family History

Chinese Family History Group of Southern California

It’s Chinese To Me!

• Overview of the Chinese language

• Names

• Numbers & dates

• Place names

• Genealogical examples

“It’s Greek to me!”

Latin phrase: "Graecum est; non legitur” =

"it is Greek, [therefore] it cannot be read”

English – line from Shakespeare’s Julius

Caesar: “it was Greek to me”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_to_me

“It’s Chinese to me!”

Professor Arnold L. Rosenberg wrote a a

paper published in a linguistics journal

that argued that there was a popular

"consensus" that Chinese was the

"hardest" language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_to_me

“It’s Chinese to me!”

Cantonese: 呢啲係雞腸呀

These are chicken intestines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_to_me

About 20 of 50 languages sampled had

a phrase similar to “it’s Chinese to me”

Mandarin: 火星文 Huǒxīng wén

Martian language

Brief History of

the Chinese Language

• Oracle bones ~1250 BC Shang Dynasty

• Bronze inscriptions - Western Zhou

period (1046–771 BCE)

• 221 BC, First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang

unified China and standardized a single

written language (small seal script)

• Clerical script and other forms followed

Oracle Bones

• Animal bone was carved with questions

• Heat was applied at points

• Resulting cracks in bone were

interpreted as answers

Oracle Bone

National Palace Museum

Taipei, Taiwan

Bronze Inscriptions

http://hua.umf.maine.edu/China/SMcalligraphy/images/10003wl.jpg

Seal Script

Clerical Script

Regular or “Standard” Script

Running (Semi-Cursive) Script

Cursive Script

Character Origins

1. Chinese characters that are pictures

2. Chinese characters that are "symbols”

3. Sound-loans and sound-meaning

compounds characters

4. Meaning-meaning compounds

characters.

http://www.taiwan-travel-experience.com/chinese-symbols-for-words.html

Character Origins

1. Chinese characters that are pictures

http://www.taiwan-travel-experience.com/chinese-symbols-for-words.html

Character Origins

2. Chinese characters that are "symbols”

http://www.taiwan-travel-experience.com/chinese-symbols-for-words.html

Character Origins

3. Sound-loans and sound-meaning

compounds characters

http://www.taiwan-travel-experience.com/chinese-symbols-for-words.html

Character Origins

4. Meaning-meaning compounds

characters.

http://www.taiwan-travel-experience.com/chinese-symbols-for-words.html

http://aircampgames.com/oracle-bones-to-modern-script/

http://www.i-china.org/news.asp?type=10&id=183

Simplified Chinese Characters

• People’s Republic of China promoted in

1950s-1960s to increase literacy

• Used in China & Singapore today

• Not used by most Overseas Chinese,

Taiwan or Hong Kong (use Traditional)

Simplified Chinese Characters

http://nyzusa.com/traditional-and-simplified-chinese/

Simplified Chinese Characters

http://nyzusa.com/traditional-and-simplified-chinese/

How many Chinese

characters are there?

• >50,000 characters, <20,000 in use

• educated Chinese person knows

~8,000 characters

• 2,000-3,000 to read a newspaper

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/mini_guides/characters/characters_howmany.shtml

There’s a word for that…

http://humorist.net/aieeyaaa/aieeyaaa-intro.htm

https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-stroke-order.php?word=%E9%BD%89

Read Without Reading?

• Memorize

• Match

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong_solitaire

Dialects

• Over 200 dialects throughout China

• 5-10 major dialect groups

• Mandarin is largest spoken, official

language in China since 1930s

• Yue dialect group includes Cantonese,

the official dialect in Hong Kong

Romanization Systems

• Systems to express Chinese words with

Roman characters (ABCs)

• Mandarin Pinyin – People’s Republic of

China since 1979

• Wades-Giles (1859/1892), Yale (1940s)

– Mandarin system used

• Hong Kong Cantonese – changed

through HK history

Mandarin Romanization

Examples

• Wades-Giles – Mao Tse-tung, Chou

Enlai, Peking

• Pinyin – Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai,

Beijing

Surnames

• Over 450 family names used in Beijing,

according to 1987 study

• Lao bai xing 老百姓 literally translates

as “old hundred surnames” but means

“ordinary people.”

• Surnames vary geographically

陳 陈

Traditional Simplified

Example

Other dialects

Chin/Chinn, Ching, Chun, Dan/Tan

Mandarin

Chen

Cantonese

Chan 陳

Pronunciations

Sounds The Same

Mandarin

Wu

Cantonese

Ng

Eng

Ing

Ung 吳

伍

Surname

What’s the correct

Chinese surname?

