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大西洋月刊:香港痴迷于奇怪的英文名

时间:2014-07-25 10:43:18  来源:  作者:

 你一定能分清梁朝伟和梁家辉,但他们的英文名都叫Tony Leung,看到这个名字你就分不清了。由于拼音标准的缺乏、族群多样性和第二语言英语的存在,香港人的名字和大陆很不同。例如,用上海话拼音的名字在香港英语里更常见,而上海本地则通常遵循汉语拼音标准。

中文姓名在香港人使用英语时会被英文名补充或取代。在完整写法中,香港名字往往紧跟在英文名+粤语姓+粤语名的格式之后,这样你就能从Tony Leung Chiu-Wai和Tony Leung Ka-fai区分梁朝伟和梁家辉了。香港人用的英文名千奇百怪,一直没有被很好研究或记录,却引起了以英语为母语的国家关注。2012年,美国著名杂志《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)刊登了一篇文章《香港痴迷于奇怪的英文名》,考察这一独特有趣的文化现象,这篇文章成为维基百科中Hong Kong name词条的重要参考。以下为译文:

梁家辉和梁朝伟

香港痴迷于奇怪的英文名

恶魔(Devil)、鲸(Whale)、叶绿素(Chlorophyll)、强奸(Violante)、糖蜜(Treacle)——凡是你想得到的名字,香港都可能有人起。这个前英国殖民地痴迷于奇怪的英文名。

当局目前已经发现人们有各种不寻常的称谓。律政司司长是林姆斯基·袁(观察者网注:袁国强,Rimsky Yuen),前食品卫生局局长约克·周(观察者网注:周一岳,York Chow)。在名人中,有——Fanny(屁股)Sit(观察者网注:薛芷伦),Moses(摩西)Chan(观察者网注:陈豪),Dodo(渡渡鸟)Cheng(观察者网注:郑裕玲)。

模特界呢?我们有——Vibeke(挪威语“战争、战役”,观察者网注:马卓宁,原名马凯仪),Bambi(小鹿斑比,观察者网注:梁筠儿,又名梁雅淳),Dada(达达主义,观察者网注:陈静),和Vonnie(维尼,观察者网注:雷凯欣)。

但是律师界的名字更绝。有人叫——Magnum(大酒瓶,也是梦龙雪糕的英文名),John Baptist(施洗者约翰),Ludwig(路德维希,德语男子名),Ignatius(伊格内修斯,希腊名字),Bunny(小兔子,可爱女郎),还有4个——是的,还有4个Benedict(本尼迪克特,又译本笃,天主教圣徒名)。

奇怪的名称造成了很多特殊的情况。去年7月,警方拘捕一个名为Ice Wong(王冰毒)的女子并缴获460克冰毒 。几个月前,一个名叫Devil Law(罗恶魔)的人被抓,他因为藏毒和交通事故被带到法官面前。在2010年,一个叫Cash Leung(梁钞票)女的因为用假钞被判入狱。

这样的例子很多,记载在一个名为“香港特区姓名日志”的博客里。这个香港特区的博客,已经持续更新三年了,里面有近2000个条目。

语言学专家说,英文名,包括西方英语国家不会使用的奇怪英文名,正变得越来越普遍,但是他们无法查明这种趋势是什么时候开始的。

“这趋势没有减弱的迹象,”李教授说,他是香港教育学院语言学及现代语言研究的部门的工作人员,“有人注意的话就会发现外来的或不寻常的名称越来越多了。”

入境事务处不编制统计资料的类别的名字,但粗略的检查表明,专家可能是正确的。2005年,香港特区博客的作者得出结论,5,707名律师中有2.5%的姓名不寻常,罕见的或独特的。我最近调查了目前的7,367名律师登记册,我找到了类似的名字,这样的名字已经上升到6%的比例。

想知道香港人起怪名字的原因,我们就必须先了解当年他们是为了什么才开始用英文名的。

在香港,英语为官方语言而且还和国际贸易密不可分,采用英文名称往往是司空见惯的。早在20世纪80年代初,政府开始促进中文作为教学语言的时候,还有90%的中学以英语授课。有些香港人的名字是他们的父母在出生时起的,还有的是他们在学校的教师起的。有些是他们自己起的。

这种做法可以追溯到殖民时代。“有一段时间,那时候似乎还有可取或比较流行的英文名字,”斯蒂芬马修斯说,他是香港大学人文学院语言学系副教授,“商人起一个英文名字显示他们的先进或显示他们与外国人做生意。”

在学校里,说英语的教师更容易记住学生的英语名字,“马修斯说。而且,正如李教授在1997年的一篇论文中注意到的那样,给他们起英文名,也是鼓励他们学语言的的一种方式。

