Linguistic Politics aka the "Waishen" thread

[quote=“cfimages”]

The correct pinyin is wàishěng.[/quote]

Sure, if you want the pinyin with tone.

Romanized Mandarin is not your first language (or anyone else’s for that matter), nor is it something you learned in school. If you want to peg yourself as the most narrowminded of Taiwanese isolationists, go ahead. But it’s this kind of stupidity and rigid enforcement of local standards and sulking insistence that one shouldn’t be challenged on the home turf that is really hurting Taiwan now.

[quote=“sofun”][quote=“cfimages”]

The correct pinyin is wàishěng.[/quote]

Sure, if you want the pinyin with tone.[/quote]

Leave the tone marks off, it still has a g. :smiley:

It may be trivial, but that doesn’t make me care any less. Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine. It’s absurd that to this day, the overwhelmingly vast majority of Taiwanese people do not know how to write their own addresses in Latin letters.

As for the issue at hand, it’s not like arguing “color” vs. “colour” (two competing and recognized standards) but rather like “color” vs. “kaulor.” Your spelling is entirely idiomatic and makes sense only to you. It would be like if I wrote: 我是梅國人 and argued that the second tone on 梅 is more natural than the third tone on 美. Everyone else would tell me I’m writing it wrong.

It may be trivial, but that doesn’t make you any less wrong. It’s not like arguing “color” vs. “colour,” but rather like “color” vs. “kaulor.” Your spelling is entirely idiomatic and makes sense only to you. It would be like if I wrote: 我是梅國人 and argued that the second tone on 梅 is more natural than the third tone on 美. Everyone else would tell me I’m writing it wrong.[/quote]

Reminds me of the way some Taiwanese write 9 like a P. No, there is no such thing as a local 9. It’s a universal symbol and should be written the same fucking way as the rest of us.

[quote=“cfimages”][quote=“sofun”][quote=“cfimages”]

The correct pinyin is wàishěng.[/quote]

Sure, if you want the pinyin with tone.[/quote]

Leave the tone marks off, it still has a g. :smiley:[/quote]

I’m a native Taiwanese Mandarin speaker, so I’m not going to write that g under any circumstance. Pinyin is not a written form of Taiwanese Mandarin anyway, and it is not English either. So I’m afraid you need to convert it.

(It is not my intention to provoke pinyin czars on this forum. But you really need to convert it and reconcile it in your head.)

[quote=“Hokwongwei”]Sorry, you’re categorically wrong here. The sound produced by any speaker of Mandarin in Taiwan – whether their first language is Taiwanese, Hakka, an aboriginal language, or Mandarin – ends with a final of /ŋ/. Every single romanization system ever invented writes it this way, as well. “Waishen” is not correct by any standard.

And your example of 屈臣氏 makes no sense. It’s pronounced /wat-ʃan-ʃi/ in Cantonese, but if you read it as anything but /tɕʰyʈʂʰənʂz̩/ (quchenshi) in Mandarin, you’re reading it wrong.

If you insist on spelling “waisheng” incorrectly, you might as well just use the Chinese characters instead.[/quote]

side note, Watsons was in Taiwan during the Japanese era. The first Watsons ever in Taiwan is located at 迪化街34號 in Banka, Taipei. It was called 屈臣氏大藥房 (Grand Watsons Pharmacy). However a year later Watsons gave the exclusive rights to another pharmacy only a few streets down. However, the original Watsons somehow was able to keep the name, and the building still stands today with the original Watsons name and logo.


image from:http://www.appledaily.com.tw/appledaily/article/supplement/20131107/35418792/

Watsons was forced to produce medicine for the imperial army during WW2 after Hong Kong fell to their hands. Post war, Watsons did not enter the Taiwanese market until 1987.

anyways, carry on…

If pinyin is not a written form of Taiwanese Mandarin, why is your system any different? That makes no sense.

If you are so opposed to pinyin, you should just be calling them guasinglang, no?

And even if you want to argue it’s not “accurate” phonetically, I’m sorry to tell you it’s the accepted standard in academic and historic circles. See evidence A: fsi.stanford.edu/events/waisheng … in_taiwan/

So what about those who actually do sound the g clearly? They should write it differently? That’s really smart, dude. I suspect you work for the highway department making romanized road signs.

It may be trivial, but that doesn’t make you any less wrong. It’s not like arguing “color” vs. “colour,” but rather like “color” vs. “kaulor.” Your spelling is entirely idiomatic and makes sense only to you. It would be like if I wrote: 我是梅國人 and argued that the second tone on 梅 is more natural than the third tone on 美. Everyone else would tell me I’m writing it wrong.[/quote]

Reminds me of the way some Taiwanese write 9 like a P. No, there is no such thing as a local 9. It’s a universal symbol and should be written the same fucking way as the rest of us.[/quote]

There’s nothing wrong with 梅國 in the future, if you like.

Currently 米國is also acceptable among Taiwanese netizen of my generation.

I don’t mind trolling if you’re willing to participate, as long as the moderator is not going to interfere. I don’t know the rules very well yet.

Indeed. It’s now headquarters for Art Yard which is revitalizing the street. Also home of Luguo’s Cafe, one of Taiwan’s best specialty coffee shops.

[quote=“sofun”][quote=“cfimages”][quote=“sofun”][quote=“cfimages”]

The correct pinyin is wàishěng.[/quote]

Sure, if you want the pinyin with tone.[/quote]

Leave the tone marks off, it still has a g. :smiley:[/quote]

I’m a native Taiwanese Mandarin speaker, so I’m not going to write that g under any circumstance. Pinyin is not a written form of Taiwanese Mandarin anyway, and it is not English either. So I’m afraid you need to convert it.

(It is not my intention to provoke pinyin czars on this forum. But you really need to convert it and reconcile it in your head.)[/quote]

Pinyin is the international standard for romanising Mandarin, and is the official method used in Taiwan, China and Singapore. So yes, it is the written form.

That’s because 米國 is a historic term. 梅國 isn’t. You can go making up your own spellings and pronunciations for any word you like (it’s a free country, after all), but you can’t logically defend your inventive spelling as more correct than the established one.

It’s that sort of logic that makes street signs in 中壢 spell the poor city’s name four different and completely irreconcilable ways.

Yes and no. As much as it pains me to admit, at least 1/3 of Taiwanese administrative districts still use Tongyong Pinyin, including Kaohsiung, Tainan and PIngtung. Many others oscillate between Hanyu Pinyin and Tongyong Pinyin.

Regardless, 省 would be spelled “sheng” in HYPY, TYPY, Wade-Giles, and even MPS 2. It’s one of those rare constants through all the various spelling shcemes.

[quote=“sofun”][quote=“Mucha Man”]It’s not the correct romanization as romanization is not the same as phonetic transcription. Just like we don’t spell “I want to” “I wanna” except in comic books or when we are being sloppy even though that is usually how it is pronounced. Romanizations, like spellings, follow the standard. In Taiwanese education the standard is sheng, and not shen.

It’s also waishengren and not waisheng. I’ve never not had a Taiwanese correct me when I merely said waisheng. It’s like saying “Oh I don’t like foreign provinces in my country.”[/quote]

Well this debate will likely become as boring as a debate about color vs colour, or romanize vs romanise. I’m not saying Waisheng is not valid. I’m just saying I prefer to type “waishen” since it is the most natural for me. Mind you that Mandarin is my first language and I speak perfect Taiwanese Mandarin. I don’t like being challenged on something as trivial as a g. I have no intention to append that stupid g either.[/quote]
If I may wade into this splitting of hairs:

You are quite wrong.
But no matter, this is not the place to debate correct romanisation, or to flout established precedents according to one’s whim.
It matters not if “you don’t like being challenged” about the g.
You have been challenged.
Spell it however one wants, it is entirely up to you.
Yet, be advised that it sounds and reads like a chip on a shoulder.

[quote=“Hokwongwei”]That’s because 米國 is a historic term. 梅國 isn’t. You can go making up your own spellings and pronunciations for any word you like (it’s a free country, after all), but you can’t logically defend your inventive spelling as more correct than the established one.

It’s that sort of logic that makes street signs in 中壢 spell the poor city’s name four different and completely irreconcilable ways.[/quote]

And the same narrowness that makes a young person stagger when he discovers that no, he cannot put down his birth year as 83 on an international application.

Now that TGM has smelled our off-topicness, I’m going to just pretend like I’ve been on topic this whole time, and keep going with the theme.

