"You say feng shui, I say fung sheu, he says fung shui, she says fengshui, they say fung sway, we say fung shue, and yes someone says fung shway"

by Jeff Rasmussen, PhD

 

In my article "You say Taoism I say Daoism" I wrote about the two most typical romanizations of the chinese terms for tao, taoist, taoism.

The matter gets even more complicated with feng shui since neither word is pronounced as it is spelled. Feng is Chinese for wind and shui is Chinese for water. And feng shui is a system used for determining the placement of houses, graves, etc.

The correct pronunciation is {F[^e]ng"-shu`i}, that is "fung schway" and so attempts to spell it give us many results*.

These are some of the most popular:

feng shway
fung shei
fung sheu
fung shuai
fung shui

fung shua
fung shwa
fung shuay
fung shwai
fung shai
fung shue
fung shay  
fung shuei
fung sheui
fung shwei
fung shi 
fung shway
fung sha
fung shiu
fung sway

 


 

 

 
*Note. The online dictionary that I used for the parenthesized pronunciation guide had misspelled shui.
 
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