Uh…yeah, non-Chinese speakers have no trouble pronouncing zh, z, c, x. The main point is not closer pronunciation although that’s a good thing to have, but rather standardization and the consideration of current widespread usage of Hanyu Pinyin. If you want closer pronunciation for the uninitiated English speaker, Yale or MPS2 romanization systems would be better. To Spanish speakers, all these systems suck.
'Cause it sounds good to Cantonese ears, although some linguists think differently.
Except for some strange reason, Americans and Canadians simply cannot pronounce the ‘j’ in Beijing properly, even newscasters. I mean, just pronounce it as spelt. Why the affectation in pronouncing it like a French ‘j’?
Except Jilong sounds like Yeelong to a eastern European. No closer than Keelung.
Except Beijing is in Mandarin-speaking land so I’m not sure what the Cantonese’ preferences have anything to do with it. (Or is it because the western world used to be more concerned with Hong Kong than Mainland China?)
Now that you mention it I have heard it with that French J sound (as in Jacques). In any case even that blows away how 99.99% of the western population would pronounce Peking.
No one spelling system is going to accommodate every western language, obviously. So if you have to pick one for consistency’s sake, which I believe you should, why not go with the ubiquitous wonder that is ENGLISH?
Except Beijing is in Mandarin-speaking land so I’m not sure what the Cantonese’ preferences have anything to do with it.[/quote]
The reason is that for the past century or more, when westerners came in contact with a Chinese person, chances are that person probably spoke Cantonese or a Cantonese-variant dialect more than any other dialect group. Thus, those westerns are often given a Canto-centric view of China. Still happens today.
Except Beijing is in Mandarin-speaking land so I’m not sure what the Cantonese’ preferences have anything to do with it.[/quote]
The reason is that for the past century or more, when westerners came in contact with a Chinese person, chances are that person probably spoke Cantonese or a Cantonese-variant dialect more than any other dialect group. Thus, those westerns are often given a Canto-centric view of China. Still happens today.[/quote]
It’s more that the g>j sound shift (along with h>x and k>q) only took place in Mandarin the last few hundred years. So when European scholars first romanized “Beijing”, they wrote what they heard…what would be rendered in Hanyu Pinyin as “bei ging”. But they romanized it as “pe king” since the Mandarin “b” and “g” are not actually voiced consonants; scholars reserved voiced consonants like “b” and “g” for dialects that actually had them (like Taiwanese). Hence “Peking” and “Keelung”.
The Cantonese word for Beijing is “bak ging” or “pak king” (however you wish to romanize the unvoiced initial consonants).
Except Beijing is in Mandarin-speaking land so I’m not sure what the Cantonese’ preferences have anything to do with it.[/quote]
The reason is that for the past century or more, when westerners came in contact with a Chinese person, chances are that person probably spoke Cantonese or a Cantonese-variant dialect more than any other dialect group. Thus, those westerns are often given a Canto-centric view of China. Still happens today.[/quote]
It’s more that the g>j sound shift (along with h>x and k>q) only took place in Mandarin the last few hundred years. So when European scholars first romanized “Beijing”, they wrote what they heard…what would be rendered in Hanyu Pinyin as “bei ging”. But they romanized it as “pe king” since the Mandarin “b” and “g” are not actually voiced consonants; scholars reserved voiced consonants like “b” and “g” for dialects that actually had them (like Taiwanese). Hence “Peking” and “Keelung (Jilong)”.
The Cantonese word for Beijing is “bak ging” or “pak king” (however you wish to romanize the unvoiced initial consonants).[/quote]
That’s all true according to the link I provided above – re linguists. But many Cantonese speakers presume that Peking, Nanking, etc. were romanized according to their tongue and have perpetuated their belief that this is so. Westerners also don’t clue in to the difference between Peking and Beijing because the Cantonese “bak ging” is close enough to Peking that they simply assume it is correct.
It also doesn’t help that Chiang Kai-Shek had his given name romanized in Cantonese but his family name romanized in Wade-Giles. The same goes for Sun Yat-Sen although “Sun” is a common romanization for 孫 in many dialects (Mandarin, Hakka, Cantonese, Minnan, etc.).
There was an episode of “Alex” (comic strip about an investment banker) where one character observes that “the capital in China is peaking” and somebody else harumphs, “They’re calling call it Beijing now.”
If “j” pronounced as “dzj” was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for the children of Texas.
All I care about is that whatever fucking system they end up choosing, it:
STAYS that system, and
it is used island-wide
No more looking at a street sign and then at my map, then back at the street sign, then back at the map, and not finding the road I’m on cos it’s spelt totally differently.
