Or is the pronunciation somewhere between a D and a T?
2007-04-16 08:34:16 · 18 answers · asked by tuthutop 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
It's a transliteration problem. Written "Tao", pronounced like "Dao". Many Chinese consonants are hard to render precisely in the Roman alphabet, especially since there are many dialects which pronounce things differently anyway. So is it "Peking" or "Beijing"? "Tsing Tao" or "Xing Dao"? The "D" sound is a little shorter and harder than normal Western pronunciation, so it could be said to have "T"-like elements.
2007-04-16 08:38:03 · answer #1 · answered by skepsis 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's Tao but pronounced as Dao.
2007-04-16 08:48:01 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Tao is the official spelling but it is pronounced as Dao in Chinese. I think the first westerner use the word Tao by mistake.
2007-04-16 08:43:32 · answer #3 · answered by ShanShui 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Written Tao and most say it's pronounced 'Dao' but I think it's really somewhere between D and T.
Go with what works. ;-)
2007-04-16 08:39:42 · answer #4 · answered by KC 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's pronounced Dao but it's spelled Tao. Since we use roman letters and the original Asian languages do not I'm not sure why it wasn't spelled phonetically as it should have been but it wasn't.
2007-04-16 08:44:43 · answer #5 · answered by Atheistic 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Tao but pronounced Dow
2007-04-16 08:37:41 · answer #6 · answered by Snooter McPrickles 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
In Mandarin Chinese, it's always been pronounced with a 'd'.
We used to use the Wade-Giles system of writing Chinese words with the Roman alphabet. In that system, it was spelled 'Tao'.
Now that we use Pinyin, we spell it 'Dao'.
(The same thing happened when we stopped spelling it 'Peking' and started spelling it 'Beijing'.)
2007-04-16 08:39:57 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Is what Dao or Tao?
2007-04-16 08:38:30 · answer #8 · answered by svetlana 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I don't know, someone told me that it is a person that has one Theory, that covers all, or, can explain all things. And where your theory, runs contrary, to the popular, accepted theory, you must be able to explain why, in a reasonable way.
I never pursued finding out more on Taoism, because I have my own theory, and I believe that if it is correct, I believe I would naturally be a Taoist, my whole life would have pointed me towards the conclusion of my theory, and every new thing I learn, makes me more sure of it. What was guiding my path?
2007-04-16 08:50:26 · answer #9 · answered by Lukusmcain// 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it is spelled Tao but it is pronounced Dao...
2007-04-16 08:37:33 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