HO

OWYANG

FONG

WONG

DIN

LEUNG / LEONG

何

歐陽

方

黃 王 汪 橫 弘 閎 宏

梁

DIN

馮 鄺

賀 候

Name Order

Western: Given Name(s) Surname

Chinese: Surname Given Name(s)

Examples

Yao Ming 姚明

Zhang Ziyi 章子怡

Chow Yun Fat 周潤發

Sun Yat-sen 孫逸仙

Married Women

Modern Chinese: Surname Given Name(s)

Chinese in West or sometimes Asia today:

Traditional: Wife’s

Surname Husband’s

Surname 氏 Shi/Shee

Wife’s

Surname

Husband’s

Surname Given name(s)

HO LUM SHEE

LUM KYAU MOI

LUM KYAU MOI HO

•Usually 1-2 characters

•Birth name 小名 or milk name 奶名

•School name 學名

•Marriage or Courtesy names 字 and

Pseudonyms 號

Given Names

One character of the given name is often

a generational name, which follows a

generation poem

Sun Wen 孫文

Sun Deming 孫德明

Sun Dixiang 孫帝象

Sun Zaizhi 孫載之

Sun Rixin 孫日新

Sun Yat-sen 孫逸仙

Sun Zhongshan 孫中山

Sun Yat-sen’s Names

Say “Ah”

A Chinese given name is sometimes

preceded by the prefix “A” or “Ah” as an

informal form of address

Ah Fong

Ah Sing

Ah Wah

Ai Auyong

歐 陽 雨

Au

Yong

Yee

亞 雨 Ah Yee

A`i (Hawai`i)

Ai Auyong in US Census

1900 Ah E

1910 Au Young, Yee

1920 Ai, Auyong

1930 Auyong, Ai

1940 Auyong, Ai

Name Changes

Au Yong Chan Wah Henry Owyoung

Ao Yong Dai Hoon Hoon Owyang

Sometimes people changed spellings

for ease of pronunciation or to conform

with others in the community

Lisa See’s Great-Grandfather

Mandarin

Kwong See Cantonese

Kuang Si

鄺泗

Local Dialect Fong See

Rita’s Father

Mandarin

Gong Foon

Chung/Jung Fun/Foon Cantonese

Zhong Fen

鐘芬

Create a Digital Chinese Seal!

http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/seal.html

https://www.purpleculture.net/chinese-seal-generator

https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinese-seals

"Luo ye gui gen" 落葉歸根 is a Chinese proverb

that means "Falling leaves return to their roots.”

Numbers

Value Normal Financial

Traditional Simplified Traditional Simplified

0 零/〇 零

1 一 壹

2 二 貳 贰

3 三 參 叁

4 四 肆

5 五 伍

6 六 陸 陆

7 七 柒

8 八 捌

9 九 玖

10 十 拾

Numbers

Value Normal Financial

Traditional Simplified Traditional Simplified

100 百 佰

1,000 千 仟

10,000 萬 万 萬

Dates

Year 年, Month月, Day日(號)

2017年11月18日

November 18, 2017 is

二〇一七年十一月十八日

二零一七年十一月十八日

Dates

Year 年, Month月, Day日

Year can also be the year of an

emperor’s reign

光绪二年十一月十八日

Month and Day could be lunar date

2nd Year of Kuang Hsu / Guang Xu emperor (1877),

11th month, 18th day

Dates

Year 年, Month月, Day日

Year can also be the year of the

Chinese Republic (1912-)

民國一〇六年十一月十八日

Month and Day could be lunar date

November 18, 2017 is

Dates

Year 年, Month月, Day日

Year can also be the year of the Stem-

Branch Cycle

丁酉年十一月十八日

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagenary_cycle

1897 or 1957 or 2017, 11th month, 18th day

Place Names

• Order: Biggest to smallest place

• Country, Province, City, County, etc.

• Example: China, Guangdong,

Guangzhou

Place Names

Village

Database

Old Admin Traditional Simplified

County County 縣 县

Area District

Kee

Doo

區

都

区

都

Heung Heung =

subdistrict

郷 乡

Subheung

Village Village 村 村

You can translate (decode)!

Just A Receipt

何彩華

何彩华

竹頭園

竹头园

一九三一 年 八 六 號

Ho Choi Wah

(Joseph Wah Ho)

Jook Tau Yuen

(Zhu Tou Yuan)

village

August 6, 1931

English & Chinese Gravestone

with photo & details

Birthdate - dynasty year

Death date - Chinese

Republic year

Ancestral Village

台山 Taishan

上閣鄊 Seung Gok heung

曾邊 Dung/Tsang Bin

其樂村 Kay Lok village

Photo courtesy of

Christine DeVillier

Gravestone with Paper Name

Gim Lee AKA Kam Kee Lee

Real surname Fong/Kwong

Photo courtesy of

Lucky Owyang

The disadvantages of understanding and not understanding

a foreign language. (Cartoonist: Hua Junwu)