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In many books about Confucius' Analects, 大學 is transliterated as Ta-Hio.

Why is this? 大學 is dàxué in Pinyin, da hsüeh in Wade-Giles, da sywe in Yale, and daai hok in Cantonese, so where does this transliteration come from?

Stumpy Joe Pete
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Luo Kaisa
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  • Legge transcription? – user58955 Oct 07 '13 at 17:51
  • Based on the transcription alone, my guess is that it's from a northern dialect (due to the absence of the final -k in 學). The initial h- in 學 indicates that it's either from a time before the palatalization of Mandarin initial consonants (roughly 200-400 years ago, hi- and hü- became modern Mandarin xi- and xu-), or from a dialect that wasn't affected by palatalization (with which I'm not familiar). However, a Google search for "Ta Hio" seems to result in many citations of Ezra Pound, who is a relatively modern author. I don't know whether the term predates Pound though. – Claw Oct 07 '13 at 18:29
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    @user58955 Legge appears to have transliterated it as Ta Hëŏ, which is close. – Claw Oct 07 '13 at 20:43
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    Could be court mandarin or the contemporary standard pronunciation... The mandarin spoken in the Qing court experienced less palatalization despite the ongoing process in vernacular Beijing accent, that's why 北京 and 南京 were called Peking and Nanking, and 福建 was transcribed as Fukien. Not sure if h->x happened in the court pronunciation though. – user58955 Oct 07 '13 at 20:44
  • @Claw Great source, thanks. Now we can see that his transcription systematically distinguishes h- and s- for today's x-, such as Heaou King for 孝经 and Heen Yang for 咸阳 – user58955 Oct 07 '13 at 20:48
  • @user58955 and Claw What (and when) was the Legge transcription based on? Beijing court mandarin? Nanjing court mandarin? That's totally answer material you guys have got! – Stumpy Joe Pete Oct 08 '13 at 16:17
  • I have no proof, but my speculation is Beijing court mandarin. Nanking mandarin kept 入声, so I don't think this is Nanking mandarin. – user58955 Oct 08 '13 at 19:33
  • @StumpyJoePete I was considering writing up what we have here as an answer, wanted to research a few more pieces before doing so. One missing link is how modern Mandarin ended up with xué as the pronunciation for 學. From what I've been able to find so far, the expected pronunciation should be xiao, which would also match the expected evolution of "hio", and indeed I have found some sources indicating that xiáo is an alternative pronunciation for 學. This may be related to the fact that the etymologically-related word 覺 has two readings: jué and jiào. – Claw Oct 09 '13 at 18:57
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    @Claw (Using Baxter's Middle Chinese notation) It seems lots of [jqx]ue and [jqx]iao words started with -æwk endings in MC. Baxter doesn't make any notes that one is regular or irregular though, so I expect it's a 白/文 distinction. This info + chart implies that -iao is regular Mandarin and -ue is literary (Beijingified Nanjing chinese?). Perhaps xiao~hio was the normal pronunciation in Beijing a long time ago? – Stumpy Joe Pete Oct 09 '13 at 19:23
  • Thank you Claw for the Legge's link, but on reading the same Legge's book, perhaps, in another edition, I read there «Tâ Hsio», not «Ta Hëŏ.» On the other hand I know that 大學 on the EFEO transliteration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFEO_Chinese_transcription) is «Ta Hiue», which is also close to «Ta-Hio.» – Luo Kaisa Oct 10 '13 at 16:32
  • @Claw xiáo is 中原官話, while xué is the Beijing 文讀. – Mike Manilone Jan 23 '14 at 17:38

2 Answers2

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It's Mandarin transliteration by Portuguese Jesuit Fr. Inácio da Costa (17th century).

Partial text:

“大学之道，在明明德，在亲民，在止于至善”

Ta hio chi dao, cai min min te, cai cin min, cai chi yu chi xen

amateur
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It's just the pinyin of a dialect for 大學.

Mike Manilone
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  • If you read the comments, you'll see that that's pretty unlikely. – Stumpy Joe Pete Jan 23 '14 at 16:11
  • @StumpyJoePete It's a romanization/pinyin of ancient Chinese, possibly some regional dialect. – phoeagon Jan 24 '14 at 07:08
  • @phoeagon If by "ancient dialect", you mean "probably court Mandarin, probably quite modern", then yes. The transcription was given in a modern book, using translation resources that can't be more than a few hundred years old (and furthermore, are definitely based on court Mandarin of some type). – Stumpy Joe Pete Jan 24 '14 at 16:24