Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-4616791-20130131030518/@comment-937287-20130216190247

36.76.155.201 wrote: I'm not really sure I agree with 'Seisyun' though. Everything in the Kou is usually derived from Chinese language, and it does not have the 'syu' pronounciation. They have 'shu', as in 'book' or 'su' as in 'vegetarian'.

The 'shun'(舜) in Seishun Ri's (李青舜) name is authentically read as 'shùn'. Also in Chinese, the surname 'Ri' (李) should be changed to 'Li', as in the Chinese poet Li Bai (李白).

To be frank, sometimes authors don't research properly (no offense, though). Seisyun is explicitly the official spelling given by an art/guide book. And the "sy" wouldn't be pronounced as "sy", it would be "sh" as in Malay/Indonesian. The author was thinking in either like that, or maybe she wanted to stylize it like the band name.

WARNING: LINGUISTICS AHEAD

Readarding Kou names, it is normal in Japan to use their own pronounciation of archaic Chinese names, which may reveal the original Middle Chinese prounciation. For example, the name of the Three Kingdoms in Mandarin Chinese is Wei, Shu, and Wu; while Japanese uses Gi, Shoku(kan), and Go. Comparing other modern Chinese dialects show that Classical Chinese initial-"Ng" became "w" and "g" in Mandarin and Japanese respectively -- Which explains Gi & Go; .Shu in Middle Chinese was something like "suk" or "shuk" and was borrowed as Shoku (or Shuku maybe at first). Another example is Ren Hakuryuu. "Ren" from "lian", "Haku" from Classical Chinese "bhæk" (the "b" devoiced to "p", then Japanese borrowed it as はく ~but at that time, the は-row had "p" sounds ~ and became a f-type sound (same f as in ふ), and became an "h" in all cases exept before "u")., and "Ryuu" from Classic Chinese " liong" (liong is pronounced "lyong", ending "ng"s are either dropped or turned to ん(n) in Japanese borrowings, and the "o" became a "u").

NOTE: The p-->h change also explains は&ば are not voicing pairs today--> they used to be. ぱ(p) type sounds are very rare in Japanese because of the change,

I, of all people, wish the author did her research, but for the Arabic stuff, not the Chinese stuff as it makes sense for the most part. All the Arabic grammer is wrong, her random changing of the vowels makes it tedius to find the right form of a root, sometimes she simply uses the wrong (but has the same root) word, and she reuses the same words even when it doesn't make much sense (Sharrar "sparkling" for all water magic, using Kauza [a type of container] for things with no containers, etc).