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Why was Beijing once called Peking?

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The current capital of China used to be called Peking, and indeed still is in several languages. Until recently, I thought that was because of the Wade-Giles system of transcribing Chinese into the Latin alphabet, but I was wrong...
Portuguese ships By Ismoon (talk) 13:15, 31 March 2019 (UTC) - own work with Photoshop (File:Attributed to Kano Sanraku - Important Cultural Property Namban Screens - Google Art Project.jpg), CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikime...
Tsingtao bottle By Jesús Alenda - Cerveza China, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikime...
Chungking Mansions - By Corekimern12 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikime...
Tianjin Mazu Temple - By Photo taken by Fanghong - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikime...
Temple of Heaven - By Philip Larson - Beijing, China, CC BY-SA 2.0, commons.wikime...
洛蒙德湖 written and arranged by 胡达伟

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29 авг 2024

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Комментарии : 78

@quain5063 Год назад

As a Chinese linguist I love the local languages (therefore transcriptions based on local names, like Zaonhe - Shanghai and Emng (Amoy) - Xiamen) and so hope Mandarin don't kill them all :( The situation is very dire. If city names are allowed to be spelt in the local language (like Catalonia) it would then be truly faithful to that city's identity. Sadly standardisation is killing it everywhere.

@sudoranger1798 2 года назад

My Grandad was asked what was the capital of China and he Replied Peking Now I know why

@sanchoodell6789 Год назад

The Chinese capital's name as written in Chinese characters literally means "north(ern) capital" I thought that maybe the earlier English name for Beijing (Peking) was based more on a southern Chinese pronunciation as the Chinese capital is pronounced "Pak-King" in Cantonese and maybe it was meant to be pronounced like "Peh-king" but got mispronounced Pee-king. It wasn't untill the end of the 1980s that the newer name was more widely adopted by the media. But great video.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

It wasn't based on a southern pronunciation, but on a historic one. That happened to be similar to southern dialects which have retained many earlier features.

@kori228 3 месяца назад

first person covering this who actually understands the real reason being sound change. Good job!

@michielmees3483 Год назад

Interesting, I always thought it was simply that “Peking” was closer to Cantonese and “Beijing” closer to Mandarin - and that ‘the west’ had more contact with Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong. Seems I must have oversimplified my interpretation. As to the reason it is still Peking in Dutch, this is probably because ‘ei’ makes a specific sound in Dutch (actually, the same sound as ‘ij’ would) so if you write Beijing you get the ‘ei’ or ‘ij’ sound (take your pick) from a Dutch speaker - which is a considerable departure from what the Chinese would say - so I think we Dutchies just stuck to Peking.

@jacknoone3725 Год назад

It sort of is (the Cantonese for Beijing is Bakging), Cantonese (and other dialect groups) is closer to older forms of Chinese than Mandarin is

@auracle6184 Год назад

It's funny how at least in the UK, non-Chinese speakers tend to use the 'zh' sound when reading Chinese words. There's a perception that it just sounds a bit more 'ethnic' whereas the 'j', while correct, is percieved as the reader simply going off the word as spelled without any attempt at 'authentic' pronunciation by people who don't actually know what the correct pronunciation is.

@d.j.j.g Год назад

I had to smile at the incongruity of "the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond," at the end! Scots in a Mandarin musical accent?! Thank you for a happy and good video!

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

We’ll spotted!

@timflatus Год назад

Well done for answering obscure questions I have been asking (or at least would have if I'd had someone to ask). I thought it was purely due to different transliteration, rather than historical sound-change. Now I know

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

I assumed the same before I researched it.

@cmtwei9605 Год назад

Beijing had various names in the past, including Yinking (燕京) and Beiping (北平). The Republic of China government in 1928 changed it to Beiping and in 1949 the CCP when they took power changed it back to Peking, later Beijing. Peking University is still officially called Peking University in English. The Chungking Mansion in the photo is from Hong Kong, the building is still there and largely occupied by foreigners from SE Asia and S Asia. Do not venture inside! It's also the name of an art cinema film by Hong Kong director Wong Ka-Wai. The last governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten insisted on calling Beijing Peking still because 'in English we have a word for it'.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

Hi. I actually stayed in a hotel in Chungking Mansions in 1987 and lived to tell the tale! I didn't know about Patten insisting on Peking. What a patronising colonialist attitude!

@cmtwei9605 Год назад

@@DaveHuxtableLanguages Many travellers book a hostel bed there because it's very cheap and convenient but are unaware of the building's background. If you're white you'll probably be ok. I can sympathise with Patten's basic reasoning because the English language has different names for some places like Rome and Munich. In this case Patten also wants to make a statement.

@MusikCassette Год назад

And I thought those were two different cities.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

😀

@zulkiflijamil4033 Год назад

Thanks a lot , Dave for this wonderful and amazing lesson. 谢谢您。

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

不用谢！

@rafaelsarkissian Год назад

In Portuguese in Brazil we always used to speak PEQUIN, but from 2000's on journalism, in order to emulate foreigners, adopted Beijing, that is terrible for us because sounds almost the same as "little kiss".

