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Renaming the cities of other countries... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6791 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 9 of 192 15 November 2009 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
If the country is bilingual I'm totally cool with it. Although the names are not necessarily obvious like Antwerpen/Anvers. But sticking with the example of Istanbul there is nothing at all about that name that is unpronouncable or even presents any kind of challenge to Polish speakers. The Polish mangled name is purely capricious. And annoying. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6902 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 192 15 November 2009 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
There was never any change in the name as such, only in how it is transcribed. The background and ultimate reason for the change was the adoption, by the PRC, of pinyin as the official transcription system to represent Mandarin pronunciation in the latin alphabet. "bei3 jing1" is how the pronunciation is represented according to the pinyin system. (The tones can be represented either as numbers or as accent marks above the letters). "Beijing" is actually much closer to the Mandarin pronunciation than "Peking" which makes it an improvement imho. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7164 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 11 of 192 15 November 2009 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Indeed, Hencke.
Cordelia0507, "Peking" is a pronunciation that is based more closely on the pronunciation used in the language of Fukien ("Fujian" in Mandarin) province. The reason for initial adherence to this pronunciation was that European traders in the 16th or 17th century picked up "Peking" from the Fukienese merchants ("Fujianese") in southeastern China and it was "Peking" that spread throughout the Western world. It was only after the introduction of pinyin in the 20th century that the Mandarin form of "Beijing" started to supplant the former in official English use - it's not a conspiracy of any sort. However some languages such as French still use the form that was inspired by Fukienese: "Pékin" in French and "Peking" in Serbo-Croatian (i.e. Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian). English has actually kept up with the times on this one... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7384 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 192 15 November 2009 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
I understand how you feel, but perhaps it is just appearances. After all, if a foreign city has earned its own name in a foreign language rather than mispronouncing the native name, it means there are long standing relations between this city and the country in question. I make a point of learning the names of cities in a language I'm studying whenever I can. As pet peeves are concerned, I am more into "stupid" loan words or terrible mispronunciations. For instance now on French TV journalists all speak about "vols law coast" (low cost flights pronounced like Law Coast). Particularly silly when you think that short Os do exist in French - it would be easy to pronounce it correctly. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6791 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 13 of 192 15 November 2009 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Why do you think they do this? Is it because they've been told that is how those syllables are pronounced in English? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6042 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 14 of 192 15 November 2009 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
What's the English pronunciation anyway, is it supposed to be like "war saw" /worsol/ or rather /varshav/? The river Danube also has a tricky name. It's pronounced /daniub/ in English, and I find that -niub at the end rather challenging.
In Bulgarian it used to be called Пекин but during the last Olympics they used only Бейджин and that popularized it. Most people probably think there are two different cities. Edited by Sennin on 15 November 2009 at 8:29pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hagen Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6968 days ago 171 posts - 179 votes 6 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 15 of 192 15 November 2009 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's worth noting that Mandarin seems to have undergone a sound change within the last 200 years or so, including palatization of "k" before "i". So the Europeans might well have faithfully transcribed the Mandarin pronounciation of their time. Do you have details about the history of the name "Peking" in the west? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5529 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 16 of 192 15 November 2009 at 9:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Why should place names NOT differ? Can you offer a reason? I can't think of one, except some kind of brave-new-world efficiency.
Well, Swinemünde, like some other parts of Poland, were German (or at least Prussian) until the war, so they are obvious cases. Helsingfors should probably be left out too, since it was founded by Gustav Wasa. Regarding place names in general, it is of course very true what Captain Haddock wrote, that place names (just like proper names) are nouns, that happen to refer to places (or people). Just like the word for "port" is not the same in all languages, the name for Copenhagen, or any other city, might well differ. What is the problem with that? Do you also think it strange that countries have different names, or is that OK? With your line of reasoning, why don't we call China Zhong1guo2, with tones and all? What about the Great Wall, should that be renamed Chang2cheng2? It is much more reasonable to translate names when possible, that will preserve their purpose much more than trying to copy the sound, which in the foreign language is totally devoid of meaning. In fact, I can't see why on earth we here in the far north should worry about pronouncing the names of cities on the other side of the world exactly like they do. What would be the reason? If they come here and talk about Nanking in Swedish, do you think they would mind if we ignore the tones, or the consonants that are unpronouncable to us? Remember that they would only hear this while in fact speaking SWEDISH? Do you think it offends them? Are you offended if people in rural Africa don't call Gothenburg "Göteborg"? I'm not. When you learn another language, you tend to realize that things have different names. It's not like we try to impose our names on the people who inhabit these places. Most of them will never even know what we call it, and wouldn't care if they knew. Edited by Gusutafu on 15 November 2009 at 10:02pm 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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