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Ever since I laid my eyes on the first chapter of A Study in Scarlet, which was many years ago, I have been addicted to reading the detective’s sharp-witted logical reasoning and his use of forensic science to solve unsolvable cold cases. In order to show my devotion above all, I have decided to read the detective stories in both English and Chinese, which brought me into question: Why was the detective’s name translated as “福尔摩斯” (Mandarin pronunciation: Fu-er-mo-si), when it sounds nothing like the English pronunciation for Sherlock Holmes?

Legend has it that – when Lin Shu (林纾), a man-of-letter famous for introducing more than 170 western literature to Chinese readers, first translated the detective stories, it was translated based on his mother tongue, Min Nan dialect.

Min Nan, being a family of the Chinese languages, is no stranger to many Singaporeans. It includes Hokkien, Teo Chew, Hainanese & etc. In Min Nan languages, /f/ and /h/ are often being confused and pronounced as the same phoneme. For example, 福建is pronounced as fu-jian in Mandarin; however, the two characters become ho-gian when being spoken in Hokkien dialect. Same rule applies to the mysterious name of our most-cherished detective. 福尔摩斯, when being uttered in Min Nan Languages, would sound like “ho-ee-mo-see” or “hock-ee-buah-see”, which is very much alike the English name, “Holmes”.

by Lucas, ACTC