Peking Opera or Jingju?

Oh, and I'm ethnically Hokkien (Fujian Chinese), although from the Peranakan (Straits Born Chinese) culture of the old Singapore-Malaya region. So if I sometimes seem to be callously dissing the "local Chinese" and their attitudes and behaviour, it's because, partly, it's me I'm talking about!

And I'm relieved to find out that you're "considerably older than" what I must think you are!!! For the record vice versa too. I wish I knew the 成語 for that. I grew up in peri- and post colonial Singapore, being lorded over the Colonial Brits, and many of the locals seemed to take it quite personally, as reflected in the language used behind their backs, and sometimes seemingly quite oblivious to the possible offensiveness of certain terminology (viz. the 紅毛鬼 comment of my Singapore Hokkien Video thread in the General Discussion). We were comfortably upper middle class so we mingled with the 紅毛鬼, and in fact I spent a year and a half as a child in England. Later, after moving to Canada, and travels here and there, observing the behaviour of my fellow human beings, (and with growing horror, at that of myself), I now realize that it is only human nature to crap on someone lower on the totem pole, especially the guy immediately below you, (how do you say that 近下的人?) so I'm gentler in judgement now when I see it happening as I get older, and try to be more culturally sensitive myself. So I'm pretty ancient, too, just so you know!

Sorry, I guess I'm not as quick on the uptake as I thought I was... must be Alzheimer's...where's that "send" button

'It wasn't you, so you can't undo what they've done' and 'you're in for a tough life'

Hee hee, I am considerably older than what you must think I am. I grew up in a colonial environment and participated in discriminatory practices and when I went to work I earned about 10 times what my native colleague earned sitting right beside me. So I am speaking as a participant rather than as a reference to a distant generation.

I understand your comments about the Chinese (really another subject.) But I wouldn't pick on the senior Beijing bureaucrat in this way .. I just think that this point about them looking down on anyone who doesn't speak Beijinghua misses the bigger picture in China, it's way overstated. As a resident of the province with the largest number of minorities I am a little tired of the story of the oppressed minorities. :) A check on the history prior to New China is informative, gives a little context to the situation.

' your comment about Japanese pronunciation, I assume 东京 was a typo'

No, I am talking about Tokyo.

'are making no effort'

Hey .. slow down sclim! :) You have written a lot of stuff here (thanks for showing such a keen interest in the subject), but your response is based on a misunderstanding of what I said - I also think 'why should they?' Nothing I said suggested that I think they should. I actually thought that I expressed the opposite but maybe that did not come through.

And stop being so sensitive at the oafish linguistic behaviour of previous Westerners. It wasn't you, so you can't undo what they've done with your contriteness. I think we all do this (cultural Imperialism, in general, I mean), or at least it's a natural tendency, that takes a constant effort to think outside your own box not to slip into. I know I've done this a lot in my life, and I'm always noticing that I just did it again, in small ways, I hope, but likely not always. And the Chinese are not any better. I used to know a Mandarin speaking Chinese guy from Singapore who was given a hard time in a Chinese Restaurant in London (England), by the waiter who berated him because he couldn't speak "Chinese" (the way the story was related to me, that's the word the Cantonese waiter used). Now, at the time, about 40+ years ago, London Chinese was largely Cantonese and Toishanese, so the waiter could get away with it, and not see the irony of his error. Nowadays the Ugly Chauvanist is much more likely to be a Beijing government official who, narrowing further the usual Chinese thinking that anyone who isn't Han Chinese is a lower form of life, is likely to look down on anyone not speaking Beijinghua, ignoring the fact that percentage wise, most people in China are not from Beijing, BECAUSE HE CAN. I think it's human nature. Not necessarily pretty, but easy, and common, and understandable. So if your'e going to get upset every time you see it happen, oh boy, you're in for a tough life!

"I'm trying hard to get my mind around this -- I would think that the speakers of 广东话 are making no effort to transliterate 北京 as pronounced in standard Chinese."

