Interesting threadhttps://twitter.com/tanchunkiet/status/1332566007995535361 …
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Replying to @AmeliaRoseWrite @arthur_affect
Somehow kind of guessed this based on Taiwanese and Hong Kongers and SE Asian Chinese sometimes seeming to have different patterns of Romanized names, never saw it written out before. Good to see a proper explanation.
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Replying to @SpaceKujira @arthur_affect
Same. I have a very general sense that East and Southeast Asian names seem different but lack any proper context to trace it, so this is a good launch point!
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Replying to @AmeliaRoseWrite @SpaceKujira
Yeah there's this viral NYT article from the 2000s about how the NYT's (and most US pubs') style guide for transliterating "Chinese names" as a whole bows to Mandarin cultural imperialism It gave the example of a random guy quoted in some NYT story as "Mr. Wu"
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Pointing out that, yes, this is technically correct, because his name is written in hanzi as 吳, and in Mandarin that's pronounced "Wu" But Mr. Wu, a working-class bus driver from Guangzhou, most likely *never* called himself "Wu" in daily conversation
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And his ancestors, for the vast majority of their family history, wouldn't have called themselves "Wu" either Because as a South Chinese family from Guangdong their actual native language was Cantonese, in which 吳 is pronounced "Ng"
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Guangdong is Canton, right?
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Yes
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"Canton" for "Guangdong" dates back to the loosey-goosey era of Europeans just making up transliterations off the cuff and is probably influenced by the 100% coincidental similarity to the French word "canton" for "district"
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I always wondered how they got Peking from Beijing
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Replying to @thedogshala @arthur_affect and
I'd imagine it was a lot more difficult for British to adapt/hack Chinese names than say, Indian
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End of conversation
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