Re: 'Peking' vs 'Beijing'

Bill Frantz wrote... "the third Ming emperor, however, restored it as the Imperial seat of the dynasty and gave it a new name, Peking (Northern Capital)." Well, this simplifies things, as it should for an Encyclopedia entry, but it doesn't explain the "Peking" 'transliteration'. As I said before, there is no sound "king" in Mandarin. And indeed, "jing" means capital in Mandarin. So what this paragraph refers to as "Peking" was always pronounced by Chinese as "Beijing" to each other. The British, however, introduced the pronunciation "Peking" for some reason. (I may have the history in one of my books which I'll peruse tonight.) (For the knowledgeable, it might be argued that the pronunciation 'Peking' has Manchurian roots, because the Mings were Manchus. But this is not the case. For one, by the 20th century, the Beijing Court had completely forgotton how to speak Manchu (only a few dozen people still speak it today). For two, Manchu is not a Chinese dialect, but derived by one of the trans-siberian groups. So it would not share the "Bei" sound indicating "northern".) -TD

From: Bill Frantz To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Re: 'Peking' vs 'Beijing' Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 10:46:59 -0700

From the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1974 edition):

"More than 2,000 years ago, a site near present-day Peking was already an important military and trading centre for the northeastern frontier of China. Not until the Mongol dynasty (AD 1279 to 1368) was a successor city -- called Ta-tu -- to become the administrative capital of China. During the reign of the first emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644), Nanking became the capital, and the old Mongol capital was renamed Pei-p'ing (Peace in the North); the third Ming emperor, however, restored it as the Imperial seat of the dynasty and gave it a new name, Peking (Northern Capital). It remained the capital until the 20th century, when, after the successful campaign of the Chinese Nationalist troops against warlords in Peking in 1927, Nanking was selected as the national capital, and Peking once again resumed its old name -- Pei-p'ing -- a name still used b the Nationalist government in Taiwan."

Cheers - Bill

------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Due process for all | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | used to be the | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@pwpconsult.com | American way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

_________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail