I’ve been cleaning up my charts of place names and have come across a problem.
崁頂 is officially “Kanding.” The thing is, when locals refer to this place I don’t hear “Kanding.” I hear “Kending.”
I know 崁 is, according to the dictionaries I have, supposed to be pronounced kan. But I’m more interested in being faithful to the place name itself and the language itself than to a canonical reading of a character. So what do your ears tell you? I am just hearing this wrong?
Also, are there other names with a disparity between common pronunciation and “proper” pronunciation (accents aside)? 汀州路, for example, is generally pronounced “Dingzhou” rather than “Tingzhou.”
Well, I really should look more carefully before I post. Maybe it’s a different place. Perhaps “Kanding” is the official name of a village that has nothing to do with “Kending,” which might not be a place at the official level (rather like Tianmu). Help!
Yeah, I got misled by Pingdong County having a “Kanding” but not a “Kending.” Taiwan has lots of places known to everyone but which are not official at the administrative level and thus are largely invisible when it comes to government lists. Kending seems to be like Tianmu in this respect.
[quote=“cranky laowai”]Yeah, I got misled by Pingdong County having a “Kanding” but not a “Kending.” Taiwan has lots of places known to everyone but which are not official at the administrative level and thus are largely invisible when it comes to government lists. Kending seems to be like Tianmu in this respect.
Here’s my preliminary list of Taiwan place names…[/quote]
Hate to be a nuisance, but Pingtung County (not just the freeway) has now implemented Tongyong, and judging from the signage I’ve seen, it’s been fairly carefully done.
Taiwanese people usually pronounce Shenzhen (in Guangdong Province) as “Shenjun”. Are there any placenames in Taiwan that include the zhen/jun character?
Yep, hundreds probably, just do a search using this character in Yahoo Taiwan and they flood the page (no pun intended), though some are referring to the structure rather than a place name.
崁頂 Kanding is my wife’s hometown. It is located between Tonggang & Chiaochou. If you like 山產 it’s the place to go.
The pronunciation and and tones are different. It’s a small place and most Chinese will think that you’re pronouncing 墾丁 Kenting incorrectly. The pronunciatin by the local is different, but subtle. It’s got a can in it, not a ken.
It;s about an hour or so from Kenting and has train stop. Now we also have an exit, amking the newyears traffic nighmare a little less so. Now 4.5 hrs from TPE per cruise control
If you need any info. about the surrounding area, drop me a line. Lot’s of good food, fruit in the area.