Great site with basic introduction to place names in Taiwan:
staff.whsh.tc.edu.tw/~huanyin/tw … ng_302.htm
Did you know Peitou means female shaman in Ketagalan?
Guting means ‘drum tower’ or ‘granary’?
Site is in Chinese though and is not that exhaustive.
[quote=“Feiren”]Did you know Beitou means female shaman in Ketagalan?
[/quote]
I’d like to know how to pronounce the word Ketagalan. The romanization and the chinese characters are at odds with each other, no matter what romanization system is used. :s
[quote=“Feiren”]Did you know Beitou means female shaman in Ketagalan?
[/quote]
Pronounced, if I remeber correctly, “paktaaw” in Ketagalan. Not sure how the Sinicization came about, whether through Hokkien or direct to Mandarin though.
[quote=“Tetsuo”][quote=“Feiren”]Did you know Beitou means female shaman in Ketagalan?
[/quote]
Pronounced, if I remeber correctly, “paktaaw” in Ketagalan. Not sure how the Sinicization came about, whether through Hokkien or direct to Mandarin though.[/quote]
uncertain of the schools of romanization, but bei tou in hokkien is ‘bak(g or t)-dow’
[quote=“Feiren”]
Site is in Chinese though and is not that exhaustive.[/quote]
It would be great if any of you Chinese litterate could translate/explain the meaning of place names into English.
My guesses: :help:
Hsintien - New Shop (or shuld it be “new area”)?
Mucha - Wooden Fence?
Hsinchu - New Bamboo?
Pinling - Peace forest?
I’ve got a good article about place names at home. When I get my home computer back, I’ll summarise some of it.
I’ve sometimes thought it would be an interesting (but very long) task to make a list of the meanings of all the Taipei street names. There was a thread about that once. Of course, the majority are just place names.
Brian
Well, I just don’t know Chinese, but pick up a word here and there. I was actually hoping that you should shred my “translation” into pieces and come up with “real stuff” - like why do they call it that…
Greenland - to attract people to some of the coldest places on earth
Iceland - discourage people to go there - a nice and balmy place…
[quote=“X3M”][quote=“Feiren”]
Site is in Chinese though and is not that exhaustive.[/quote]
It would be great if any of you Chinese litterate could translate/explain the meaning of place names into English.
My guesses: :help:
Hsintien (Xindian) - New Shop (or shuld it be “new area”)?
Mucha (Muzha) - Wooden Fence?
Hsinchu (Xinzhu) - New Bamboo?
Pinling - Peace forest?
[/quote]
Mucha once had a wooden fence to protect the han settlers from aboriginal attack. If you go down to the Jingmei River dikes there’s a plaque with the story on it.
Hsinchu used to be called Chuchang from the bamboo fence that first surrounded the city before they built the stone wall which remains in parts. Don’t know when they changed the name to Hsinchu but it obviously means “New Chuchang City.”
Pinling mean forest on level ground.
Thanks a lot.
The explanations are great. Now I hope for more placenames to be translated and explained.
Mucha (Muzha) once had a wooden fence to protect the han settlers from aboriginal attack. If you go down to the Jingmei River dikes there’s a plaque with the story on it.
I’ve heard that there is some debate on this. Same goes for whether Guting means drum tower or granary.
There was something in the paper a few months ago (about a visit to the Taipei Discovery Centre) saying that Guting was named after the Aboriginal canoes. I assume that this was a mix-up with Bangka (now Wanhua) - wasn’t Bangka the local Aboriginal word for canoes?
Brian
[quote=“Feiren”]Mucha (Muzha) (Muzha) once had a wooden fence to protect the han settlers from aboriginal attack. If you go down to the Jingmei River dikes there’s a plaque with the story on it.
I’ve heard that there is some debate on this. Same goes for whether Guting means drum tower or granary.[/quote]
No, I assure you, the placque is there. 
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]I assume that this was a mix-up with Bangka (now Wanhua) - wasn’t Bangka the local Aboriginal word for canoes?
[/quote]
I’ve heard this. Indeed, “banca” means “boat” in Tagalog (a Philippine language), and Tagalog is closely related to the Taiwanese aboriginal languages.