I have to agree with bababardwan on this -- why would they? Cantonese is so variant a dialect being part of the different Yue group as fleshed out so nicely in the "China of Many Tongues" email that we all got, as to actually be a different, mutually incomprehensible language from Putonghua, even if it largely shares the written transcription method and code. And to pick up on a Bababardwan musing "I thought Cantonese, being another Chinese language should have a bit of an advantage of making a more accurate go of it (pronunciation)", I have to disagree. Think about it; if you'd spent your life pronouncing 人 or whatever in a certain way (actually 北 and 京 are a case in point), how would that help you overcome years of programming and make it easy to pronounce it the way that the wierd Northerners do. In fact I would go a step further and state that it is HARDER for a Cantonese person to let go his old pronunciation for 北京 than it would be for a 外國人 because the latter has no prior practice or commitment to a non-Putonghua way of pronouncing 北京, or any other Chinese word. Now, getting rid of a previous way of pronuncing B or G or D, is, admittedly a challenge, as is tones, but this whole discussion has been largely about that, and I think English speakers don't do worse than Cantonese speakers here.

I should mention the tone thing is a real challenge for switchers of one Chinese dialect/language to another. They don't do any better than us strugglers on Chinesepod.

I grew up in Singapore, surrounded by Cantonese, Hokkien (Fujianese), Teochew, and Mandarin (as well as English, Malay, Tamil) so I became horribly confused, although one learns enough to understand enough to get by. Anyway, the difficulty switching between dialects is legendary. So much so that there exists a particularly delicious mock dialogue-joke about a Hokkien speaker trying to speak Cantonese(and failing) to a girl he is dancing with and trying to impress, whose punch-line depends on getting the tone wrong "Your (high heeled) shoes are so high it must be hard to dance" and comes out too shockingly obscene for this space, I'm afraid, to explain.

Where was I... oh yes my attempted transcription Pak King for Cantonese 北京 was merely my adhoc made up method, which many Chinese and non-Chinese people often do, and explains the alphabet soup of variant spellings for the same Cantonese (and other) pronouncements seen in private and not so private publications. The more mainstream official and scholarly transcription methods are, I think, Guangdong Romanization, Yale and Jyutping, but I don't know them well enough to use them, and besides readers here wouldn't get it either. If I were to mangle Pinyin to try and accomodate Cantonese, then I guess it would be "Bag Ging", with the lame explanation that Putonghua has no terminal "g" or "b" like Cantonese does. The "B" is like Pinyin (unaspirated, unvoiced) not like English, but the terminal "g" is hard to describe, because most Chinesepod users will not have encountered this sound. It is not voiced, and is almost cut off like a glottal stop (Cockney unsaid "t" in "what"). The phoneme "ging" doesn't exist in Pinyin, but the "g" is the same as Pinyin and the "-ing" is the same. And for your comment about Japanese pronunciation, I assume 东京 was a typo. 北京 is apparently pronounced "Pekin" in Japanese, apparently following the generalization that Japanese loanwords from Chinese use more ancient dialect pronunciations, reflecting the time of the original borrowing. (Putonghua is a much more modern dialect having lost or combined many of the orignal 8 tones of the ancient language). 东京 in Japanese is, as you know, Tokyo, though exactly why it isn't To-kin, puzzles me. Of course, Beijingers call it Dong1jing1, as they should.

Regarding whether English borrowings from Chinese are seen as more accurate if one realizes that they are borrowed from dialects other than Beijinghua, that was my point in my characterization of "Peking" as a more-or -less accurate transcription in some unspecified Southern Dialect. For many years in the 1600-1800's, the port of Amoy (Xiamen) in Fujien was the gateway for Chinese commerce to the Western world, so Hokkien Oe (Fujienhua) pronunciations became the defacto "English" versions. So "tea" comes from Hokkien "teh" (or more like "dei" in Pinyin notation) pronunciation of 茶, (I would think the "cha" variant in English comes from India rather than Beijing or Hong Kong), "ginseng" is 人參 "jin-sim" in formal Hokkien etc. Later on, when Hong Kong was established, Cantonese pronunciations started to make their way into English Bak Choi, Chow Mein etc. "Ketchup" is pronounced similarly in Cantonese and Amoy Hokkien, but it entered the Malay vocabulary long before Hong Kong was founded, so my bet is with Hokkien.

So your point about many non-Pinyin spellings of Chinese words in English actually being reasonable representations of non-Beijing pronunciations, because they weren't borrowed from Beijing speech in the first place is correct. "Tai Chi", alas, is not a good example of this. 太极 is pronounced Toi Gek or something like that in Cantonese. This spelling comes from Mandarin. The Wade-Giles representation of Pinyin "Taiji" is "T'ai Chi", and if a printer or publisher or civilian editor doesn't know what the apostrophe here is for, then it's too easy to drop it. That's what happened. Whew. If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, I'm an idiot.

