Translations?

[lausan]

Could any of you Chinese speaking Sifu's translate
the following?

Jig Ma Tarn Sau

Ceun Foun Dough Fa

Di Dough Doi Tan Pye

Wooy Ceun Cheung

Cheers
Lausan :)

[Kung Lek]

Hi-

phonetics are great, but it would be helpful if you could use pinyin romanization or get as close as you can to it.

Some words are hard to pronounce in the phonetic spelling :)

Anyway, a little piece here and there?

dough - Do or dao, can mean "knife" or "broadsword" if used in reference to a technique within a weapons set. If it is used in the Japanese or Korean language it means "way".

Tarn Sau -Tan Sau - one of a variety of circular ridgehand/forearm blocks.

Ma - "Horse" also "stance" as in "Ma Bu-horse stance" or "gung Chin Ma -bow and arow stance" or "Ding Bo Ma -Cat Stance or empty leg stance"..etc

Pye -Pai - "school" "clan" or "system"

well, theres some bits and pieces that might help you get the rest of it together.

peace

Kung Lek

[Ben Gash]

There is no Pinyin, it's Cantonese!

"Weapons are the embodiments of fear,
the wise use them only when they have no choice"
Lao Tzu

[Kung Lek]

fine, wade giles then? :)

Kung Lek

[MoQ]

yes this is kina messy- I know there's hardly a way to romanize from spoken.
agree with KL on the dough knives...
and the Pye... Tarn is like "springy"
Jig could be jik- "straight/forward"
Ceun could be "double"
Fa-"flower"
Foun COULD be fung "phoenix" if theres phoenix knives on some planet.
Doi could be tui-"push"
but pye could be like "lifting" and if Do is like Tow or "spit" then Dough Doi Tan Pye sounds more like powers or gings like "spit","push", "spring" and "raise/lift"

Cheung is "spear"

[illusionfist]

ceun cheung could be seung jeung or double palm.

Peace :D

[Ben Gash]

Wade Giles is also only for Beijing dialect :D

"Weapons are the embodiments of fear,
the wise use them only when they have no choice"
Lao Tzu

[Kung Lek]

well then ben, how is cantonese romanized then? I am sure it is not done in a straight up phonetic way, even though there are various english spelling of various cantonese words, but many are standard.

as far as I know pin yin and wade giles are the systems used to romanize chinese dialects wiht pinyin being favoured for mandarin dialect and wade giles being an older form of organizing the structure of the language.

still, Kuen is a cantonese word, how was it decided that it would be spelled in this manner?

same goes for a whole bunch of cantonese words that you can find in restaurants all over the world where spelling variations do exist but they are few overall. Har Gow will always shrimp dumplings and so on.

Anyway, I am primarily asking for more standardized spellings of the words.

Holding up a problem without presenting a solution does not solve the problem.

peace

Kung Lek

[CPS]

For Cantonese either Lau system or Yale is used.
Lau was often used in the 70's, 80's and now mostly Yale system is used (and promoted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.)

Since Yale is a little strange though (e.g. Hungga Kyun - or sometimes even Huhngga and Lahm Saiwing), often no system is used in names.
Like Hung Gar; the Gar is not used in any system, it's Ga everywhere.

As for the translations; the only exact way is to scan the Chinese characters.

[Ben Gash]

By and large, cantonese is often spelt phonetically to a large degree. For example, take my own art Choy Li Fut. I have also seen this written as Choi Li Fut, Choy Lay Fut, Choy Lee Fut, Choy Lay Fat and Choy Lay Fatt. Whereas in Beijing Dialect it is either Tsai Li Fo (Wade Giles) or Cai li Fo (Pinyin). Pinyin and Wade Giles won't work for Cantonese as the Linguistic structure is different (Cantonese has more tones, Beijing Dialect has more inflection).
Anyway, Kuen isn't a universal spelling. It's also often Kune (as in Jeet Kune Do). Indeed, your own handle comes from the form which in that spelling format is kung lek kune or Gung lik Kuen ( I much prefer the beijing dialect form, Gong Li Quan).
If you want really screwed up, read stuff from Taiwan, where they speak Beijing dialect, but don't use either Wade Giles or Pinyin. The stuff's virtually impossible to read.
As to how we arrive at generally accepted spellings, I daresay most of us read them in books or magazines, or written in our kwoons, and that's how we spell them.
Anyway, this isn't helping the poor man find out what his forms mean.

"Weapons are the embodiments of fear,
the wise use them only when they have no choice"
Lao Tzu

[Kung Lek]

thanks CPS, thanks Ben.
:)

peace

Kung Lek