李教授把英文名看做是人们加快认识交往的“润滑剂”。中国的交往方式很正式或过于老套,不利于快速建立和陌生人之间的关系。

“在北美或英国,相识的人迅速过渡到直呼其名的阶段,”他说。“我们中国人是不那么愿意被人直呼其名的,只有真正的关系好的人才能直呼其名。”

马修斯估计,香港大学里有90%的女生和65%的男生有英文名字。

关于怪名字的产生的原因嘛,他说,最初产生的部分原因是由于“不完全的”的英文知识。香港人可能并不了解(怪)名字的含义,例如Februar可能是一个拼写错误或是因为原先就有人已经用过其他月份的名字了。

然而,随着时间的推移,人们已经停止质疑这些名字,并接受了他们。马修斯说:“它开始是因为一个人英语知识的不足,但今天如果你看到一个奇怪的名字,这是因为‘香港人’自己有了一套语言,而不是因为他们的语言能力不好。人们觉得他们可以随心所欲地用英语。如果你告诉Decemb或Februar(二月)他们的英文名字很怪,他们会说,‘我不在乎,它是属于我的名字’。 在某种程度上,他们坚持自己的香港身份……‘香港式英语’不再是英国影响力的象征,但得到了一部分人的认同。”

李教授说,年轻的一代发现传统名字越来越没有吸引力,并希望自己的名字是唯一的。“我认为,大多数起这样名称的动因是不同的。”

香港人起名字往往要货比三家,对于这样一个唯一的名字,有时灵感来自运动品牌或奢侈品牌,例如,香奈儿,劳力士,他说。

香港特别行政区博客的作者说,替换,删除和插入单个字母似乎是共同的模式,“可能表示某种程度的‘创造’或‘创意’。”姓氏后加son后缀也是很普遍的。例如律师名单中包括Samuelson,Winson,Philson和Garson。

许多英文名的读音酷似中国名。例如,有一个名叫Tse Kar—son的人以Carson(卡森)作为他的英文名字。歌手李克勤的英文名字是Hacken。另一位歌手,陈奕迅,英文名为Eason(艾森)。

时装设计师Amus Leung的故事,展示了一个英文名在工作中的力量。梁回忆起给她取名为圣经中的先知阿摩司的那个老师,老师认为这听起来更女性化的名字与梁的个性相符。“我爱我的英文名字,”梁说,“这是独特的,容易记住。到目前为止,我是这个世界上唯一的Amus Leung!”

何伟略是个记者,是以另一种方式起的名字。“当我还是个学生,每个人都不停地说,我的中文名字真顺口,直到它开始听起来像“hoh lok,”他说,就像是粤语发音可口可乐,“所以起名为Cola Stuck。(可乐·刺)”

这和给一本书起名字当然不同。这就是区别。由梁女士和何先生的故事可知,香港人命名时,有大量的文化和语言因素在作怪。在以英语为母语的国家,父母通常从一个有限的列表中选择他们的孩子的名字。只要香港人继续这么起名字,Titarians(查不着这词),Heinzes(有这么个网站)和Yildizes(也找不着这词)将继续点缀在他们的电话簿里。这也许是最好的结果了。因为当你生活在一个城市,在那儿你什么时候能见到雷蒙多(Raimundo)、灵魂(Psyche)或舒伯特,生活也会更有趣。

(Joyce Man:Hong Kong Loves Weird English Names,译言网 聊逸 译,观察者网 校,翻页看原文)

Hong Kong Loves Weird English Names

Devil. Whale. Chlorophyll, Violante, Treacle -- you name it, Hong Kong probably has someone who goes by it. The former British colony is obsessed with weird English names.

Unusual appellations have been found on people of all kinds. The secretary for justice is Rimsky Yuen and the previous secretary for food and health was York Chow. Among celebrities, there is a Fanny Sit, Moses Chan, and Dodo Cheng. Models? We have a Vibeke, Bambi, Dada, and Vonnie. But lawyers take the prize. There is a Magnum, John Baptist, Ludwig, Ignatius, Bunny and four -- yes, four -- Benedicts.

Odd names make for odder situations. Last July, police arrested a woman named Ice Wong with 460 grams of ice -- the drug, not frozen water. Months earlier, the law caught up with Devil Law when he was brought before a judge for drug possession and crashing his car into a bus. In 2010, a woman called Cash Leung was jailed for paying cabbies with fake cash.

There are so many examples that one blogger keeps a list titled "HKSAR Name of the Day." HKSAR Blog, which is in its third year running, has almost 2,000 entries in the list.

