To decide which option is correct - "Mitsubishi" or "Mitsubishi" - first, let's approach the issue from a scientific, linguistic point of view. But don’t be alarmed, everything here is simple and very interesting.
In 1917, Russian linguist and orientalist Evgeniy Dmitrievich Polivanov was the first to develop a system for writing Japanese words in Cyrillic, which is still actively used today and is known as the Polivanov system.
All summary tables can be easily found on the Internet, and we won’t blow your mind with the facts that the Japanese alphabet is syllabic. It is now important for us to find out how the controversial syllables should be read. And they, according to Polivanov, should be read as “si” and not “shi”, “ti” and not “chi”, “xia” and not “sha”, “syu” and not “shu” and etc. Thus, it would be more correct to pronounce “Mitsubishi”.
And everything would be simple and clear if it weren’t for another linguist, Comrade James Curtis Hepburn, who was still in late XIX century, proposed his own version for transcribing the Japanese language. In accordance with it, it is more correct to read “Mitsubishi”. And this is where the main reason for the current discrepancies lies: Polivanov’s system was created for the Cyrillic alphabet, and Hepburn’s system for the Latin alphabet.
You can make a lot of sushi from this tuna. Yes, yes, exactly sushi.
It would seem - let them pronounce it as they want overseas with their Hepburn! But why then is Hepburn’s version so firmly rooted in the Russian language? It's simple. Even before people began to delve into the nuances of pronunciation, the names of imported goods entering our market were presented in Latin, and under the avalanche of Toshiba computers and Nakamichi audio systems, people somehow did not think much about the origin and correct reading these names - they taught us in English lessons at school that sh is read as "sh", well, that's all! What questions? At the same time, what’s interesting is that specifically with Mitsubishi, the situation was better at first - both options existed in Russian speech on approximately equal terms. But then the fashion for English-language names took over, including over advertisers, who from every angle convinced that it was necessary to pronounce “shi”. The control shot was the transition to the Hepburn pronunciation of the official Mitsubishi representative office. Polivanov is tired of spinning in his grave, in a word.
Well, then such a merciless linguistic phenomenon comes into play as transmission by tradition - this is when people pronounce a word incorrectly for so long, persistently and en masse that this incorrect version is eventually accepted as the norm. For example, you will never force anyone to pronounce the national Moscow dish “sushi” as “sushi” - you just have to accept it.
A ray of light is shed in this dark kingdom geographical names- they, as a rule, took root in the Russian language even before the invasion of foreign brands. We call Hiroshima Hiroshima, although logically we should say “Hiroshima” - in English this city is written as Hiroshima.
Toshiba laptops work normally only for those who know how to pronounce their name.
In this case, it would be logical to turn to native speakers and listen to how they pronounce controversial sounds, but the Japanese are no help in this matter: if you listen carefully, they generally produce some kind of peculiar sound, something between “s” and “ w", "t" and "ch". Apparently not to offend anyone. Although even before the end of World War II, the Japanese were on “our” side: in order to transcribe Japanese names in letters of the Latin alphabet, Japan itself introduced the official “kunrei-shiki” system, which prescribed that controversial sounds should also be conveyed in Latin in the same way as the one already familiar to you suggests Comrade Polivanov. But we all remember how the Second World War ended for the Japanese, and hard “s” and “t” are inconvenient for Americans to pronounce, so Hepburn with his “comfortable” transcription came in handy. Armed with such a theoretical basis, we turned to the Russian representative office of Mitsubishi to find out their opinion on this matter.
MMS Rus LLC, the exclusive distributor of Mitsubishi cars in Russia, adheres in its communications to the following pronunciation of the Mitsubishi brand - “Mitsubishchi”. In the original, in Japanese, the pronunciation of the sound ending of the brand sounds like “SHCHI” - “Mitsubishchi”. Thus, the sound is much closer to “SHI” and has almost nothing in common with “SI”. From a phonetic point of view, “MitsubiSHI” is closest to the original (Japanese) sound of the brand.
Ekaterina Kolesnikova, senior manager for public relations, Mitsubishi Motors Russia
The opinions of the representative office and linguists, as you can see, differed. So where is the truth? Maybe all these theoretical calculations by Polivanov are already outdated? To find out, we turned to a person who knows first-hand about the living Japanese language. TASS news agency correspondent Alexey Zavrachaev, a certified Japanese specialist and a big fan of cars, has been living and working in Japan for a long time and understands the intricacies of pronunciation of Japanese names like no one else.
