Lessing-Othmer system
The Lessing-Othmer system for the phonetic transcription of Chinese characters or language in Latin script goes back to Ferdinand Lessing (1882–1961) and Wilhelm Othmer (1882–1934). By Richard Wilhelm was as Wilhelm Lessing'sches system referred.
The German merchants in Tsingtau (then the German name for Qingdao ) had proposed setting up courses in the Chinese written language for Germans. Wilhelm Othmer and Ferdinand Lessing, who worked at the translation agency of the German-Chinese University in Tsingtau, which opened in October 1909 , conducted these courses. For this purpose, they did not use the British Wade-Giles transcription, but instead - like other German sinologists - worked out their own transcription, adapted to the familiar German sounds.
The Lessing-Othmer system was raised to the standard in 1911 by an assembly of German teachers in China and was mainly used in German-speaking countries. For example, Hermann Bohner's transcriptions are based on the Lessing-Othmer system. Today it is no longer in use. The textbook written by Lessing and Othmer on the basis of their courses was the most popular Chinese textbook in German-speaking countries until the 1930s.
Sounds in detail
For comparison, the IPA inscription is given in square brackets and the Pinyin variant of the characters in round brackets.
Initial sounds
Similar to Pinyin and in contrast to the Wade-Giles transcription, in the Lessing-Othmer system the non-aspirated sounds ("nasp" columns in the table) are represented by the letters for the voiced consonants, while for the aspirated sounds ( "Asp" columns of the table) uses the characters of the unvoiced counterparts. This is due, among other things, to the fact that in German, unvoiced sounds, in contrast to voiced sounds, are also pronounced breathy and thus the greatest possible agreement is obtained.
| bilabial |
labio- dental |
dental / alveolar |
postalveolar / retroflex |
palatal | velar | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nasp | asp | nasp | asp | nasp | asp | nasp | asp | nasp | asp | nasp | asp | |
| Plosives |
b
[p] (b) |
p [pʰ] (p) |
d [t] (d) |
t [tʰ] (t) |
g [k] (g) |
k [kʰ] (k) |
||||||
| Affricates |
ds [ts] (z) |
ts [tsʰ] (c) |
dsch [tʂ] (zh) |
ch [tʂʰ] (ch) |
dj [tɕ] (j) |
tj [tɕʰ] (q) |
||||||
| Fricatives |
f [f] (f) |
s [s] (s) |
sch [ʂ] (sh) |
j [ʐ] (r) * |
hs [ɕ] (x) |
h [x] (h) |
||||||
| Nasals |
m [m] (m) |
n [n] (n) |
||||||||||
| Lateral |
l [l] (l) |
|||||||||||
| * This is not the aspirated, but the voiced variant of [ʂ] . | ||||||||||||
Finals
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| LO | ai | e | ouch | ou | on | ën | nec | closely |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | [aɪ] | [eɪ] | [aʊ] | [ɤʊ] | [on] | [ən] | [ɑŋ] | [əŋ] |
| LO | ia ya |
iä yä |
iao yao |
iu yu |
iän yän |
in yin |
iang yang |
ing ying |
| IPA | [iɑ] | [iɛ] | [iaʊ] | [iɤʊ] | [iɛn] | [in] | [iɑŋ] | [in] |
| LO | ua wa |
uo where |
uai wai |
ui we |
uan wan |
un wën |
uang wang |
ung wung |
| IPA | [uɑ] | [uɔ] | [uaɪ] | [ueɪ] | [uan] | [uən] | [uɑŋ] | [əŋ] |
| LO | üä | üan | ün | iung | ||||
| IPA | [yɛ] | [yɛn] | [yn] | [yuŋ] | ||||
See also
literature
- Ferdinand Lessing, Wilhelm Othmer: Course of the North Chinese colloquial language . Part 1 in 2 volumes. Tsingtau: German-Chinese printer and publishing house, 1912. Note: A planned second and third volume have not been published due to the beginning of the First World War. A second, unchanged edition appeared in 1933 on commission from M. Noessler & Co. in Shanghai. Othmer also made an English translation: Ferdinand Lessing, Wilhelm Othmer: Manual of the mandarin language . Shanghai [u. a.]: Kelly & Walsh, 1914
- Ching-yü Chow, Wilhelm Chan: Samples of Chinese literary and colloquial language, in the original text with German a. engl. Transl., As well as in transcription after Lessing-Othmer ud System d. Association phonétique internationale spoken or sung on records . Under Leitg by Wilhelm Schüler. Sperlings Phonotek, No. 14055-14060, Stuttgart: O. Sperling, 1929
- Klaus Kaden: The most important transcription systems for the Chinese language. An introduction to self-study , Leipzig 1983 (2nd edition), see in particular pages 28–33: The German transcription by Lessing / Othmer