There’s no hope when the locals mimick the foreigners inccorect pronunciation, erroneously believing it to be ‘English’. The ‘yuan’ in Legislative Yuan gets pronounced yu…aan in the best American accent the EFL learner can muster, the ‘p’ in ‘Taipei’ is given an emphaised aspirated sound, every ‘jin’ sound in Chinese is changed to ‘kin’ 'because that’s how ‘Kinmen’ is said.
As I think this is a barrier to communication, I have tried to explain this to my students, but they look confused and bored. They believe the foreigner has no hope of understanding Chinese so we should ‘help’ him by producing these weird pronunciations of Chinese words.
When I began learning Mandarin, I was taught in Yale. So far it’s the easiest to understand for native English speakers that I’ve seen. Then I got to Taiwan and everything was in WG, which was strange. The later on, back in the USA, I started seeing Hanyu Pyinyin which, IMHO, is retarded for English speakers to read. I hate the initial “q” in particular.
To heck with it, I’ll just take a ride out to Don Shway to eat some Pie-Goo Fawn.
If Paris becomes Paree then TAipei can become Taibei. Otherwise, leave it alone. Taipei is more unique in appearance then Taibei which to me just seems wrong !! Sorry, thats just me cuz I grew up there.
And honestly I think GEELONG is closer to the real pronunciation then anything else. And a much more fun name anyway .
And furthermore, why not convert all Taiwanese names to their Taiwanese pronunciations??
Then TAipei could become Die Puck.
Also Taichung becomes Die Tee ONG
TAinan becomes Die Lum
Kaohsiung becomes GOH HEE ONG
etc
edit: Diepuck, Diewan has a certain je ne sais quoi to it non?
I suppose the Cantonese word for “Changjiang” or “long river” (also called the Yangtze River) would look something like “kang gi ang” or “kang ki ang,” which of course relates to both the k-ch (Pinyin writes this as k-q) and g-j (Pinyin g-zh for some consonants only) sound shifts and the preference of romanizing the consonants. I believe the old Postal Map spelling was Changkiang before becoming Ch’ang-chiang and finally Changjiang.
CHANGJIANG (“long river”)
Scholars’ spelling: Ch ang ki ang (which, from their pronunciation perspective, sounds like “chang gi ang” in modern Hanyu Pinyin)
Wade-Giles: Ch’ang-chiang
Hanyu Pinyin: Changjiang
CHONGQING (“double gaiety” or “double happiness”)
Scholars’ spelling: Ch ung k ing (an alternate pronunciation is rendered by the HP system as “Zhongging” which doesn’t look right as “ging” is the obsolete spelling for what is now “jing”)
Wade-Giles: Ch’ung-ch’ing
Hanyu Pinyin: Chongqing
NANJING (“south capital”)
Scholars’ spelling: N an k ing (modern Hanyu Pinyin renders this as “nan ging” from the older pronunciation perspective)
Wade-Giles: Nan-ching
Hanyu Pinyin: Nanjing
HEILONGJIANG (“black dragon river”)
Scholars’ spelling: Hei lung kiang (modern HP renders this as “hei long gi ang” using older pronunciation perspective)
Wade-Giles: Hei-lung-chiang
Hanyu Pinyin: Heilongjiang
I’ve been writing Taibei instead of Taipei for a year or more now, and no one has ever misunderstood me AFAIK, although there are two restraining orders in place.
The Cantonese pronunciation for “Changjiang” sounds neither like “kang gi ang” nor “kang ki ang”. It is, in fact, pronounced “cheung gong” with the leading “ch” and “g” sounding very much like the way English speakers would say them.
The Cantonese pronunciation for “Changjiang” sounds neither like “kang gi ang” nor “kang ki ang”. It is, in fact, pronounced “cheung gong” with the leading “ch” and “g” sounding very much like the way English speakers would say them.[/quote]
Which of course doesn’t matter anyway, seeing as how all right-thinking people know full well that Cantonese is simply a highly corrupted form of Chinese. Goddam insolent Cantonese and their backwards ways of speaking. There ought to be a law!
It doesn’t really matter, whether you change everything or keep a few exceptions. People can handle exceptions just fine, it’s part of daily life, really.
People who try to be 100% correct and stick to rules when it doesn’t really matter, cause more problems than those who can excuse a few exceptions here and there.
Is it true that the Mandarin pronunciation for the character “jing,” as “jing,” occurred in the 1700s when they changed it from the Cantonese-sounding “ging”? You know, Beijing used to be known as Bak-ging or something?
Similarly, the Mandarin romanization of Tokyo, a Japanese city, is Dongjing (or Dung-ging in Cantonese, and T u n g k i n g in Postal Map).
A couple hundred years ago, the standard Mandarin pronunciation of “jing” sounded more like “ging” (hard g). The change of g/k/h to j/q/x is perhaps the most recent major phonetic shift in Mandarin.
