Comments on: Beijing vs Peking

By: terry

terry — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:14:04 +0000

I agree with Graham; when we call Munich Munchen, Vienna Wien, Venice Venezia and Florence Firenze, then I’ll consider calling the capital of a communist country that has oppressed its people, despoiled Tibet and poses the greatest long term threat to the civilized peoples of the West by it’s Chinese name Beijing, instead of its English name Peking.

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:27:40 +0000

John -
But “Moscow” is an equally absurd spelling for the Russian capital. Should we all start saying – and writing – “Moskva”?

By: John Cowan

John Cowan — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:08:25 +0000

Even if the ruthless dictatorship is overthrown, the Hanyu Pinyin romanization will almost certainly remain. “Peking” is an absurd spelling in terms of modern Mandarin.

I say “modern” because both “Peking” and “Nanking” reflect an earlier state of Mandarin in which velar stops before front vowels had not yet merged with affricates; this sound change happened around the 16th century. Cantonese has not undergone this sound change, and its name for the city called “North-capital” remains Pakking.

By: Paul Rolf Jensen

Paul Rolf Jensen — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:54:20 +0000

The commies want us to stop using the historic transliteration; therefore we should continue to call Peking, “Peking”, and continue to pray for the day that the ruthless dictatorship is overthrown and freedom is restored to that land.

By: writing from beijing

writing from beijing — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:12:07 +0000

Sorry, I’m going with Shirin on this one. What do you make of Nanjing? The old, European pronounciation for Nanjing was “Nanking”. This is also a Cantonese derivative, just like Peking. (king is the cantonese word for capital, jing is the manadarin). Your argument that “Pékin” is found in old text is just an interesting fact that doesn’t really lend support to your argument because it still could have been a Cantonese derivative. Occam’s razor says you’re expanation is not the right one.

By: Lilli Lee

Lilli Lee — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:36:28 +0000

Can we still order Peking Duck or do we need to change to Beijing Duck?