[Buddha-l] Ts'ao-ch'i or Caoxi?

[JKirkpatrick]

Weng Fai briought out an interesting aspect to this little
discussion. Check it out.
JK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Hi Mitchell,

> why it is that the Wade-Giles references were mostly all to the

> Ts'ao-ch'i pronunciation and the Pinyin to the other, Caoqi (in
W-G, ts'ao-hsi)?

I don't know. There may be a specific answer (e.g., local
preference), but more likely someone started to transcribe it one
way, and everyone else just followed suit (there is a lot of that
sort of falling in line in East Asian studies). While
theoretically either pronunciation is possible, the locals
probably say it one way or the other, not either way. Whether
either the W-G or pinyin are based on actual local pronunciation,
or just the preferences and hunches of armchair sinologists, I
don't know.

Is this important, or just a matter of curiosity?

Dan 

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