Talk:ヘリウム

Pronunciation

@Eirikr IMO, "Given the Japanese pronunciation of the initial mora as /he/ rather than the /hi/ expected to match the English pronunciation, a derivation from German seems more likely." is one of your poor arguments about the so-called "pronunciation" in question. You seem to be confused about the difference between "pronunciation" and "transcription" (like the time you argued about how "exceedingly" rare the "v" sound is in Japanese: for the record, I totally agree with that; the "v" sound may be rare, but the written transcription ヴ may not): sure, transcription into Japanese is essentially based on the original phonemes of the source languages, but there are plenty of examples that don't follow any expected transcription rules: デーモン, オーストラリア, スタジオ, スタジアム, メッセージ, オープン, ランダム, ハーレー, バレエ, etc. ばかFumiko￥^talk 09:01, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

• Regarding ヘリウム, there are multiple potential sources listed in Japanese resources. Part of what we can do is provide some additional information about which one may be more likely, while also clearly stating that this is only a theory -- which I have done here at ヘリウム.

If you're concerned that initial he- in English should always be ヘ in Japanese, I note that ヒール (hīru, “heal”), ヘルス (herusu, “health”), and ハート (hāto, “heart”), among many examples, all follow the English pronunciation rather than the English spelling.

Some of your examples are a bit confusing. オーストラリア (Ōsutoraria), for instance, is pronounced (and spelled) with a leading オー, perhaps the closest Japanese match to the /ɔ/ sound in English. And, indeed, Japanese historically had this sound for a while in the development of the volitional /oː/ ending, among other places, where /au/ transitioned to /ɔː/ and thence to /oː/. So starting with オー rather than アウ hews closer to the etymon's pronunciation than the spelling. The rest of the term also matches what we would expect in a kana-ization of the English pronunciation. オープン (ōpun) similarly tracks the English etymon's pronunciation rather than the spelling. As does ランダム (randamu), and バレエ (barē). ... I'm not sure what your point is there?

Do you instead mean to emphasize cases where the Japanese term arises from an English etymon, and the Japanese term hews closer to the English spelling rather than the pronunciation? If you disagree with the suggestion of a German origin for ヘリウム (heriumu), providing an alternative reasoning is much more preferable than simply removing content.

• <蛇足> Re: ヴ, that's not just "exceedingly rare" in Japanese -- it flat-out doesn't exist for anything other than borrowed terms, and only terms borrowed more recently, at that. I also consulted with several native speakers in addition to the online search results described at Talk:ヴェネツィア, and they all agreed that ヴェネツィア as a spelling looked very "un-Japanese", and that ベネチア seemed more natural. This corroborated what I was finding in Japanese reference works and the general trend in online hits. </蛇足>

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 03:09, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Eirikr I don't know how many more times I have to stress this, but again, it's about transcription, not pronunciation. With all due respect, sir, you're throwing at me a bunch of phonetic gibberish. I did my homework, I've read enough about historical sound changes and whatnot. You of all people should know that transcription into Japanese is not something to be generalized, to be expected any kind of absolute rule from.

1- Transcription into Japanese is not simply based on the phonology of the source language, but also the spelling (cf dyuaru "dual", dyueru "duel"). This is due to the fact that Japanese has a fairly small phoneme inventory. That results in a transliteration-ish way of transcription rather than a pure one. To assume that certain "sounds" must be perfectly converted to certain so-called Japanese phonetic equivalents is naive, and ignorant.

2- Certain categories of words don't follow expected general patterns of transcription. Those are a few well-known place names, and in this case, the names of chemical elements. They follow their own patterns. E.g.: Kariforunia, etc. Again, it's just ludicrous to expect absolute rules for all cases.

3- "If you're concerned that initial he- in English should always be ヘ in Japanese" What in the world are you even talking about? Did I show such concern? And ē or e for /i:/ or /i/ or even /ɪ/ would be the least "unlikely" transcription (cf dēmon "demon", hārē "harley", messēji "message"); if anything, it should be considered an obscure case. If you're really concerned about "unlikeliness", you should've taken note about umu for um; the "likely", expected transcription is amu.

4- What you're providing there is a theory, sure. Japanese etymology is pretty much theoretical for most cases. You can't take well-known dictionaries seriously if they can't even get the original spellings right. It is your reasoning that is not sensible: given this given that, pronunciation and whatnot. Again, it's transcription, and it's not to be generalized to absolute expected patterns and rules.

5- "I'm not sure what your point is there?" What is my point? It is transcription, it is not perfect, there are tons of exceptions or unexpected examples, and it is not to be generalized to absolute rules or patterns!

6- My reasoning is, just don't even include such an unreasonable reasoning. It looks really dumb. ばかFumiko￥^talk 13:36, 29 August 2016 (UTC)