Pinyin Syllables and Apostrophes: Zie or Zi'e

[cola]

I know it's common to combine the two characters in someone's first name. For example, Zhang Zi Yi is written as Zhang Ziyi.

What if someone is named Zhang Zi E? Does it become Zhang Zie?

Thanks.

[Phil]

I don't know. But I suspect that the same rule might apply as in other Pinyin transliterations where the results of eliding the transliterations of two separate hanzi could lead to ambiguity : one inserts an apostrophe, as in Xi'an. So, for "Zhang Zi E", I would be inclined to write "Zhang Zi'e", not "Zhang Zie". The apostrophe makes the two syllables (of "Zi'e") explicit, whereas "Zie" with no apostrophe would have one syllable.

Philip Taylor

[Gurulu]

Phil is correct. We usually do that. And to be honest, we usually do Zhang Zi Yi instead of Zhang Ziyi. The latter is mainly for westerners.

[roddy]

You need the Font of all Pinyin Knowledge.

The latter is mainly for westerners.

And mainly right.

[Hofmann]

When the next syllable begins with "a", "e", or "o" an apostrophe is used, unless preceded by something that isn't a letter. Therefore it is used even if there is no ambiguity, such as in "zie".

[Lu]

Or Wang Quan'an. Even though strictly speaking Quanan or Zie isn't ambiguous, my eyes always stumble over such mistakes.

[roddy]

Does this mean I can't put an apostrophe in Angang if it's An+Gang? Because it really really looks like it needs one, and having to think 'maybe that's ang+ang, oh no it can't be as there's no apostrophe' seems a bit round the houses.

[imron]

Yes. Angang is an gang. The only valid place for an apostrophe in that pinyin sequence is ang'ang.

[roddy]

But don't you WANT to put one there?

[imron]

I want to, but Pinyinput won't let me ;)

[jbradfor]

But don't you WANT to put one there?

Not really, actually.

[Taibei]

Hofmann is correct. The rule, as I put it elsewhere, is "Put an apostrophe before any syllable that begins with a, e, or o, unless that syllable comes at the beginning of a word or immediately follows a hyphen or other dash." So it's definitely "Zhang Zi'e", not "Zhang Zie". One doesn't need to wonder whether something is ambiguous or not when Pinyin is written correctly.

In Pinyin, apostrophes don't ever come between n and g. I think that the tendency for some to do a double take on things like "Angang" is just a matter of not having a lot of practice reading extended texts in correctly written Pinyin. (Alas, there are so many examples of poorly written Pinyin that they make things harder for everyone.) If there were more Pinyin out there and it were written correctly, I think most people's troubles with it (real or imagined) would quickly fall away.

As for whether to write "Zhang Zi Yi" or "Zhang Ziyi", however common is might be for some people to break up given names "Zhang Zi Yi" is simply wrong. "Zhang Ziyi" is correct. (See section 2.3.)

The rules aren't different for Westerners than they are for Chinese. The rules of Pinyin are the same for everyone. It's a great shame that more people -- esp. Chinese -- aren't taught them.

[Lu]

But don't you WANT to put one there?

Not really, I kinda automatically read things like that right. Now if I could get fully used to putting the apostrophe in Tian'anmen...