DISTRICT AND STREET NAMES IN CHINESE

DISTRICT AND STREET NAMES IN CHINESE

1.

Prof. Ivan Png Paak Liang asked the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance whether he will review all Chinese district and street names so that the names are intuitive and consistent in the Chinese translation, for instance (i) changing "邓 波 街" ( deng bo jie ) to "庙 街" ( miao jie ) for "Temple Street"; "里 巴 巴 利" ( li ba ba li ) to "河 谷" ( he gu ) for "River Valley"; and "马 林 百 列" ( ma lin bai lie ) to "海 旁" ( hai pang ) for "Marine Parade"; (ii) deciding whether "Bukit" should be translated to "山" ( shan ) as in "红 山" ( hong shan ) or "武 吉" ( wu ji ) as in "武 吉 巴 督" ( wu ji ba du ); and (iii) reconsidering whether "Jalan" should be translated as "路" ( lu ) rather than "惹 兰" ( re lan ).

Mr Lee Hsien Loong: The naming of streets and places is under the purview of the Street and Building Names Board (SBNB), chaired by Mr Chan Soo Sen, Minister of State for Education.

The Chinese names for some streets and roads are based on the English pronunciation rather than the meaning of the words. This is to recognise the popular and actual usage of the street names. These names were used naturally by people regardless of their spoken language. The translation of "Marine Parade" to "马 林百 列" and " River Valley " to "里 巴 巴 利" are two such examples.

The existing Chinese street names should generally be retained. Many of the names, including those that the Member had cited, have been in use for a long time and are now widely accepted and familiar to Singaporeans. To change the Chinese names now would confuse the public.

The translation of street names in Chinese is guided by the Report of the Committee on the Standardisation of Street Names in Chinese which was released in 1970. Following a review of all the existing street names in Chinese, the Committee set out these general principles:

- To provide more readable street names in Chinese.

- For the purpose of transliteration, Mandarin pronunciation should generally be taken as the basis.

- Wherever possible, the characters chosen should bear the same or similar pronunciations in all the major Chinese dialects spoken in Singapore.

- Care should be taken in the choice of Chinese characters to avoid such homonyms that if pronounced in Chinese dialects, might carry undesirable connotations or lend themselves to such interpretations.

- As far as possible, transliterations should not only be a faithful rendering by sound but should also be elegant and meaningful.

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- Unstressed consonants may be omitted in the Chinese renditions so as to reduce the rendering to the minimum number of words.

- Where a street name should be transliterated, the descriptive terms could be translated (for example, Bedok North is "勿洛北").

The Committee also provided a list of the standardised names to ensure consistency in the Chinese translation. For instance, "street" should be translated to "街" and "hill" should be "山".

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