The other was an actual change in the name of the city, from "Northern Plains" to "Northern Capitol".
This analysis doesn't explain everything. Modern Mandarin (which into its current form early in the 20th century), along with its linguistic northern predecessor has no sound such as "king", though Cantonese may (and Canton is so far away from Beijing on many levels that it might as well be a different country).
And of course, "Beijing" is no harder to say that "Peking", so its not a matter of creating a name that Anglos were able to pronounce.
So in any event we're dealing with either a deliberate or else somewhat unconscious desire by the Brits to smother or cover-over local culture in some way or another. This of course is not suprising in that the Brits had many imperial enclaves up and down the China cost in the 19th and 20th centuries (until Mao, of course).*
-TD
* I guess its also not too suprising that the same country that launched the Opium Wars is the US's main supporter in Iraq.
From: Bill Frantz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Kevin S. Van Horn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Trials for those undermining the war effort? Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 12:43:41 -0800
At 8:12 AM -0800 4/3/03, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote: >Peking became Beijing
Actually, there were two changes here. One was the general change from Wade-Giles to Pinyin. The other was an actual change in the name of the city, from "Northern Plains" to "Northern Capitol".
Cheers - Bill
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