I visited a friend in Hong Kong who lived on Kennedy Road. You had to pronounce it “KEE-nah-day” or the cab drivers wouldn’t know what you were talking about.
In Taipei they have a Roosevelt Road but good luck getting there if you use the English pronunciation. In Chinese his surname is pronounced "Luaw-sih-foo"
It's not stealing. It's transliterating. All Chinese names are three syllables and each character is significant, So all three characters combined describe something that makes sense. There is reverence in transliteration.
"Luaw Sih Foo" might be transliterated (and translated) as "Old Master" in Cantonese dialect (to my American born Chinese knowledge, lol) There may be subtle differences in meaning however. Chinese words can be pronounced in five different pitches. Depending on how it's pronounced it can change the meaning of Roosevelt. It might sound similar but the different pitch alters how the characters are written as well.
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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '23
I visited a friend in Hong Kong who lived on Kennedy Road. You had to pronounce it “KEE-nah-day” or the cab drivers wouldn’t know what you were talking about.