“If we go into the current rules of the Russian language, then it is correct to transcribe this word as “Mitsubishi”. Everything is simple here: there is the so-called Polivanov system, according to which each syllable in the Japanese language corresponds to an analogue in Russian. Thus, options like “Mitsubishi” are discarded "I would like to give the example of sushi and sushi, but here it turns out to be a different story: sushi won a landslide, because, as my Russian language teacher at the university said, the norm prohibits, but the usus (society) implements it," Alexey takes Polivanov’s side.
The fact that “Mitsubishi” sounds much more familiar to the Japanese than “Mitsubishi” is perfectly confirmed by the following video, in which a charming Japanese woman pronounces the names of car brands in the original language. By the way, pay attention to the background in the frame - the girl is clearly in the mood!
In a word, say “Mitsubishi”, but don’t get into a fight over “sushi” - traditions are strong, what can you do?
So again:
Mitsubishi
CORRECT: Mitsubishi
WRONG: Mitsubishi
Do you think that you already know the whole truth about foreign languages? No matter how it is. There are still many fierce discussions ahead about how to correctly pronounce certain names - German, Italian, French, Korean... The philological war is just beginning, and we will surprise you!
Having tried to put an end to this issue, we suddenly found ourselves under the crossfire of a heated discussion between linguists-translators and official representation. Not everything is as simple as it might seem. To decide which option is correct - “Mitsubishi” or “Mitsubishi” - first, let’s approach the issue from a scientific, linguistic point of view. But don’t be alarmed, everything here is simple and very interesting. Our colleagues from the AvtoVesti magazine looked into the issue.
In 1917, Russian linguist and orientalist Evgeniy Dmitrievich Polivanov was the first to develop a system for writing Japanese words in Cyrillic, which is still actively used today and is known as the Polivanov system. According to Polivanov, the controversial syllables should be read as “si” and not “shi”, “ti” and not “chi”, “xia” and not “sha”, “syu” and not “shu” and so on. Thus, it would be more correct to pronounce “Mitsubishi”.
And everything would have been simple and clear if not for another linguist, Comrade James Curtis Hepburn, who at the end of the 19th century proposed his own version for transcribing the Japanese language. In accordance with it, it is more correct to read “Mitsubishi”. And this is where the main reason for the current discrepancies lies: Polivanov’s system was created for the Cyrillic alphabet, and Hepburn’s system for the Latin alphabet.
It would seem - let them pronounce it as they want overseas with their Hepburn! But why then is the Hepburn version so firmly rooted in the Russian language? It's simple. Even before people began to delve into the nuances of pronunciation, the names of imported goods entering our market were presented in the Latin alphabet, and under the avalanche of Toshiba computers and Nakamichi audio systems, people somehow did not really think about the origin and correct reading of these names - they were taught in school in English lessons that sh is read as "sh", well, that's all! What questions? At the same time, what’s interesting is that specifically with Mitsubishi, the situation was better at first - both options existed in Russian speech on approximately equal terms. But then the fashion for English-language names took over, including over advertisers, who from every angle convinced that it was necessary to pronounce “shi”. The control shot was the transition to the Hepburn pronunciation of the official Mitsubishi representative office. Polivanov is tired of spinning in his grave, in a word.
Well, then such a merciless linguistic phenomenon comes into play as transmission by tradition - this is when people pronounce a word incorrectly for so long, persistently and en masse that this incorrect version is eventually accepted as the norm. For example, you will never force anyone to pronounce the Ukrainian dish “sushi” as “sushi” - you just have to accept it.
In this case, it would be logical to turn to native speakers and listen to how they pronounce controversial sounds, but the Japanese are no help in this matter: if you listen carefully, they generally produce some kind of peculiar sound, something between “s” and “ w", "t" and "ch". Apparently not to offend anyone.
Armed with such a theoretical basis, we turned to the Russian representative office of Mitsubishi to find out their opinion on this matter: “In the original, in Japanese, the pronunciation of the sound ending of the brand sounds like “SHCHI” - “Mitsubishchi”. Thus, the sound is much closer to “SHI” and has almost nothing in common with “SI”. From a phonetic point of view, “MitsubiSHI” is closest to the original (Japanese) sound of the brand.”