That is indeed what I meant. Short for time now, and I do lack a Chinese IME on this computer, but couldn't something like dao qi si lan still be awful but at least look like they tried a little harder? Honestly, I don't care much, but just thought I would toss the idea out.

'everyone, regardless of language background should not be using terms used in their own language but should be trying to say these names the way it is pronounced in standard Mandarin'

Hee hee, got me there; I am just having a go at native English speakers, because of THAT era, a point not well taken here perhaps. It was a period during which many white people were convinced of white superiority, which led to arrogance, including in matters of language.

广东人do have trouble with certain sounds in Standard Chinese, but I don't think they have trouble with 北京. :)

"Many English words referring to China are drawn from 广东话 "

..true..good point.

"So - is the similarity of Pak King and Peking mere coincidence?"

...I doubt it. After all, some argue that Cantonese and Mandarin are both dialects and not separate languages. I'm not saying I agree, but they're definitely related. And I don't think it's likely we got Peking from Cantonese. As sclim has explained above, a lot of it revolves around W-G being misunderstood and about it being a problem of representing the spoken in the written. But it's not a bad thought all the same. My guess is that many will have seen Peking written in newspapers and just pronounced it how they thought it would be natural to pronounce that combination of letters in English without understanding W-G, but in the less common scenario where they had a Chinese person to check on pronunciation it would be likely that person was of Cantonese background.

"I would think that the speakers of 广东话 are making no effort to transliterate 北京 as pronounced in standard Chinese"

..I guess you're probably right...I really don't know [it's probably just the Cantonese words for northern capital I guess]. But I thought you were arguing that everyone, regardless of language background should not be using terms used in their own language but should be trying to say these names the way it is pronounced in standard Mandarin [and if that were the case then I thought Cantonese, being another Chinese language should have a bit of an advantage of making a more accurate go of it]. Maybe I misunderstood you. Perhaps you are saying we can have our own names for these foreign places, perhaps in English we could have just called Beijing "Northern Capital" and that would be fine, but if we're going to try and transliterate then we should be more accurate?

Hey Baba

' not being too hard on English speakers efforts, jiusuan Cantonese may be considered a different language.'

I'm trying hard to get my mind around this -- I would think that the speakers of 广东话 are making no effort to transliterate 北京 as pronounced in standard Chinese. Pak King (and I will assume that these two words play a pinyin-like pronunciation guide function) is more like the standard Chinese pronunciation of 东京 compared to how the Japanese say it. By comparison, English speakers have been trying to transliterate 北京.

But while I have been writing this (which admittedly may be nonsense and sclim will return if he has the energy to put me right) I have just had a thought - always dangerous:

Many English words referring to China are drawn from 广东话 - we do a decent job of transliterating 广东话, and my argument was that we have not been so good with Standard Chinese. So - is the similarity of Pak King and Peking mere coincidence? Did we for many years say Peking for similar reasons that we say Tai Chi, chop suey, chow mien and all those other words that originated in Chinese but became a part of English?

“Now ask a Cantonese guy to tell us the name of the Northern Capital and he'll say something like "Pak King”

。。interesting point. I think this lends a little weight to not being too hard on English speakers efforts, jiusuan Cantonese may be considered a different language.

""Beijing" pronounced by untrained English speakers (even without diacritics or tone indicators) is probably closer than "Peking" "

..I see you agree then, though this was never the main thrust of what I was saying.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say: "Isn't Peking a better approximation of Beijing?"... i.e. ...as an English reasonably "good try" compared to the Chinese De2guo2 for "Deutsche Country"? If that's what your comment meant, I'd say it's hard to say which one would be a better approximation of name as said by a local inhabitant, they're both pretty bad. But that's not our problem. Actually, come to think of it, I can't think of a better combination of Chinese words to represent "Deutsche", or "Deutscheland", not that my Chinese vocabulary is up to the task, but I think I know the list of allowable Chinese sounds quite well, and they're really hooped. I don't think they can reasonably improve on De2guo2. Now ask a Cantonese guy to tell us the name of the Northern Capital and he'll say something like "Pak King", which is close to our old "Peking". But our English alphabet is pretty flexible, and, without necessarily criticizing the previous Westerners for coming up with Peking, we can improve our accuracy and get it closer to how natives of the Northern Capital say it. "Beijing" pronounced by untrained English speakers (even without diacritics or tone indicators) is probably closer than "Peking", and has the merit of using the same spelling as Pinyin "Beijing" which is the official government transcription method, so why not use it? It's a pragmatic thing.