@pbworld7858 Год назад

Thank you for stressing the fact that the j in Beijing is pronounced like a....wait for it.... j. It really gets on my nerves when someone says Beizhing (zh like sin television). I just don't understand why people do that. It's not a French word.

@SoiledWig Год назад

So many people do the same thing with the S in "parmesan." There's no reason for it.

@pbworld7858 Год назад

@@SoiledWig Seems like an American thing because I've never heard that pronunciation in UK or Aus English. Now that really is strange.

@hulkhatepunybanner 8 месяцев назад

*Thank you sooooo much for this.* I heard a story that representatives of the British Empire had called it _Peking,_ saying to Chinese diplomats that British tongues couldn't physically pronounce _Beijing._ Even with Britain's infamous arrogance, I had trouble believing they would stoop that low.

@tvgerbil1984 6 месяцев назад

Peking University is very proud of keeping its anglicized name, even though some people would be incensed by the university stooping that low, apparently.

@LittleNala Год назад

In Japan, they use the same characters, and pronounce it roughly; Peh-Keen. Spelt 'Pekin' in romaji.

@ashleybennett4418 Год назад

Do you speak mandarin?

@markrandle9025 4 месяца назад

Forgive me for saying this but I believe the zh is in Chinese word Zhongwén, you are absolutely right it is not "the word Beijing (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語; pinyin: Hànyǔ; lit. 'Han language' or 中文; Zhōngwén; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages[e] spoken natively by the ethnic

@DaveHuxtableLanguages 4 месяца назад

The closest thing to ʒ is the sound represented by in Pinyin. /ʐ/. zh as in 中文 is pronounced /ʈʂ/ which is closest to English /j/

@dyld921 Год назад

A large portion of Vietnamese was borrowed from Middle Chinese (the Chinese pronunciation at the time of borrowing). So Beijing in VIetnamese is Bắc Kinh (pronounced somewhat like Bak-king)

@quaetaru Год назад

"Pechino" in Italian ;)

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

Ciao Quaetaru. Grazie per avermi segnalato il mio errore. Ho dovuto rivedere il video per capire dove ho commesso l’errore. Ho sempre problemi con le doppie consonanti in italiano.

@raymondmorgan2041 Год назад

The Taiwanese for reasons of identity and independence still prefer the WADE GILES transliteration system to Pinyin. You say nothing about WG. Why?

@leonzhang7821 Год назад

Taiwan uses Wade-Giles because the PRC uses Pinyin. It is not because it is better. It is because they do not want to be the same. Nothing more.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

When I started researching, I thought the answer would involve Wade Giles, but that turned out not to be the case.

@michaelduffy6874 11 месяцев назад

I've come across many Chinese students who have very good English pronunciation, but one word they can't master is "usually", which comes out as "urally".

@DaveHuxtableLanguages 11 месяцев назад

Yes, that’s a classic.

@DSQueenie 9 месяцев назад

It has always been spelled 北京 in Chinese and pronunciation has changed around it. Interestingly in Japanese 北京 is pronounced ぺきん (pekin) not べじん (bejin). The characters in Japanese still read as Northern Capital. That’s why you find the character 京 is found in Tōkyō (東京 lit. Eastern Capital) and Kyōto (京都 lit. Capital City) but usually in Japanese 北 reads as kita and 京 reads as kyō. Fun facts.

@The_SOB_II 9 месяцев назад

"Portugal was the first country to have contact with China in modern times" You sure about that brother? Maybe it was... Korea, Tibet, or perhaps the kingdoms of pre-unified China were contacting each other?

@ugoinsidevideo 5 месяцев назад

First of western countries.

@simpleminded1uk Год назад

Nice Sugilan influence at the end.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

Well spotted!

@benw9949 Год назад

Please cover the Pinyin romanization system and Chinese (Mandarin) phonetics.

@bruceyboy7349 Год назад

Thanks for this (I have many questions about the pronunciation of Szechuan but that's for another day). I'm still confused, though. I suppose what I want to be clear on is how would the people of Peking/Beijing would like to hear us pronounce their city and would they be offended if we used either (phonetically - for an English person) Pea-king or Bay-jing (no zhuh sound on the j!)?

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

The trick with Sichuan (as is now spelt) is to pronounce the I as if it were a Z, but as a vowel! Make a buzzing sound like a bee, and then put an S before it and a CHWAN after it. I don't think many people would be offended if you said Pea-king, unless they thought you were deliberately using a colonial version of the name. Bay-jing is fine and English-speaking Chinese people would understand. A taxi driver once asked me how to pronounce Beijing in English. I said something like Bay-jing. He then asked what tones it would be, and I had to launch into a long explanation about how English doesn't have tones!

