Micheal Everson séh:
>For the last two, I think there's nothing wrong with us updating to more
>correct pronunciations than those cogged together by civil servants of the
>British Empire. Pinyin is _convenient_, and why not use it for all
>placenames in China?
Hmph, because Mandarin is a foreign language to anybody south of the Yellow river. Admittedly "Hong Kong" is a VERY crude representation of "Heung Góhng", but in any case preferred to "Xiang Gang". Admittedly, few of the place-names actually ARE in the local languages, but the few there are survive only in foreign languages these days, such as Fukien/Hokkien, Hong Kong, Kwangchou, Kwangsai etc.
On a personal note I always found it hilarious that the capital, deep in Mandarin speaking territory, should have a phonetic representation of I'm-not-sure-what but definitely NOT Mandarin with the final -k and/or inital k- in PEKING; could be Cantonese Pak Ging ; )
Michael
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