I should have said good point a few days ago. They do deserve some credit for trying to approximate Deutsche, but isn't Peking a better approximation of Beijing? At any rate, as I have written above, it seems this possible rule has more to do with a practical problem than Chinese trying to force foreigners to use Mandarin proper nouns exactly as they say them.

Exactly

Similarly 巴黎 (Paris) - native English speakers sometimes wrongly assume that the Chinese are trying to transliterate the English.

"foolish extended diatribe looks kinda pointless now!"

...not at all, I think it was very instructive and full of interesting points. thanks mate :)

*Whoops, no wonder you were confused bababardawan and everyone else in relation to my "Sorry to belabour the thread" post: The sentence should have read

the "b" in English is indeed UNaspirated.

(My CAPITALS denoting correction)

It pays to proofread! Sorry, all!

No, You're right, you never said it was intuitive per se, but I wasn't sure if you intended to mean a "b" sound in Pinyin is so obviously like a "b" sound in English. I see now that you didn't, and that my rather foolish extended diatribe looks kinda pointless now! If this was a real conversation everyone else present would have picked that moment to go to the loo or something.

Well said. I think you have cut to the chase exactly, and proposed a neutral philosophy that respects personal autonomy without pandering to someone else's need to change you when you are minding your own business.

thanks so much for your excellent and well informed reply mate. You increased my understanding no doubt. I certainly don't have your specific knowledge of either pinyin or W-G but I was somewhat familiar with it....I realise it's another thing I need to get better under my belt.

I was going to take issue with:

"The 'b" English is indeed aspirated"

...as I was pretty sure that "b" in English is not aspirated, or at least, relatively not asprirated. But as I read on I came to the conclusion that I think you meant to say:

"The 'b" English is indeed voiced"

So my comments about aspiration and voicing to bodawei were just attempts to explain to him in the difference between b and p in English and what voicing and aspiration are, and trying to explain basically about the apostrophe representing aspiration in W-G.

You make excellent points about the trouble being with representing the sounds in written form, and about understanding the system.

I'd also like to comment on pinyin, W-G and intuitiveness. I can see why you'd jump to the conclusion that I was implying pinyin is intuitive, but I don't think I ever made that point. It is not, and this is why we have the pinyin programme here on CPod. I do feel though that W-G was probably less intuitive...the apostrophe's were not understood, for starters. My impression is that if you grabbed someone who had never had any exposure to Chinese and asked them to pronounce something using W-G and then the same material using pinyin, the latter would come a little closer. But anyhow, I'm sure that's debatable and I bow to your greater knowledge in this, but basically we're in agreement sclim, it's a problem of representing this foreign language in written form using a Roman alphabet.

Hi Everett,

Actually, I think that "flipper" may be a bad example here. This game was known under this name in the 50s as it sounded english which was cool at the time and didn't have the sexual connotation of the real english name (pinball).

Btw, today, most youngsters never used the name "flipper" pronounced as an english word but use the verb "flipper" (to freak out) pronounced as a french word.

Courriel Vs Mail would be a much better example.

@ bodawei I guess I've never worried much about China taking over. Even if they wanted to I figure they'd just make our countries into special administrative districts and leave us to get on with our lives. It probably wouldn't make much of a difference... ;-)

@ kimmiik Last time I was in Paris, a while back admittedly, a French guy told me the French Academy pushed for the term Billard electronique, but that normal people just said Flipper. It's not just about old words vs new ones but about avoiding imported English words and coining French terms instead. (I'm confounded by why som French think English words rape their language since there's a good chance those English words were French to begin with anyway). But anyhow, if that example doesn't work there are plenty of others.

To me, flipper is a band once on Alternative Tentacles.

The first American scares me too. I hope this person was drunk. I wouldn't sweat the great conquest of Australia by China. Despite our huge financial ties, Canadians manage to not do a considerable amount of things America wants them to do, and we actually share a large border.

