Talk:Peking

RFD discussion: April–May 2020

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Peking

Rfv-sense for the adjective. Not a true adjective, just attributive use of the proper noun. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• Delete (I would have deleted it on sight)) SemperBlotto (talk) 06:19, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• This is an all-too-common error. Merge the attributive sense with the proper noun. I think you shouldn't need an RFD to do that. DonnanZ (talk) 08:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
• Delete. Not an adjective. Mihia (talk) 01:11, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• RFD-deleted. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:12, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Etymology Inaccurate

@Equinox, Justinrleung, Metaknowledge, RcAlex36 Hey- the etymology for this word is inaccurate in my view because it contains an anachronism: Chinese postal romanization did not exist when this word was already in existence (see the new example from 1655 that I just added here). I believe this particular word may be a loan word from French word "Pekin"- a sort of "non-systematic" romanization. But my issue is: whence cometh the "g"? Was there some kind of nascent romanization system or were there some sinologists that thought adding a g was better? (Note also: as you can see with my new examples, the English language words Taiwan and Hainan were in existence in the 1600's. I was thinking these were created non-systematically- "whatever the sailors wrote down"- but maybe there is a system of transcription/transileration behind this?) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 14:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Per my comments, I removed the 'postal romanization' part from the etymology. [1] --Geographyinitiative (talk) 14:11, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the reference to postal romanization is likely to confuse readers. The spelling "Peking" existed long before postal romanization. It was grandfathered in, but it is not regular under that system. It comes from an atlas by Martino Martini that was published in 1655 in Amsterdam. Martini was writing in Latin, but "k" is not regular in Latin.

As for "Pekin," that is from Portuguese Pequim. This form appears in a 1552 letter by Francis Xavier. ("Letter to Didaco Perriera," 12 Nov 1552) The spelling is based on a pronunciation that he had heard in Macau, presumably Cantonese. Sir Walter Raleigh used "Pekin" in 1596.

I checked the Dutch immigration registry, or at least the 17th century part of it that is online. It usually refers to this city as "Packin." Fairnesscounts (talk) 01:16, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Latin?

"Peking" first appeared in Martini's Latin account of the Ming-Qing War. But it is misleading to think of the word as Latin. Johann Hofmann's Lexicon Universale (1698) gives the Latin name of the city as "Pechinum."[2] This name comes from a book by Matteo Ricci published in 1616.
Du Halde is here. His book is in French and was published in 1736. It uses "Peking" sixty times, Pékin three times. Fairnesscounts (talk) 18:07, 25 April 2022 (UTC)