Linguistics experts say English names, including unusual ones that would not be found in Western English-speaking countries, are becoming more prevalent, though they cannot pinpoint when the trend began.

"There are no signs of abating," said David Li, a professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education's department of linguistics and modern language studies. "There are more and more exotic or unusual names if one cares to collect and document them."

The immigration department, the government body overseeing identification registration, does not compile statistics on categories of names, but a cursory inspection suggests the experts may be right. In 2005, the author of HKSAR Blog concluded that the names of 2.5 percent of 5,707 lawyers were unusual, uncommon, or unique. When I recently surveyed the current register of 7,367 lawyers myself, I found the proportion of names matching these descriptions had risen to 6 percent.

To unravel why Hong Kongers would choose to be called Whale or Uriah instead of John or Jane, we must explain why they use English names in the first place.

In Hong Kong, where English is an official language and international commerce is the bread and butter, adopting an English name often comes naturally. In the early 1980s, before the government started promoting Chinese as the language of instruction, 90 percent of secondary schools taught in English. Some Hong Kongers are given the names by their parents at birth or by their teachers at school. Some devise them themselves.

The practice goes back to colonial times. "There was a period when it seemed desirable or prestigious to have an English name," said Stephen Matthews, an associate professor of the linguistics department at the University of Hong Kong's school of humanities. "Businessmen would take on English names as a mark of sophistication or to show they did business with foreigners."

In school, it was easier for English-speaking teachers to remember students' English names than their Chinese ones, Matthews said. And, as Li notes in a 1997 paper, addressing students by their English names was one way to encourage their interest in the language.

Li writes that English first names served as a "lubricant" to speed up the process of getting acquainted. Chinese forms of address, which are either very formal or overly familiar, do not favor quick rapport-building between strangers.

"In North America or the U.K., people transition to the first-name basis quickly," he said. "We Chinese are not so willing to use given names, which are reserved for people who are really close, like family members."

Matthews estimates that 90 percent of the institution's female and 65 percent of its male students have English first names.

As for the unconventional names, he said they initially arose in part due to an "incomplete knowledge" of the English language. Hong Kongers might have not appreciated the connotation of the name Kinky, for example. Februar might have been a misspelling or the result of someone over-generalizing the use of the names of the months like April, May or June, or both.

Over time, however, people have stopped questioning whether such variations are real names and accepted them. "It started as an inadequate knowledge of English, but if you see an unusual name today, it's because [Hong Kongers] are taking charge of their own language, not because their language abilities are not good," Matthews said. "People feel they can do what they want with English. If you tell Decemb or Februar that theirs are not English names, they'll say, 'I don't care, it belongs to me.' In a way, they're asserting their Hong Kong identity... [The English language in Hong Kong] is no longer a symbol of British influence, but part of people's identity."

Li said the younger generation has found conventional names less and less attractive and wants to be unique. "I think most such names are driven by a desire to be different."

Hong Kongers tend to shop around for a unique name and sometimes take inspiration from sports brands or luxury labels, for example, Chanel and Rolex, he said.

HKSAR Blog's author said substitution, deletion and the insertion of single letters appeared to be common patterns, which "may indicate a level of 'creation' or 'creativity.'" First names with the -son suffix are common, too. Examples from the lawyers' list include Samuelson, Winson, Philson and Garson.

Many English names mimic the sound of Chinese given names. A solicitor called Tse Kar-son, for example, has Carson as his English name. Singer Lee Hak-kan's English name is Hacken. Another singer, Chan Yik-shun, is called Eason.

Fashion designer Amus Leung's story demonstrates the many forces at work when adopting an English alias. Leung reminded the teacher who named her of the biblical prophet Amos. The teacher cross-bred the name with amuse, which she thought matched Leung's personality and sounded more feminine. "I love my name English name," said Leung. "It is unique and easy to remember. So far I am the only Amus Leung in the world!"

Ho Wai-leuk, a journalist, got his name another way. "When I was a student, everyone kept saying my Chinese name really fast until it started sounding like 'hoh lok,'" he said referring to the Cantonese pronunciation for Coca-Cola, "so Cola stuck."

It's certainly different from picking a name out of a book. And that's the difference. As Leung's and Ho's stories show, when naming a Hong Konger, a plethora of cultural and linguistic factors are at play. In countries where English is the mother tongue, parents usually choose their children's names from a limited list. As long as Hong Kongers keep getting their names the way they do, Titarians, Heinzes and Yildizes are going to continue dotting the phone book. It's probably for the best. Because when you live in a city where you can meet a Raimundo, Psyche or Schubert at any moment, life is more interesting.

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