I guess you mean "billard electronique" (without i in excess).

"Billard electronique" is just the old technical term used to describ a "flipper".

Don't you use the words "car" and "automobile" in english ?

'flipper" should be called "billiard electronique". To me, that's just plain silly.'

Couldn't agree more - flipper is of course a bowling action made famous by Shane Warne (I think - my cricket isn't that strong). Or our American friends might think it means a party animal that lives in the sea and makes loud thwacking sounds.

And I see your point now about not liking the government regulating language .. I guess that I am about 八成 on the same page as you. I understand the argument that we are over-governed, but I see a role for government in righting injustices, giving powerless people a hand up, and removing discrimination. I just get a little uncomfortable with discussions about 'the government shouldn't do this and shouldn't do that', I just find myself looking for motivations, and asking 'who wins?' and 'who benefits?' And I got thwacked by an American last night who wanted Obama to regulate, with a bit of decent firepower, in China, to require the Chinese to speak English. To show us a bit of respect. And I wish I was joking. The second American in the space of weeks to stare at me and ask 'do you WANT China to take over Australia?' I had never thought that a possiblity say six weeks ago and now I am scrutinising every sentence that comes out of Wen Jiabao's mouth.

Sorry for going way off topic and if the mods feel this should be deleted, feel free.

Hi bodawai, Of course I believe there are legitimate issues related to the legacy of colonialism. What I meant by "post colonial guilt is uninteresting" is just when trivial or unimportant issues are made points of contention. I think it cheapens the debate to consider the English (and Swedish) word "Peking" to be denigrating. So regardless of whether it's inside or outside the borders, I just don't respect the demands of governments that we should change the names we use for their countries in our languages. Governments shouldn't police language.

I don't mind if they just propose it. For instance "Sri Lanka" is a beautiful name and I like it and am happy that it has caught on. But there is nothing nasty or colonial or triumphalist about calling the country Ceylon. That's the English word for the country. These linguistic demands strike me rather as an expression of unsavoury nationalism, not as an attempt to promote understanding or reconciliation.

If the problem was as xiaophil wrote, that tourists get mad because 京剧 isn't "opera" then, same thing, newspapers shouldn't be forced to bow to stupidity and ignorance. I have nothing against newspapers writing Jingju if it's their own editorial decision. I'm just opposed to this kind of language politics in general. I dislike the French Academy's language policing just as much, for instance their saying that "flipper" should be called "billiard electronique". To me, that's just plain silly.

The sad thing is, and I feel bad about this, apparently the reason for this proposed change is because some professional Chinese 京剧 performers have received complaints after their performances that what they were performing was not 'opera', i.e. the foreigners were expecting Chinese people to perform Italian style opera. Well, I can see how this problem could arise, and I would hate to deal with these kinds of annoying, ignorant complaints, but still, and I could be wrong, I think most reasonably educated people know what Beijing Opera is, 中国通 or not.

Hi everett - thanks for your input. Actually we have got a fair way off topic - I was not objecting to what foreigners call things in their own countries or between themselves. This is actually about the right of the Chinese to determine place names or nouns within their own borders. Actually I kind of agree it is a pointless debate in the sense that they have a sovereign right to call things what they like. I don't know whether 'post-colonial guilt is uninteresting' - quite a few people here have commented. It is interesting to me because I grew up as a colonial in a foreign culture.

Outsiders always decide on foreign place names for their own language, all over the world, all throughout history. If English speakers want to call the capital of China "Peking" that's their own business because it's their own language. I mean look at how the Chinese give Chinese names to western cities. Should we get upset about Chinese cultural imperialism now too?

Post-colonial guilt is uninteresting. Three cheers for Ceylon, Burma and Peking!

Sorry to belabour this thread, but I just reread your post and noticed a point that I missed in my first rapid scan. You had made a string of excellent points, but there was a comment at the end I cannot agree with. The 'b" English is indeed aspirated. But the "b" in Pinyin notation is meant to represent the unaspirated unvoiced bilabial plosive initial consonant of Putonghua speech, so it ISN'T VOICED (no vibration of vocal chords), or more exactly, isn't voiced when a native Putonghua speaker pronounces it, and this is the standard that we students are trying to emulate. As it turns out, the VOICED UNASPIRATED bilabial initial consonant (English pronounced "b") doesn't exist in Putonghua speech, so when it is inadvertently introduced it sounds foreign in Putonghua. Unfortunately, this often occurs when native English speakers (and, presumably, other European language speakers) learn Pinyin and apply English pronunciation rules to the Pinyin letters as they are attempting to pronounce Chinese words.

