How to pronounce 北人?

PtrTlr
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How to pronounce 北人?

Postby PtrTlr » 2015-09-11, 18:02

The novel "Eaters of the Dead" by Micheal Crichton was published in Japan under the title "北人伝説". I have not found 北人 as a common noun in my dictionaries, but there is a given name spelled 北人 which is pronounced Hokujin. Are there any reasons not to suppose the common noun to be pronounced the same? I mean, the word is a compound, which makes the Sino-Japanese pronunciation very probable, yet there are still words like 北風 (kitakaze), 北国 (kitaguni) or 村人 (murabito).

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linguoboy
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Re: How to pronounce 北人?

Postby linguoboy » 2015-09-11, 18:15

PtrTlr wrote:The novel "Eaters of the Dead" by Micheal Crichton was published in Japan under the title "北人伝説". I have not found 北人 as a common noun in my dictionaries, but there is a given name spelled 北人 which is pronounced Hokujin. Are there any reasons not to suppose the common noun to be pronounced the same? I mean, the word is a compound, which makes the Sino-Japanese pronunciation very probable, yet there are still words like 北風 (kitakaze), 北国 (kitaguni) or 村人 (murabito).

I looked up the title on WorldCat, a union catalog of the holdings of more than 10,000 libraries, including all major North American ones. All records in non-Roman script are required to include transcriptions, and you'll see that "北人伝説" is rendered "Hokujin densetsu". There are some other titles with 北人 in the title, and when it's not a proper name it's transcribed hokujin in these as well.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

PtrTlr
Posts:21
Joined:2011-10-27, 11:46
Country:PLPoland (Polska)

Re: How to pronounce 北人?

Postby PtrTlr » 2015-09-11, 18:30

It is all clear now. The link is very useful too. Thank you for your answer.


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