@xXxSkyViperxXx Год назад

what people in china would usually prefer to best hear would be closest to how it is said in mandarin, so u can plug the chinese characters in google translate and press the listen button and that's how mainland chinese usually like to hear it more accurately, so Beijing is more like /peɪ̯²¹⁴⁻²¹ t͡ɕiŋ⁵⁵/, u can skip the tones if u couldnt get them right but the phonemes are most important. people in china are educated to spell letters in pinyin so for them, "beijing" makes sense as a spelling, but when you actually hear it, in english spelling, it would be more like "peiching"/"pei-tsing".

@ingmarburgman8163 Год назад

In classical Arabic it's still refered to as Pekin بكين.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

We’ll I suppose it is classical.

@ingmarburgman8163 Год назад

@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I mean the written form of Arabic. The one used in Media. Not the doalects.

@Dragonkller-mg5og Год назад

@@ingmarburgman8163 yeah that is because Arabic does not have the p sound

@andrewst9797 Год назад

'Peking' it is for me! And Bombay, Saigon and Brisbane.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

I didn’t know about Meanjin until you mentioned it.

@buzzerede Год назад

As a learner of Chinese, isn't the j in Beijing more alveolo-palatal? See the difference between jia and zha

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

It is, bit I wouldn’t expect people to use that when speaking English.

@songtraveler 11 месяцев назад

@@DaveHuxtableLanguagesRight you are. I am a student of Chinese, and let me say that it has taken a lot of hard work to train my ear and to get the pronunciation of 'j' correct (as well as 'q' and 'x', the other members of this phonetic triad. So I'm fine with English speakers using the closest English sounds to pronounce them (j/ch/sh). But I wince when I hear Chinese 'j' pronounced 'zh'. Thank you for pointing that out.

@marcpeterson1092 Год назад

A Chinese person told me that the name changed when the PRC took over. Peiping meant Northern Capital and Beijing meant People's Capital.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

Not really. Peip’ing is 北平, meaning northern peace, and Beijing is 北京, which means northern capital.

@johnchristiancanda3320 2 месяца назад

It's "Beeijing" in Gwoyeu Romatzyh.

@Zemnmez 3 месяца назад

So if you’ve a date in Peking, they’ll be waiting in Beijing!

@MrYarmulke 5 месяцев назад

Peking, Pequim, Beijing, they all make sense, phonetically and historically. However, the one I most frequently hear, Beishzing, is beyond nonsensical. The two biggest languages that actually have that zsh sound, Russian and French, they both call it Pekin. So where did this Beizshing idiocy come from? I mean you really gotta do extra work and stretch the imagination in order to get it so wrong, like Jay Quellin and Ay Ayron.

@andrejvnuk7493 Год назад

it is still Peking in all ex- Yugoslavia language, that is Slovene, Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian!

@israellai 2 года назад

What 😱😱 would've been so cool if they'd kept the names in the local pronunciation

@DaveHuxtableLanguages 2 года назад

It would. Sadly, though, that aspect wasn't very successful. The postmasters had to submit names for towns in there areas and they weren't linguists. They mainly just found an old transliteration and submitted that.

@xXxSkyViperxXx Год назад

eh portuguese were just the first europeans to have contact with china in modern times. many other asian lands have had continuing contact with china even then to now

@katarzynalpzm0arajko-nenow32 Год назад

We say Pekin in Poland still

@jeffreyschweitzer8289 2 года назад

我都不知道你曾经住过北京！有没有学会京片儿？

@DaveHuxtableLanguages 2 года назад

在北京住了四年，但是没学会京片儿。同时大部分是来自中国不同地方，所以公用的语言是普通话。

@jeffreyschweitzer8289 2 года назад

@@DaveHuxtableLanguages 明白了，谢谢

@gemstonesparkle7915 Год назад

It still Pequim in Portuguese

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

Indeed.

@zachjohns4669 Год назад

And in Esperanto: Pekino.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

That's disappointing. I would have hoped an international language would go for something closer to the native pronunciation.

@MrMirville 2 года назад

The Portuguese got it already right : Portuguese Pêquim is pronounced pei-kching more or less. Slavic Ky and kj are nearly indistinguishable and both variations have been permissible in standard Mandarin for centuries and more.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages 2 года назад

Yes, the Portuguese version was quite accurate. They heard the unaspirated plosive as .

@daev3000 Год назад

The pronunciation of Beijing with the zh sound (ʒ) is extremely common; I rarely hear the more correct version these days. To me it seems quite ironic that we went to the effort of changing the name in English only to have most people insert a new hyperforeignized pronunciation. I guess we do the same thing with Azerbaijan. I look forward to a video on this topic some day in the future.

@DaveHuxtableLanguages Год назад

Yes, the idea that all foreign s are ʒ!

@Dragonkller-mg5og Год назад

I think the Mandarin j sound is the voiced German CH as in Ich just with a d sound before