It is often stated that this sound (the unaspirated unvoiced bilabial consonant represented by Pinyin "b") doesn't exist in English, but that isn't exactly true. In the English words "purple" and "purpose", the first "p" is aspirated (puff of air released from sudden relaxation of pursed lips). The second "p" is NOT aspirated, neither is it voiced (being an English "p" not a "b"). This second "p" is exactly the Chinese sound represented by the Pinyin "b" (or Wade-Giles "p"). We English speakers make that sound all the time as a "p" buried in the middle of a word, although we don't usually pay attention to it, so in theory it should be easy to capture that sound and splice it to the front of a syllable when necessary, but it appears the English instinct is to see or visualize the letter "b" as part of the Pinyin word, and to voice the consonant English-style. (If we were to voice the second syllables in the English words mentioned it would be obvious and jarringly different to ourselves as well as to other English speaking listeners --"purble" and "purbose".)

As it turns out, as I mentioned earlier, South Africans don't seem to have a problem making that consonant sound at the beginning of a syllable in English, but whether or not they are fooled into voicing the consonant by the "b" notation in Pinyin I don't know.

The inappropriate voicing of the Pinyin consonants "g", "j", "d" and "z" (and the long "buzzing" of "z" -- I forget what the phonetic term is) are similarly evoked problems caused by applying English consonant pronunciation rules to Pinyin transcribed Putonghua words.

So I would beg to differ, bababardwan, that Pinyin is intuitive (and Wade-Giles is not). Sure Wade-Giles has obvious apostrophes and diacritics and circumflexes that brand it as obviously wierd and non-English. But the absence of wierdness in Pinyin is deceptive, and not necessarily "intuitive", at least not in the way I understand intuitiveness. "Bing" in Pinyin doesn't look wierd, so intuitively one pronounces that transcription the same way as one would read the English word. And one would be wrong, if we were trying to pronounce the Putonghua Chinese word. I would agree that Pinyin is economical of letters, all the letters are found on the normal keyboard and font set and there is no need to hit the shift key (at least till you get to tones- but that's another matter). But "intuitive" implies a whole lot of phonetic facility that is automatically transferred by the acquisition of Pinyin usage versus Wade-Giles, and that ain't necessarily so, I would think.

This discussion about Peking Opera is relevant and interesting, but I think it is important to remember Beijing Opera would be out too. It seems to me that 京剧 has a clear meaning that is instantly recognizable to any literate Chinese. It's not like a name such as Amy that most of us have no idea what it means. Now it seems to me if 京剧 is translated as Jingju, it loses all meaning to most native English speakers, a problem pinyin based Beijing Opera doesn't have. I don't see how it is respectful to take a translation that is descriptive, not to mention established, and replace it with a word that sounds meaningless to the average speaker does justice to Chinese culture.

The "pronunciation" in Wade-Giles if done as intended would have been exactly the same as the "pronunciation" in Pinyin, if done as intended. That is to say, W-G and P-y are merely TRANSCRIPTION METHODS of representing well spoken Putonghua in a consistent and non-ambiguous way using Latin alphabet letters, and attempting to minimize the number of letters needed, and as few other non-letters (diacritics and apostrophes and such) as possible. To this end they both succeeded, more or less, with W-G failing to avoid a lot of apostrophes, and P-y being a little inconsistent in sound values differing depending where the letter is used. The problem comes only when non-trained people try to read the letters (of W-G or P-y), applying the sound rules of their own native languages. For English speakers, the problem is compounded by the fact that many sounds in Putonghua don't exist at all in English. (But the reverse often happens: many native Putonghua speakers have learnt Pinyin, and when they attempt English they attach Pinyin (un-English) values to letters transcribing English words). Babardwan, it's true that the W-G apostrophe (e.g. P'ing for P-y ping) was a distraction for many people, who were confused by having to think about pronouncing something that in another context they would have no problem with. But the P' in P'ing 平 (W-G) is the same as the P in Ping 平 (P-y), which is the same as the P in Pencil (English), except, in the Southern Hemisphere, where often less aspiration is used, particularly in South Africa, where, to my ear it is not aspirated at all, and the P in Pencil almost sounds like the Pinyin B, or the Wade-Giles P, which is probably why W-G used P for that sound. If a South African says the English word Ping, to me it is like he is saying Bing in Putonghua (ice). And Bodawei, without disputing your point, "Peking" actually isn't Wade-Giles it would have been Peiching; the frequently referenced Wade-Giles name was actually Peip'ing (北平) which is what 北京 was called in those days.

