Transliterations of Loughborough

I have just noticed that Google Maps transliterates Loughborough into Chinese as 拉夫伯勒 http://ta.gd/拉夫伯勒地图。 The transliteration I have been using and that is in common usage is 拉夫堡。 Considering Google is so influential I think that 拉夫伯勒 will become the standard transliteration for Loughborough.

LA & NYC

I am totally impressed by:

• Los Angeles ロサンゼルス.jp
• New York City ニューヨークシティ.jp

Not only do these sites have Japanese IDNs but also the pathnames are written in Japanese. Try navigating round the sites and you will see what I mean. So the whole URL is internationalized and not just the Domain Name.

Here are a couple of examples:

http://ロサンゼルス.jp/カテゴリー/ショッピング which I translate as
http://Los Angeles.jp/category/shopping

http://ニューヨークシティ.jp/カテゴリー/レストラン which I translate as
http://New York City.jp/category/restaurant

Alphabet

I have found several Japanese Companies that have Latin Alphabet acronyms. These acronyms are usually also transliterated into Katakana 片仮名. Frequently, the components of the Katakana acronym are separated by the katakana middle dot. IDC, for example, is written as アイ・ディー・シー As I find these transliterations I will enter into the table below. I am not sure how long it will take me to complete this table.

A	エー	B	ビー	C	スィー	D	ディー
E	イー	F	エフ	G	ジー	H	エイチ
I	アイ	J	ジェー	K	ケー	L	エル
M	エム	N	エヌ	O	オー	P	ピー
Q	キュー	R	アール	S	エス	T	ティ
U	ユー	V	ヴィー	W		X	エクス
Y	ワイ	Z

Kashi

Kashi is a recently opened Japanese Yakiniko restaurant in Leicester レスター. I received a leaflet about Kashi this week. The only Kanji on the leaflet was 川岸 which literally means River Bank. The romanization of 川岸 is kawagishi. Another Japanese word that means River bank is 河岸 and it's romanization is kashi. So there is some fascinating word play going on here. Both 川岸 and 河岸 are also family and place names.

I deduce that yakiniko is an anglicised form of yakiniku? The kanji for yakiniku is 焼き肉 or 焼肉

Next time I am in Leicester レスター I will visit Kashi and ask them about the origin of their romanized name Kashi.

Kashi Japanese Yakiniko Restaurant

84-86 Granby Street, Leicester LE1 1DJ

tel: 0116 285 8818

map: http://ta.gd/川岸

Acronym IDNs

Latin Script acronyms are common place. Much more interesting are acronyms in non latin scripts. Even more interesting is when non latin script acronyms are used for IDNs. Below, I list acronym IDNs I have found. I list both the full form and the acronym form.

1. Beijing University 北京大学.中国 北大.中国
2. Beijing University 北京大學.中國 北大.中國
3. HongKong University 香港大學.hk 港大.hk
4. Okayama University 岡山大学.jp 岡大.jp

DDN Co. Ltd, Japan, has an acronym as their Company name. They have an IDN which is also an acronym. Their IDN is a transliteration of DDN into Japanese Katakana where ディー is D and N is エヌ.

• DDN Co. Ltd ディーディーエヌ.jp

Languages

　There is a family set of developed Japanese IDNs that are intended for Japanese people who are learning languages. They are all hosted on the same server.

• Arabic ➫ アラビア語.jp
• French ➫ フランス語.jp
• Italian ➫ イタリア語.jp
• Portugese ➫ ポルトガル語.jp
• Russian ➫ ロシア語.jp
• Spanish ➫ スペイン語.jp

Samsung 삼성

 Samsung has a very interesting IDN. It is an acronym for Samsung. http://ㅅㅅ.com/ In the western world, we are familiar with acronyms for companies eg BT for British Telecom. The Korean for Samsung is 삼성. Take the initial letter/jamo from each syllable and one then has the Korean acronym for Samsung, ㅅㅅ.

City Maps

　Below I list some Google City Maps that use the Region Language. If you are using an English setup then it is most likely that links you create will have the host language set to English (hl=en). I modified the links to resolve to region language maps. I changed hl=en to hl=zh-CN, hl=ko, hl=zh-TW and hl=ja, respectively. With hl=en you will get a hybrid of English and the region language.