The opinions of the representative office and linguists, as you can see, differed. So where is the truth? Maybe all these theoretical calculations by Polivanov are already outdated? To find out, we turned to a person who knows first-hand about the living Japanese language. TASS news agency correspondent Alexey Zavrachaev, a certified Japanese specialist and a big fan of cars, has been living and working in Japan for a long time and understands the intricacies of pronunciation of Japanese names like no one else.
“If we go into the current rules of the Russian language, then it is correct to transcribe this word as “Mitsubishi”. Everything is simple here: there is the so-called Polivanov system, according to which each syllable in the Japanese language corresponds to an analogue in Russian. Thus, options like “Mitsubishi” are discarded "I would like to give the example of sushi and sushi, but here it turns out to be a different story: sushi won a landslide, because, as my Russian language teacher at the university said, the norm prohibits, but the usus (society) implements it," Alexey takes Polivanov’s side.
The fact that “Mitsubishi” sounds much more familiar to the Japanese than “Mitsubishi” is perfectly confirmed by the following video, in which a charming Japanese woman pronounces the names of car brands in the original language. By the way, pay attention to the background in the frame - the girl is clearly in the mood!
To decide which option is correct - "Mitsubishi" or "Mitsubishi" - first, let's approach the issue from a scientific, linguistic point of view. But don’t be alarmed, everything here is simple and very interesting.
In 1917, Russian linguist and orientalist Evgeniy Dmitrievich Polivanov was the first to develop a system for writing Japanese words in Cyrillic, which is still actively used today and is known as the Polivanov system.
All summary tables can be easily found on the Internet, and we won’t blow your mind with the facts that the Japanese alphabet is syllabic. It is now important for us to find out how the controversial syllables should be read. And they, according to Polivanov, should be read as “si” and not “shi”, “ti” and not “chi”, “xia” and not “sha”, “syu” and not “shu” and etc. Thus, it would be more correct to pronounce “Mitsubishi”.
And everything would have been simple and clear if not for another linguist, Comrade James Curtis Hepburn, who at the end of the 19th century proposed his own version for transcribing the Japanese language. In accordance with it, it is more correct to read “Mitsubishi”. And this is where the main reason for the current discrepancies lies: Polivanov’s system was created for the Cyrillic alphabet, and Hepburn’s system for the Latin alphabet.
You can make a lot of sushi from this tuna. Yes, yes, exactly sushi.
It would seem - let them pronounce it as they want overseas with their Hepburn! But why then is the Hepburn version so firmly rooted in the Russian language? It's simple. Even before people began to delve into the nuances of pronunciation, the names of imported goods entering our market were presented in the Latin alphabet, and under the avalanche of Toshiba computers and Nakamichi audio systems, people somehow did not really think about the origin and correct reading of these names - they were taught in school in English lessons that sh is read as "sh", well, that's all! What questions? At the same time, what’s interesting is that specifically with Mitsubishi, the situation was better at first - both options existed in Russian speech on approximately equal terms. But then the fashion for English-language names took over, including over advertisers, who from every angle convinced that it was necessary to pronounce “shi”. The control shot was the transition to the Hepburn pronunciation of the official Mitsubishi representative office. Polivanov is tired of spinning in his grave, in a word.
Well, then such a merciless linguistic phenomenon comes into play as transmission by tradition - this is when people pronounce a word incorrectly for so long, persistently and en masse that this incorrect version is eventually accepted as the norm. For example, you will never force anyone to pronounce the national Moscow dish “sushi” as “sushi” - you just have to accept it.
Geographical names shed a ray of light in this dark kingdom - they, as a rule, took root in the Russian language even before the invasion of foreign brands. We call Hiroshima Hiroshima, although logically we should say “Hiroshima” - in English this city is written as Hiroshima.
Toshiba laptops work normally only for those who know how to pronounce their name.
In this case, it would be logical to turn to native speakers and listen to how they pronounce controversial sounds, but the Japanese are no help in this matter: if you listen carefully, they generally produce some kind of peculiar sound, something between “s” and “ w", "t" and "ch". Apparently not to offend anyone. Although even before the end of World War II, the Japanese were on “our” side: in order to transcribe Japanese names in letters of the Latin alphabet, Japan itself introduced the official “kunrei-shiki” system, which prescribed that controversial sounds should also be conveyed in Latin in the same way as the one already familiar to you suggests Comrade Polivanov. But we all remember how the Second World War ended for the Japanese, and hard “s” and “t” are inconvenient for Americans to pronounce, so Hepburn with his “comfortable” transcription came in handy. Armed with such a theoretical basis, we turned to the Russian representative office of Mitsubishi to find out their opinion on this matter.
