Edward Cherlin scripsit:
> The spelling "Peking" in the Wade-Giles Romanization represents the
> same pronunciation in the same dialect as "Beijing" in Pinyin.
I don't think so. W-G k = Pinyin g, not j. The W-G would be
Peiching.
> I also find it funny that the Beijing "dialect" is called Mandarin,
> which is not Chinese. It is derived from a Hindi word brought in and
> applied by the British.
Hindi must have borrowed it from a Romance language (Portuguese, maybe).
> And of course, that several of the various languages of China are
> called "dialects", which is like calling English and Castilian
> (Spanish to the hoi polloi) "dialects" of Latin, or calling Catalan
> and Portuguese "dialects' of Castilian.
For "English" read some Romance language.
--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin
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