Hey baba

I never knew this (and I appreciate your efforts to explain it so clearly), but even if Wade-Giles is a highly sophisticated and accurate pronunciation guide, and its only flaw is the highly technical style of notation which is a little inaccessible to ordinary people, it doesn't really change my point does it? Why wasn't Peking written with an apostrophe etc.? Or was it? So the 'e' was actually 'ei' as well? Interesting. The result was general lack of communication, right? Not just about Beijing. But no-one did anything about it for many years? A number of questions about this remain to be answered, in my mind at least. But I will look at Wade-Giles in a different light, thanks. As an aside, have you ever come across anyone at all who uses the Wade-Giles system with accurate results? I am thinking of older people I have met who say the names of Chinese cities with the 'old' pronunciation .. it seems to me that even if Wade-Giles is flawless in a technical sense it is/was still a spectacular failure in doing its job as a pronunciation guide.

Actually I am far from convinced that everyone's intentions with language are actually pure and that there is no disrespect involved. I see evidence around me even now, so perhaps in that respect I was wrong to say it was a 'bad era'; (and as I say I grew up with it.) The 'George Bush' pronunciation of Iraq and the politics around that is a kind of case in point - of course he had an army of advisers ready to coach him in pronunciation but he had good reasons to persist with a jarring mispronunciation. I had an Iraqi classmate in the past and I asked him: 'so how DO you pronounce Iraq?'; the american administration and the media had given me cause to wonder.

sorry, I had to suddenly attend to something and didn't want to lose what I had typed, so posted it.

where was I?

...The crux here is the importance of the apostrophe. The apostrophe represents that the sound is aspirated. You need to think about the action your vocal organs use to make these sounds. P and B are made with a similar action....both have the lips coming together..but B isn't aspirated...it doesn't release a little jet of air, and also it is voiced [the vocal cords are vibrating]. So basically in Wade Giles a plain P with no apostrophe was a B. But most people didn't realise this and so we had it pronounced by most as a P [in Wade giles it was P with an apostrophe that was pronounced how we'd pronounce a P]. So the problem was the system was not intuitive or well understood. Also, don't forget in those days they didn't have the same resources we do now. Anyhow, I agree it's always nice to try one's best, but I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that disrespect is involved when folk don't manage to make a perfect job of it.

Interesting debate. I agree that it would be nice to all have accurate pronunciations of foreign place names, pronouns and the like, but I wouldn't be too critical of where the result falls short. Consider that English has something like 47 sounds and there are 138 sounds in the international phonetic alphabet [not to mention tones etc]....this means that monolingual English speakers are familiar with pronouncing less that half of the sounds there are in the worlds languages, let alone understanding how these are represented in written form. Don't forget how long it takes learners here to learn to pronounce a difficult language like Chinese well even with an excellent programme like CPod's pinyin programme, and here we have a special interest. I think sclim's point above was a good one too and worth trying to grasp. One of the big problems with the Wade Giles system was that it wasn't intuitive...you had to know how it worked. The crux here is the importance of the apostrophe. The apostrophe represents that the sound is aspirated. You need to think about the action your vocal organs use to make these sounds.

'pet peeve'

My pet peeve is almost exactly the opposite - hence our differences on this point. :)

I grew up listening to Australian media mangling the language in Papua New Guinea - incorrect pronunciations were enshrined in the 'style guide' for the Australian Broadcasting Commission as it was then. I always thought 'how disrespectful, ignorant, arrogant,..' etc. I could have added 'unnecessary' because the language there is very easy for foreigners to pronounce; there are no tricks. This arrogance in respect of the language fitted well with our colonial endeavours in that country .. we just didn't care enough about how the native language sounded.

So all of this left a scar.

