Which romanized/English form do you prefer for Taipei County
Xinbei (Hanyu Pinyin)
Sinbei (Tongyong Pinyin)
Hsinpei
New Taipei
Greater Taipei
0voters
Taipei County is about to become a “special municipality”, which means the government is going to start calling it a “city” regardless of whether it resembles one or not. The new Mandarin name is Xīnběi Shì (新北市). But there has been some argument over how to refer to Xīnběi Shì (新北市) when using English/romanization. (For more on this see X marks the spot? and Xinbei City?.)
Keep in mind that this place will be just the former Taipei County. It will not include Taipei (the city), whose name will remain the same.
I know that some of y’all want Taipei County to get a completely different name (e.g., Shuanghe). But unfortunately that just isn’t going to happen at this point. So, as much as I sympathize, I’m not putting up an option for “other,” though feel free to post in favor of that below.
I’m strongly in favor of Xinbei – and not just because it’s Hanyu Pinyin (which is now Taiwan’s official romanization system); I also think the other “English” choices are highly problematic at best.
But what do you think? The poll gives the main proposals I’ve heard.
Yes, it’s officially official – for two years and a couple of months now. I helped rewrite Taiwan’s rules, though I didn’t get as much corrected as I would have liked.
Yup, as of Jan. 1, 2009, it is the official romanization system of the ROC. Remember all the cheering on F.com about it? It’s part of why I’ve felt justified to nuke all instances of it that I come across in Wikipedia.
My choice is Xinbei.
#2 is out because it’s Tongyong. Nuff said.
#3 is Wade-Giles. WG, if used at all, should only be reserved for legacy names. Xinbei is a totally new name, so it makes no sense to use WG.
#4 New Taipei: has precedent in examples like New Delhi. But people may confuse it with Taipei (as people confuse New Delhi with Delhi).
#5 Greater Taipei: this logically should include the city of Taipei. It’s also potentially confusing.
The precedent is set with Hsinchu and Taipei for the naming. when they change those to hanyu pinyin then they can use hanyu pinyin for this. yes hanyu is the best but this might as well match the rest of the city names.
nothing infuriates me more than the automatic correction to hanyu pinyin on this site.
Most city names and virtually all town names in Taiwan are already officially in Hanyu Pinyin.[/quote]
And on the No. 3 Freeway, they’ve been gradually changing the signs to Hanyu Pinyin. It seems to be all HYPY around Taichung now.
I vote for none of the above even if I can’t really vote for that option.
One option not mentioned is simply retaining the name Taipei County. The upgrade to a special municipality means changes to the administrative structure and relations with the central government. However, there is no reason why the new municipality must be called a city. This option also saves money as it requires no new signs or documents to be printed.
I also like the name Shuanghe (雙河). It is a name that links to the geography of the region and also has a nice alliteration with Shuanghe (雙和) used to refer to Zhonghe and Yonghe.
On a similar geographic theme an interesting suggestion was made by Kaihsu Tai that I posted on my blog. He suggested the name Běixīn Shì (北新市) which could be written in English as “Basin City”. This is a reference to the Taipei Basin, a key geographical feature of the Taipei area.
I support the use of Hanyu Pinyin with exceptions such as Taipei and Kaohsiung. Hence I accept the use of Xinbei. My misgivings, as stated above, have nothing to do with the system of romanisation used.
If there is one lesson to be learnt from this it is that governments in Taiwan should engage in more public consultation before they change the names of things.
I’m with Funk500 on this one. It is nowhere near as annoying as being stuck in a teller queue behind someone cashing out $4,157 in singles. Or doing the business banking using 5 different cards at the ATM. In the rain. Tossers!
Most city names and virtually all town names in Taiwan are already officially in Hanyu Pinyin.[/quote]
They are? What about Tai
t
ung, Kaohsiung, C
h
iayi and so on? Or by virtually all do you mean the smaller towns that no one knows the name of anyway? [/quote]
Well, all but the dozen or so big cities that were allowed to keep their legacy names if they so chose. I actually have an official list, released by the gummint, as part of a style guide for the GIO translation work I do.
Basin City wont work, its sounds too banal. Basin? Who wants to be in a basin?
But city names starting with X? That is really kinda odd. Sinbay would be better.
[quote=“tommy525”]Basin City wont work, its sounds too banal. Basin? Who wants to be in a basin?
But city names starting with X? That is really kinda odd. Sinbay would be better.[/quote]
No way. Sinbay is already taken by other English sounds. I hate romanization systems that take words I know how to pronounce and tell me I need to pronounce them differently. When English speakers see Xinbei for the first time they know they are dealing with a word that is not English and they may not know how to pronounce it. Besides, ‘X’ is the coolest letter.
– for two years and a couple of months now. I helped rewrite Taiwan’s rules, though I didn’t get as much corrected as I would have liked.