Apple Daily had an interesting editorial the other day to comment on the whole fizzle about “freezing” the DPP’s independence platform. CNA did a brief summary translation here (ignore the poorly selected headline)

focustaiwan.tw/news/awps/201407210016.aspx

The original Chinese article had an interesting sentence: The Jews waited thousands of years to create their own country, so why is Taiwan in such a rush? This is interesting because it’s probably a terrible choice given the current international situation, but also because it indicates what many of us suspected: Apple Daily strongly sympathizes with, though falls short of outright supporting, “green”-leaning stances like independence and being wary of China.

Basically, we can safely reason that the newspaper spectrum looks like this:

[Red]–>--Chinese state media-----China Times–[Blue]–United Daily News-----China Post–<--[NEUTRAL]–>—Apple Daily-----Liberty Times-----Taipei Times–<--[Green]

[quote=“hansioux”][quote=“Hokwongwei”]Sorry, you’re categorically wrong here. The sound produced by any speaker of Mandarin in Taiwan – whether their first language is Taiwanese, Hakka, an aboriginal language, or Mandarin – ends with a final of /ŋ/. Every single romanization system ever invented writes it this way, as well. “Waishen” is not correct by any standard.

And your example of 屈臣氏 makes no sense. It’s pronounced /wat-ʃan-ʃi/ in Cantonese, but if you read it as anything but /tɕʰyʈʂʰənʂz̩/ (quchenshi) in Mandarin, you’re reading it wrong.

If you insist on spelling “waisheng” incorrectly, you might as well just use the Chinese characters instead.[/quote]

side note, Watsons was in Taiwan during the Japanese era. The first Watsons ever in Taiwan is located at 迪化街34號 in Banka, Taipei. It was called 屈臣氏大藥房 (Grand Watsons Pharmacy). However a year later Watsons gave the exclusive rights to another pharmacy only a few streets down. However, the original Watsons somehow was able to keep the name, and the building still stands today with the original Watsons name and logo.


image from:http://www.appledaily.com.tw/appledaily/article/supplement/20131107/35418792/

Watsons was forced to produce medicine for the imperial army during WW2 after Hong Kong fell to their hands. Post war, Watsons did not enter the Taiwanese market until 1987.

anyways, carry on…[/quote]

Yes I insist, because keeping Chinese characters to a minimum is my style of writing, in English. I could not find waisheng in my English dictionary so I assume this is not an English word either. I’m okay with anybody converting it to whatever they want, but I have to respectfully decline the request for me to add that g.

I’m okay to being called “wrong,” that’s what I’m saying, and I understand your position regarding the g.

[quote=“Hokwongwei”]Now that TGM has smelled our off-topicness, I’m going to just pretend like I’ve been on topic this whole time, and keep going with the theme.

Apple Daily had an interesting editorial the other day to comment on the whole fizzle about “freezing” the DPP’s independence platform. CNA did a brief summary translation here (ignore the poorly selected headline)

focustaiwan.tw/news/awps/201407210016.aspx[/quote]

I have said for many years, following an initiative in Canada to deal with aboriginal land claims, that the only way forward is to negotiate a moratorium on any talk of unification or independence. As with aboriginal affairs, almost anything can be discussed and negotiated under this framework.

If the DPP were smart, ahem, they would attempt something like this and ask the US to mediate. They need push the idea out there as much as possible so that the world can pressure China to negotiate such a freeze in a transparent way. If China refuses, then it is still a victory. If China agrees, the victory is even greater as they are being forced to discuss the Taiwan issue in an international context with international observers.

[quote=“Hokwongwei”]That’s because 米國 is a historic term. 梅國 isn’t. You can go making up your own spellings and pronunciations for any word you like (it’s a free country, after all), but you can’t logically defend your inventive spelling as more correct than the established one.

It’s that sort of logic that makes street signs in 中壢 spell the poor city’s name four different and completely irreconcilable ways.[/quote]

I don’t see a problem with my spelling “waishen”, since I’m not imposing it on anybody. My posts regarding this topic only provide an explanation as to why I have to decline the request for me to add the g.

A decline of request, followed by explanation. Nothing more, nothing less.

Like I said before, the onus is on the pinyin czars to reconcile it in his/her head.

I have no intention on adhering to Pinyin anyways. It’s nothing outrageous.