Then after I became interested in China and Chinese I bemoaned the lack of effort by Australians to even get close to the correct pronunciation of Chinese names, even by professionals (eg. teachers, but also journalists) who needed to communicate on a daily basis. Chinese is more of a challenge than the Melanesian languages, but we have also come a long way I thought in learning to respect other people's cultures.

We have made an effort with aboriginal words - in the 1970s there was a comprehensive re-write of place names so that the 'pinyin' now more closely reflects how the words are pronounced. Something similar happened in India and other countries. In China the Wade-Giles system was superceded by pinyin. (Sclim may be right, I don't understand the argument, but if as a foreigner in China you follow the Wade-Giles system you will not be understood by native speakers, that is the practical end of the argument for the majority of people.) Now there are some exceptions - words like Peking and Canton (and mah-jong and Taichi for that matter) have become English words, and yes your mother would understand Peking Opera and not understand 京剧 jingju. But I don't think that it is too much of a stretch to use the more correct word (in the same way that I welcome the respect now given to aboriginal languages in Australia and would welcome a few journalists learning how to say famous Chinese names so that they would be understood and appreciated by the Chinese people), and translate it where necessary for native English speakers.

Hope this goes some way towards explaining my response at the top.

Bodawei,

I know this conversation seemed dried up, but I wish to understand your thinking here if you have the time.

I don't see why Peking Opera or Beijing Opera could be bad. It is a direct translation of the Chinese word. (京 = Bei'jing', and 剧 = opera, or at least some kind of performance.) It seems quite sensible to me, and more importantly intelligible to native English speakers, i.e. to my mother, Jingju is a meaningless utterance, while Beijing Opera makes sense. Furthermore, doesn't it seem just as likely that a Chinese person came up with the name Peking Opera?

I'm not trying to debate you really; I just don't get your position. I know it is of no material importance, but call it a pet peeve of mine when a foreigner tells me how I should speak my language.

'but the "P" in that transcription came from the Wade Giles convention in which "P" was a soft unaspirated and unvoiced "P sound", and " P' " was for the aspirated "P sound", for which the official modern pinyin equivalents are "P" and "B". So the variance in that component merely comes from the transcription convention. The "-king" component was because that's how it is pronounced (correctly) in many of the southern dialects (as in Nanking, Chungking etc). '

You've got way too much education sclim!! It probably should not worry you that your message makes no sense at all to me. :) Despite support from xiaophil above - I respect both of you but you have to stay in the real world, we'd be lonely without you.

If there was any value at all in what you say, we'd all still be using Wade-Giles wouldn't we (actually, maybe we are; Wade-Giles is just terribly misunderstood)? And pronunciations (correct or otherwise) from many of the southern dialects. I reckon we should all use Kunminghua.

Anyway - thanks for your input. I remain a proponent of 'jingju' - and I have always been embarrassed by 'Peking' and will be happy to see it confined to museums in future.

In addition to what sclim said above (which I agree with), I want to point out that the English names that were chosen for many Chinese whatnots were chosen so that they made sense to people who speak English. The Chinese do this too! In what sense does 德国 sound anything like Germany? If the Chinese government really wants to be fair with proper names, it should do the same for perhaps millions of foreign proper names that they pronounce incorrectly.

It is also annoying that they think they can tell us how to speak English. We don't tell them which words, which spellings, which system, or whatnot while communicating in Chinese. It's just insane that some official would decide to push on us their Chinese words when the original English words, whether Beijing Opera or Peking Opera, are sensible translations of the original.

Lastly, using Jingju requires one to be familiar with the pinyin pronunciation system, which most native English speakers are not.

Hey, aren't you being a bit harsh? The "Peking" transcription may indeed have come from a "bad" era in your book, but the "P" in that transcription came from the Wade Giles convention in which "P" was a soft unaspirated and unvoiced "P sound", and " P' " was for the aspirated "P sound", for which the official modern pinyin equivalents are "P" and "B". So the variance in that component merely comes from the transcription convention. The "-king" component was because that's how it is pronounced (correctly) in many of the southern dialects (as in Nanking, Chungking etc). You could argue that at least we could have been more consistent in English using a name that was as close to how the residents of the city pronounced it, and that would be fair. But then in English we still say "Munich", "Moscow", "Vienna" , and we sound the "s" in "Paris". I think our track record in general for Asian place names is even worse. In that context "Peking" doesn't count so much as a miss, much less a miss typifying a "bad era".