• Běijīng ta.gd/北京地图
• Pánjǐn ta.gd/盘锦地图
• Seoul ta.gd/서울지도
• Táiběi ta.gd/台北地圖
• Tokyo ta.gd/東京地図

Howl's Moving Castle

　The award winning Japanese animation Howl's Moving Castle ハウルの動く城 is being shown at the Cope Auditorium, Loughborough ラフバラ University School of Art & Design, on Thursday March 11th 2010 at 6.30pm. Free Entry! There is a Wikipedia ウィキペディア article about ハウルの動く城 at ta.gd/ハウルの動く城
　This event is being organised by Loughborough ラフバラ Student Union and is sponsored by Santander Universities.

Korean IDNs

• 시화교회백화점.com
• 대리운전서비스.com
• 아이지키미.com
• 에어로빅복.kr
• 나이트.kr
• 시와시인.kr
• 교육넷.net
• 유명갈비.kr
• 소아청소년.kr
• 우리주차장.com
• 서울통상.kr
• 수용.com
• 임용고시.kr
• 영등포문화원.kr
• 파인뉴스.kr
• 엘빠띠오.com
• 해운대레저.com
• 모텔여정.com
• 호월검도.com
• 거제도펜션.kr
• 거인관.kr
• 탈모클리닉.net
• 승민주말농장.com
• 성창스톤.com
• 고창국화축제.com
• 꽃지.kr
• 체험학습.kr
• 지식거래.com
• 교동마을.com
• 경희궁부페.kr
• 목포문화연대.net
• 목동튼튼영어.com
• 아폴로보온병.com
• 엠비씨.com
• 춘천야깅.com

Loughborough Jmap

　This week I discovered that Google Maps have done an amazing job on transliterating English Place and Street names into Japanese Katakana. I am totally impressed. I looked at the Japanese Google Map for Loughborough ラフバラ

• doiop.com/ラフバラ
• ta.gd/ラフバラー

　Zoom out to see Town and City names transliterated into Japanese Katakana カタカナ

Japanese IDNs

1. いっぱい情報.jp
2. おとく.com
3. ブログ稼ぐ.jp
4. 虎王戦.jp
5. 黒ぶた.jp
6. 幻視球.net
7. ビッグバンド.jp
8. マルユー.com
9. 純道.com
10. えべチュン.jp
11. 野菜ジュース.jp
12. プラネタリウム.jp
13. チョーヤ.jp
14. 総統の夢.jp
15. 山鬼.com
16. ゴスペル東京.jp
17. 明治.jp
18. 明治製菓.jp
19. Bear Racing Service ベア.jp
20. Bowling Online Shop ボウリング通販.com
21. Cat's Cradle あやとり.com
22. Chiba Sewing Machines 千葉ミシン.com
23. Cos Wig コスプレウイッグ.jp
24. Denki･House でんきはうすいのうえ.jp
25. Eyelash Beauty まつげ美容液.com
26. Fiore esthetic salon & school フィオーレ.com
27. FreeBit dot com フリービット・ドットコム.jp
28. Fujigoko Cyber City 富士五湖.jp
29. FutureSpirits フューチャースピリッツ.jp
30. Gion Festival 祇園祭.jp
31. Happy Wedding - International Marriage 国際結婚ガイド.com
32. Hokuriku Telecommunication Network 北陸通信ネットワーク.jp
33. Jewelry Sanvi サンビ.jp
34. Kitchen Timers キッチンタイマー.com
35. Kouchi Fishing Club 高知釣吉クラブ.com
36. Kyoto Youth Groups 京都青年団体会議.com
37. Los Angeles ロサンゼルス.jp
38. Momotarou Real Estate 桃太郎不動産.jp
39. Naomichi Uramoto Official Web 浦本修充.jp
40. New York City ニューヨークシティ.jp
41. Pommes de Terre Restaurant 洋食屋.jp
42. Saifu Honpo 財布本舗.jp
43. Samurai Cover Shop: iPhone cases アイフォンケース.com
44. Shinran Association Blog Portal 親鸞会.com
45. Taiyaki Blog http://たい焼.jp/
46. Taguchi Animal Hospital 田口動物病院.com
47. Twilight Express Overnight Train Service トワイライトエクスプレス.com
48. Uesugi Kenshin 上杉謙信.jp
49. Voice Training ボイストレーニング.jp
50. Wonder Dream Web Shop ワンダードリーム.jp
51. Yahata Neji 八幡ねじ.jp
52. Yamada-ku Youth Association 山田区青年会.jp