朴姓 - 发音

[bryce1]

Hello/大家好，

The character 朴 as a Korean surname (in Chinese) is pronounced piao2. However, I am unsure of the pronunciation of the character as a Chinese surname (in Chinese), since I have come across a few variants depending on the online dictionary:

pu1, pu2, pu3

Would anyone know which one of these three pronunciations would be the most common? (for a Han Chinese person with this surname)

Thanks/谢谢！

[jkhsu]

According to these sources below, the common mainland China pronunciation of the 朴 surname is piao2 while in Hong Kong / Taiwan it's pu1.

http://baike.baidu.com/view/1750049.htm

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%B4%E5%A7%93

According to these sources below, pu3 = "surname Pu (Korean Bak , Pak or Park)".

Sources:

http://www.visualmandarin.com/tools/chinese-stroke-order/39633

http://hktv.cc/cd/hanyupinyin/?q=%E6%9C%B4&srch=go

I guess the smart thing to do is to ask the person (with the surname 朴) how they pronunce 朴 first before you assume how it's pronounced.

[bryce1]

Thanks for your reply, jkhsu! I just asked a Chinese person (from Guangxi) how they would pronounce it as a Chinese surname and they said they would say "Pu2" (and Piao2 as a Korean one). (with "pu3" being the pronunciation for words such as 朴实) Perhaps there are regional variations for the surname's pronunciation...

[imron]

I just asked a Chinese person

It's quite possible that they have never met or heard of someone with this surname, and so may have given you less than accurate information (or it may be that they are correct).

For reference, the Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian mentions:

朴：piáo。姓。这个意义不读pǔ

[Hofmann]

Check it out.

Gut feeling: It might be a case of 文白異讀. Another case being 白. Ask people how to say 白居易 and you'll see.

康熙字典 has a funny looking reference: "又【集韻】披尤切，音䬌。夷姓。"

[Kenny同志]

It was not until about six years ago when I began to pronounce 朮(zhu2) correctly when it's used in the name of certain herbs, i.e. 白朮, 蒼朮, and 莪朮.