Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Blaðsíða 312
by a consonant (_C), or the vowels [ou] or [Y] ([oo] or [uu] in
transliteration). When followed by vowels [a] or [I], on the other
hand, there seemed to be a preference towards plosives [t], [d].
although these results need to be studied in greater detail, they
suggest that names such as Garðar and Gyrðir would be transliter-
ated [ɡa ru da ru], [ɡi ru di ru], whereas names such as Davíð,
Þrúður, Þór, and Þuríður would be transliterated [da bi i zu], [su
ru u zu ru], [so o ru], and [su u ri zu ru].
For 8), the vowel inserted in a consonant cluster /hC/, both
Japan ese and Icelandic subjects chose [u] or [i]. The general ten-
dency seemed to be for /u/ to be inserted when the following con-
sonant was [r], and for [i] to be preferred before [l]. In both cases,
the /h/ [h] changes into its allophones before these two vowels in
Japanese, i.e. [h]→[ç]/_i, [h]→[ Φ]/_u. However, the tendency is
not very striking, and the pronunciation of the names changes
greatly from the original in either case. Personal preferences based
on the overall sound of the name may have affected the choices in
this case.
a more detailed analysis is needed based on a larger data sam-
ple, especially for those instances in which Japanese and Icelandic
subjects showed divergent tendencies. names that did not follow
the trends outlined in the test results should also be examined fur-
ther. Transliterating Icelandic proper nouns into Japanese is a chal-
lenging task. There are inconsistencies in both orthography and
pronunciation, and multiple possibilities to be considered in the
transliteration process. This study has focused on the closest
approximation to the pronunciation of certain words, and attempt-
ed to establish some general tendencies.
although Japanese and Icelandic subjects appeared to process
the sounds of both languages in somewhat different ways, the
overall results of the experiment reflected common trends for both.
nonetheless, cross-linguistic differences evidently affected the
choice of words in some cases, and these instances need to be
examined more closely in the future.
TranSLITEraTIng ICELanDIC naMES InTO JaPanESE …
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