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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Beijing
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References: <338A26B4.9E4@-accton.com.tw> <5oaqo2$gih@vidar.diku.dk> <5ovkv3$501@nuscc.nus.sg> <5p0fgf$5ic@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 17:13:36 GMT
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In article <5p0fgf$5ic@netnews.upenn.edu>,
James Andrews <jandrews@sas.upenn.eduX> wrote:
>P. K. W. Tan (elltankw@leonis.nus.sg) wrote:
>: Klaus Ole Kristiansen (klaus@diku.dk) wrote:
>
>: : There are many ways to write Chinese with our alphabet.  Not too many
>: : years ago, China officially adopted the one called pinying.  Prior
>: : to that, another system had been adopted almost exclusively in the west.
>: : In that now obsolete system, Beijing was spelled Peking.
>
>
>Yeah, but what I'm still wondering is where they got the "k" when they 
>anglicized Beijing.  I mean, the "b" is kind of a hard "b" sound, and I 
>guess could be mistaken for a "p," but the "j" sound is really nothing 
>like "k."  Any thoughts on that?
>
>Jas. (I don't remember much Chinese, but I know that much...)

We've answered this question a couple of times already on this thread.
the 'j' (i.e. [cC]) in 'Beijing' represents an earlier 'g' (i.e. [k]) that
has since been palatalised.  This palatalisation took place at different
times in different Mandarin dialects and has not occurred in most other
dialects of Chinese.  There doesn't seem to be any consensus on which
dialect (e.g. earlier Nanking Mandarin, Mandarin spoken by southern
officials, Cantonese, etc.) 'Peking' was borrowed from.

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