MMS Rus LLC, the exclusive distributor of Mitsubishi cars in Russia, adheres in its communications to the following pronunciation of the Mitsubishi brand - “Mitsubishchi”. In the original, in Japanese, the pronunciation of the sound ending of the brand sounds like “SCHI” - “Mitsubishchi”. Thus, the sound is much closer to “SHI” and has almost nothing in common with “SI”. From a phonetic point of view, “MitsubiSHI” is closest to the original (Japanese) sound of the brand.
Ekaterina Kolesnikova, senior manager for public relations, Mitsubishi Motors Russia
The opinions of the representative office and linguists, as you can see, differed. So where is the truth? Maybe all these theoretical calculations by Polivanov are already outdated? To find out, we turned to a person who knows first-hand about the living Japanese language. TASS news agency correspondent Alexey Zavrachaev, a certified Japanese specialist and a big fan of cars, has been living and working in Japan for a long time and understands the intricacies of pronunciation of Japanese names like no one else.
“If we go into the current rules of the Russian language, then it is correct to transcribe this word as “Mitsubishi”. Everything is simple here: there is the so-called Polivanov system, according to which each syllable in the Japanese language corresponds to an analogue in Russian. Thus, options like “Mitsubishi” are discarded "I would like to give the example of sushi and sushi, but here it turns out to be a different story: sushi won a landslide, because, as my Russian language teacher at the university said, the norm prohibits, but the usus (society) implements it," Alexey takes Polivanov’s side.
The fact that “Mitsubishi” sounds much more familiar to the Japanese than “Mitsubishi” is perfectly confirmed by the following video, in which a charming Japanese woman pronounces the names of car brands in the original language. By the way, pay attention to the background in the frame - the girl is clearly in the mood!
In a word, say “Mitsubishi”, but don’t get into a fight over “sushi” - traditions are strong, what can you do?
So again:
Mitsubishi
CORRECT: Mitsubishi
WRONG: Mitsubishi
Do you think that you already know the whole truth about foreign languages? No matter how it is. There are still many fierce discussions ahead about how to correctly pronounce certain names - German, Italian, French, Korean... The philological war is just beginning, and we will surprise you!
Disputes about correct pronunciation and the spelling of the name of the Mitsubishi car brand, which had been going on for several years, was resolved.
“There are two approaches: the system of Hepburn, the popularizer of one of the forms of romanization of the Japanese language, according to which the name is pronounced “Mitsubishi,” and the linguist and orientalist Polivanov, who first developed a system for writing Japanese words in Cyrillic, according to his version, it is more correct to pronounce “Mitsubishi,” they said in company.
The company's headquarters in Tokyo responded to a request from the Russian representative office, explaining that the correct spelling and pronunciation is “Mitsubishi.” Now all dealers of the company must receive the Russian spelling “Mitsubishi Motors”.
The precedent with differences in pronunciation of the name Mitsubishi Motors in Russia became the reason for making changes to global standards Japanese brand Worldwide. In accordance with the new standards, the name of the brand and dealership must be in the language of the country in which they are located. Thus, the familiar Mitsubishi Motors will become even more understandable and close to the Russian-speaking population, transforming into “Mitsubishi Motors”.
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Having tried to put an end to this issue, we suddenly found ourselves under the crossfire of a heated discussion between physicists and lyricists. More precisely, linguists-translators and official representation. So is it still “Mitsubishi” or “Mitsubishi”? Take your time. Not everything is as simple as it might seem.
To decide which option is correct, let’s first approach the issue from a scientific, linguistic point of view. But don’t be alarmed, everything here is simple and to some extent even interesting.
In 1917, Russian linguist and orientalist Evgeniy Dmitrievich Polivanov was the first to develop a system for writing Japanese words in Cyrillic, which is still actively used today - it is precisely known as the Polivanov system.
All summary tables can be easily found on the Internet, and we won’t blow your mind with facts that the Japanese alphabet is syllabic. It is now important for us to find out how the controversial syllables should be read. And they, according to Polivanov, should be read as “si” and not “shi”, “ti” and not “chi”, “xia” and not “sha”, “syu” and not “shu” and etc. Thus, it would be more correct to pronounce “Mitsubishi”. End of controversy? No!
