SPELLING OF PROPER NAMES IN TEXTS OF THE END OF XIX CENTURY AS A STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT OF CHINESE BORROWINGS

Abstract

The article discusses several works in the period of the XIX – XX century, which describe the countries in the Far East – China, Tibet, Mongolia, narrate the features of the local residents’ organizations of their lives, the legends and history of these territories are explicated in detail. The task requires the authors to independently solve a complex problem, namely the transfer of new vocabulary, a significant layer of which is proper names – toponyms and anthroponyms. Despite the adopted guidance of J.K. Groth at the end of XIX century, which is about the spelling, neither in it nor in the practical manuals which are published on the basis of it indications of how to write new borrowings can be found. The aim of authors of the Far East’s descriptions is not the rules of spelling, but the principles that Independently formed, probably focusing on the works of geographers, ethnographers and other practitioners, a not spelling theorists. The article considers both general trends and a high degree of variability that characterizes the spelling of these texts. In addition, it will be shown how some of the spelling tendencies that spontaneously formed during that period go into the practice of writing eventually in the 20th century.