The name ‘中華民國 Republic of China’ is a bit of a problem

[Explant]

@Brianjones

I know what he was doing but the whole thing is truly absurd.

Tell that to the renegade province across from us

@yanom

~1. Although the USA is a republic, the word republic does not appear in the county name.
Therefore, we should not require precise definition in a country’s name.

~2. Translations of names into different languages are not precise either, for example USA → 美國.
Therefore we should not require the English translation of 民國 to be ‘People Country’.

~3. 民國 was chosen, according to what I’ve just read from Sun Yat-sen in 1916, because he wanted something new for a new country and didn’t like how historical 共和國s (for example slavery-republics) didn’t represent the whole 民. Instead of calling the country 民權共和國 he used the non-standard word 民國.

So when choosing the English name for the country, it seems there are two choices, both apparently problematic:

It’s a problem to use ‘Democratic Republic’ because the Chinese name is not 民權共和國.

But it’s also a problem because in English we only have the word ‘republic’.

However these aren’t problems because, per my 1 and 2, country names are just 國號 and you shouldn’t require precision in either definition or translation.

And that’s why I personally think there’s nothing absurd about “中華民國基於三民主義 ，為民有民治民享之民主共和國。”

@chenshijie2015

“民國” is actually the Chinese translation of “republic.”

I don’t feel that’s really true, or at least, I don’t think this sentence explains anything. I mean, you could say “Cathay” is the English translation of “中国” but the usage is very different from “China”. And what this really interesting topic seems to be about is ‘usage’ rather than ‘translation’.

just joking of course…kind of…but still gonna say it cause the only real issue is blatently obvious.

the solution to your question is simple: “台灣”

[justintaiwan]

@Explant

台灣”

台灣共和國？

I don’t think it’s that unusual to have odd official country names.

Countries with democratic in their name may not be democratic at all.

The official name of Australia is the Commonwealth of Australia but the Commonwealth is in reference to the federation of states not the Commonwealth of nations. Also the Chinese translation is simply 澳大利亞 with no reference to the Commonwealth.

So they wanted to use 民國 instead of 共和國 they both sound like countries of and for the people so it works in that sense

[chenshijie2015]

@justintaiwan

澳大利亞

澳大利亞聯邦CommonwealthofAustralia-亞太地區-中華民國外交部全球資訊網

[SuperS54]

@Explant

the solution to your question is simple: “台灣”

臺灣 surely?

[Marco]

@justintaiwan

澳大利亞

The name is 澳洲. Only communists use 澳大利亞.

[hansioux]

@Whatevah

He’s trying to win at CCPs game. I think the best way forward is one that sees ROC as an institution forced on Taiwan by an occupying power with no de jure rights. If we go the “we are the older/legitimate/true China” route we’d end up legitimizing Chinese claims sooner or later.

Exactly.

I think Lai said what he said because he wants the CCP to flip out over the statement, which is a statement that most core KMT supporters subscribe to, making it obvious to them that in the eyes of the CCP they are as much pro-TI as Lai is.

Ma’s response to Lai is hilarious in my opinion, though he obviously thought he was making a lot of sense. He claims that the fatherland for the people of Taiwan is a hypothetical unified China, a country that’s even more non-existent than Taiwan.

[hansioux]

@yanom

~3. 民國 was chosen, according to what I’ve just read from Sun Yat-sen in 1916, because he wanted something new for a new country and didn’t like how historical 共和國s (for example slavery-republics) didn’t represent the whole 民. Instead of calling the country 民權共和國 he used the non-standard word 民國.

Well, the earliest SYS used the term 民國 was in 1905.

Since 民國 is also used in Japan, Korea, and Okinawa to mean republic, I’m not convinced that SYS coined the term in 1905. Although, I haven’t been able to find the earliest usage of 民國 in Japanese either.

If SYS did coin the term though. I suspect it was a riff on the 中華民族 (chonghua ethnic group) term that Liang Qichao invented in 1902. So the original meaning would have nothing to do with a republic, but a country of the fabricated chonghua ethnic group.

[Explant]

@SuperS54

@Explant

the solution to your question is simple: “台灣”

臺灣 surely?

we simplified it half way

[hansioux]

@Explant

we simplified it half way

台 which meant and sounded the same as 貽 (malt candy), 台 which meant and soumded the same as 胎, and 臺 which meant watch tower sounded almost the same in Old Chinese, and they were attested around the same period. So it doesn’t make sense to say 台 is a simplified version for 臺, especially not for transcribing Taiwan, since it’sa phonetic translation of the Sirayan word Tavoan.

We had a discussion on this

台 (Tai) vs. 臺 (Tai)

To clarify, I was thinking that it could be a case of two words looking similar getting lumped together fairly early on. So there’s the “sweets” character 台 /gi/ and the “fetus” character 胎 /tʰai/, and then they were so similar they became the same character with two different pronunciation. I had a hard time proving that to be the case though. In Baxter-Sagart’s reconstruction, 台 /gi/ and 胎 /tʰai/ were reconstructed very similarly as *lə and *l̥ˤə in Old Chinese. 臺 on the other hand was rec…

[Explant]

well that made the sarcasm seem pretty friggen stupid lol!