Akerbeltz Alba scripsit:
> 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 ; )
No, it's just 15th century Mandarin, before the palatalizing change
g > j. "Beiging" would be a reasonable pinyin representation of
this pronunciation. IIRC Chinese opera pronunciation also doesn't
palatalize.
--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin
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