New Members Jonnymac Posted June 8, 2017 at 09:32 PM New Members Report Share Posted June 8, 2017 at 09:32 PM Can some please tell me what this means? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Publius Posted June 9, 2017 at 06:59 AM Report Share Posted June 9, 2017 at 06:59 AM 祖尼芬 zǔ ní fēn (in Mandarin) zou2 nei4 fan1 (in Cantonese) Looks like a transliteration of a Western name, therefore has no inherent Chinese meaning, because characters are being used for their sound values only. Of course each character has a meaning. 祖 = ancestor, 尼 = Buddhist nun, 芬 = fragrance. But put together, it's gibberish. It's like when you write 'ABC', you wouldn't be thinking of the things these letters originally represented, i.e. ox, house, and camel. And the sound system of Chinese is very different from that of European languages, it's hard to tell what is the original name. Probably something like Johnny Finn. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geiko Posted June 9, 2017 at 07:21 AM Report Share Posted June 9, 2017 at 07:21 AM Out of curiosity, I googled it and found somebody who uses 祖尼芬 as a transliteration for Jonathan Quote 祖尼芬． 烈力奇(Jonathan Lipnicki) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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