Feng shui

[blakeyboy 1,601]

Now, the reason you could read the heading is because it's westernised.

A bit like what the French did in Vietnam- they made everyone write words in western characters so they could be pronounced by westerners.

So-- 'Feng Shui'.....why not "Fung Shuei", as it's bloody pronounced???

Which is the whole point of giving it a western spelling in the first bloody place!!!

It makes no sense whatsoever!!

 

Anyone here have a clue as to what's going on there?

[bagerap 706]

If Feng Shui started life as a Francophone transliteration, then it makes sense.  The French pronunciation of Feng would sound pretty much like "Fong"

Shui is an example of the Schwa phenomenon, an unstressed sound known in French as e muét or e caduct.  The ui phoneme in this French example would be pronounced as a weak eh. Hence Fung Shuei or indeed Fung Schway.

Edited October 15, 2019 by bagerap

[JLS 209]

Similarly, this is why Ouagadougou is pronounced more like "Wagadagu" or "Wegadagu" rather than "Oogadoogoo" as an English native speaker might expect...

[bagerap 706]

@JLS perfect example

 

[blakeyboy 1,601]

Ahh...right...but maybe any French involvement is a herring rouge, and the 'schwa' is indeed the culprit.

It does seem very odd....

[1949threepence 3,366]

On 10/15/2019 at 7:35 PM, blakeyboy said:

Now, the reason you could read the heading is because it's westernised.

A bit like what the French did in Vietnam- they made everyone write words in western characters so they could be pronounced by westerners.

So-- 'Feng Shui'.....why not "Fung Shuei", as it's bloody pronounced???

Which is the whole point of giving it a western spelling in the first bloody place!!!

It makes no sense whatsoever!!

 

Anyone here have a clue as to what's going on there?

I thought it was pronounced "feng shway".

[blakeyboy 1,601]

What is?

[bagerap 706]

Trying not to overcomplicate the matter, but in chinese there are two currently used alphabets depending of wich is used  can in some cases affect pronunciation. I'm not proficient enough to know whether that applies in this case.

In Traditional Chinese  its written 風水 and in Simplified Chinese 风水.  I'm fairly sure that when written in Simplified, it's prononced  Fung Schway and indeed when my office building in Singapore was renovated the officiant who carried out the blessing was introduced as The  Fung Schway Man. (Pronounced as such)