Everything would be simple and clear if it weren’t for another linguist, a certain James Curtis Hepburn, who at the end of the 19th century proposed his own version for transcribing the Japanese language. According to it, it is more correct to read “Mitsubishi”. And this is where the main reason for the current discrepancies lies: Polivanov’s system was created for the Cyrillic alphabet, and Hepburn’s system for the Latin alphabet.
It would seem - let them pronounce it as they want overseas! But why then is Hepburn’s version so firmly rooted in the Russian language? It's simple. Even before people began to delve into the nuances of pronunciation, the names of imported goods entering our market were presented in the Latin alphabet, and under the avalanche of Toshiba computers and Nakamichi audio systems, people somehow did not really think about the origin and correct reading of these names - they were taught in school in English lessons that sh is read as “sh”, well, that’s it! What questions? At the same time, what’s interesting is that specifically with Mitsubishi, the situation was better at first - both options existed in Russian speech on approximately equal terms. But then the fashion for English-language names took over, including over advertisers, who from every angle convinced that it was necessary to pronounce “shi”. The control shot was the transition to the Hepburn pronunciation of the official Mitsubishi representative office. Polivanov is tired of spinning in his grave, in a word.
Well, then such a merciless linguistic phenomenon comes into play as transmission by tradition - this is when people pronounce a word incorrectly for so long, persistently and en masse that this incorrect version is eventually accepted as the norm. For example, you will never force anyone to pronounce the national Moscow dish “sushi” as “sushi” - you just have to accept it.
Geographical names shed a ray of light in this dark kingdom - they, as a rule, took root in the Russian language even before the invasion of foreign brands. We call Hiroshima Hiroshima, although logically we should say “Hiroshima” - in English this city is written as Hiroshima.
In this case, it would be logical to turn to native speakers and listen to how they pronounce controversial sounds, but the Japanese are no help in this matter: if you listen carefully, they generally produce some kind of peculiar sound, something between “s” and “ w", "t" and "ch". Apparently not to offend anyone. Although even before the end of World War II, the Japanese were on “our” side: in order to transcribe Japanese names in letters of the Latin alphabet, Japan itself introduced the official “kunrei-shiki” system, which prescribed that controversial sounds should also be conveyed in Latin in the same way as the one already familiar to you suggests Comrade Polivanov. But we all remember how World War II ended for the Japanese, and hard “s” and “t” are inconvenient for Americans to pronounce, so Hepburn, with his “comfortable” transcription, came in handy. Armed with such a theoretical basis, we turned to the Russian representative office of Mitsubishi to find out their opinion on this matter.
The company MMS Rus LLC, which is the exclusive distributor of Mitsubishi cars in Russia, adheres in its communications to the following pronunciation of the Mitsubishi brand - “Mitsubishchi”. In the original, in Japanese, the pronunciation of the sound ending of the brand sounds like “SCHI” - “Mitsubishchi”. Thus, the sound is much closer to “SHI” and has almost nothing in common with “SI”. From a phonetic point of view, “MitsubiSHI” is closest to the original (Japanese) sound of the brand.
The opinions of the representative office and linguists, as you can see, differed. So where is the truth? Maybe all these theoretical calculations by Polivanov are already outdated? To find out, we turned to a person who knows first-hand about the living Japanese language. TASS news agency correspondent Alexey Zavrachaev, a certified Japanese specialist and a big fan of cars, has been living and working in Japan for a long time and understands the intricacies of pronunciation of Japanese names like no one else.
“If we go into the current rules of the Russian language, then it is correct to transcribe this word as “Mitsubishi.” Everything is simple here: there is the so-called Polivanov system, according to which each syllable in the Japanese language has a corresponding analogue in Russian. Thus, options like Mitsubishi are immediately rejected. I would like to cite the example of sushi and sushi, but here it turns out to be a different story: sushi won a landslide, because, as my Russian language teacher at the university said, the norm prohibits, but usus (society) implements,” Alexey takes Polivanov’s side.
The fact that “Mitsubishi” sounds much more familiar to the Japanese than “Mitsubishi” is perfectly confirmed by the following video, in which a charming Japanese woman pronounces the names of car brands in the original language. By the way, pay attention to the background in the frame - the girl is clearly in the mood!
In a word, say “Mitsubishi”, but don’t get into a fight over “sushi” - traditions are strong, what can you do about it.