This is my best guess... what are the answers? I hopped through the links, but to no avail, unless I'm blind.
There were some that sounded as if they could potentially go with several, so I've probably got some of them confused.
(1)Camus - (l)Jiamiao
(2)D.H. Lawrence - (dd) Laolunsi
(3)Bunyan - (bb)Bangyang
(4)Trollope - (y)Teluoluopu
(5)Pushkin - (i)Puxijin
(6)Edgar Allen Poe - (w)Ailun-Po
(7)Donne - (m)Tangen
(8)Rousseau - (aa)Lusuo
(9)Yeats - (o) Yezhi
(10)Cervantes - (d) Saiwantisi
(11)George Bernard Shaw - (b)Xiaobona
(12)Wells - (cc)Weiersi
(13)Dante - (g)Danding
(14)Chaucer - (j)Qiasou
(15)Dostoyevsky - (n)Tuosituoyefusiji
(16)Kipling - (v) Jibulin
(17)Goethe - (f) Gede
(18)Kafka - (t)Kafuka
(19)Dos Passos -(k)Duosi-Pasuosi
(20)James - (e) Zhanmeisi
(21)Fitzgerald - (q)Feicijielade
(22)Keats - (s)Jici
(23)Aristophanes - (c)Alisituofen
(24)Gogol - (a)Guogeli
(25)Hardy - (z) Hadai
(26)Charlotte Bronte - (r)Xialuoti-Bolangte
(27)Johnson - (h) Yuehansheng
(28)Thackeray - (u) Sakelei
(29)Flaubert - (p)Fuloubai
(30)Shelley - (x)Xuelai
ah, I wasn't so quick; took me about 11 mins.
that linguistics class paid off since so many of the pinyin refer to characters whose cantonese pronunciations make (marginally) more sense.
thanks for the great post!
bad, bad.
posting answers ruins it for those who just discovered the challenge!
I've been told that these names of famous writers, even if derived from their surnames, are like "styles" or nicknames and cannot be used by others with the same surname. IE, I am not an Ai-mo-sheng.
Posted by John Emerson at February 16, 2007 07:44 PMThe correspondences
(9) Yeats - (o) Yezhi
and
(22) Keats - (s)Jici
are interesting in juxtaposition; does the vowel influence the finals in this pattern in general, or is it just one of those crufty things?
Posted by Pat Hall at February 16, 2007 08:33 PMWonderful!
Posted by CW at February 16, 2007 09:34 PMIt took me about 20 minutes, and the ones that were hopeless process-of-elimination decisions were Camus, Donne, Johnson, and the one that's his first name instead of his last name (not fair!).
The hardest part is how "ai" refers to both [er] and [i], and "ei" refers to both [i] and (the unpronounced "e" in "James").
Also, K becoming J, but I knew that already.
Posted by Cryptic Ned at February 16, 2007 10:38 PMTangen is "Donne, John." Tan = Donne, Gen = John.
Posted by Chance at February 17, 2007 01:29 AMEasy down to the point where Zhanmeisi, Danding, Yuehansheng, Jiamiao, and Tangen are left to be distributed amongst Camus, Donne, Dante, James, and Johnson, at which point I think they're having a lend of me.
Posted by zuzentzailea at February 17, 2007 02:42 AM"John" seems to be interpreted as "Johann" in this kind of thing. I believe I've seem that before.
Posted by John Emerson at February 17, 2007 06:59 AMTangen is "Donne, John." Tan = Donne, Gen = John.
Thanks! But how do they get Gen for John (compare Yuehansheng for Johnson)??
Posted by language hat at February 17, 2007 07:11 AMZuzentzailea, Jiamiao isn't too hard if you notice the pattern in Puxijin, Tuosituoyefusiji, Jici, and Jibulin.
Posted by KCinDC at February 17, 2007 10:21 AMdoes the vowel influence the finals in this pattern in general, or is it just one of those crufty things?
I think what's going on is that southerners don't retroflex. If you read zhi as zi, you're a lot closer...
Posted by David Marjanović at February 17, 2007 11:25 AMLuo-se-fu Road, meaning "Roosevelt Road", is one of the main streets in Taibei. To me the sound is very pleasant.
I also remember a hsin-i (xin-yi) road, which by extrapolation from Matthews should mean "Justification by Faith Road" (or more likely "Lutheran Road"). I never was able to check out whether that guess was right. There were a number of high-level Christians in the Nationalist Army, if I'm not mistaken.
Posted by John Emerson at February 17, 2007 01:29 PMKCinDC: but all those examples you mention have roughly [ki] in the source language, which I know palatalized to <ji> in Chinese comparatively recently. Camus however hasn't, and would come out more closely as Gamu, Gamiu, something like that. The anomalous ones are just very far from the closest you would come up with knowing the pronunciations of Chinese and the source names.
Posted by zuzentzailea at February 17, 2007 02:44 PMYou sure it isn't Tang-en, not Tan-gen?
Like maybe, 唐恩.
Posted by MMcM at February 18, 2007 10:30 PMA quick Google reveals 多恩 Duō'ēn for John Donne.
Posted by bathrobe at February 19, 2007 02:57 PMAlso found 约翰邓恩, where 约翰 is, of course, Johann, and 邓恩 is Dčng'ēn.
Posted by bathrobe at February 19, 2007 02:59 PMAlso 约翰·唐恩 (Táng'ēn) and 约翰·都恩 (Dōu'ēn).
Seems like there is no unanimity on this guy's name. Sometimes in cases like this one might suspect Japanese influence, but 唐恩 is Tō'on in Japanese, which is not right because it doesn't start with a 'd'.
Posted by bathrobe at February 19, 2007 03:17 PMJohn: The "hsin" and the "yi" in "Hsinyi" are two separate things--two of the "eight virtues" or "ba de." They are, in pairs, chung-hsiao, jen-ai, hsin-i, and ho-p'ing. Those should sound familiar to any Taipei resident.
Posted by amida at February 19, 2007 07:51 PMYes indeed -- takes me back 30 years!
Posted by language hat at February 20, 2007 08:23 AMI do remember those streets in Taipei, especially "Hoping Road", so labelled in English on a sign. (And we're all hoping for peace, aren't we?)
Posted by John Emerson at February 20, 2007 09:27 AMWith regard to Donne, note also that Ron (Weasley) in the Taiwanese translation of Harry Potter is 榮恩 Róng'ēn. So it is not just a 'one-off'. I'm not sure of the reason for this phenomenon.
Posted by bathrobe at February 20, 2007 02:40 PMAFAIK there is some way to blame Cantonese for the ga-jia confusion.
Posted by David Marjanović at February 23, 2007 06:40 PM