You know it’s bad for your hypertension to go prescriptivist on place names — “It’s Bay-Jing, you dolt, not Beizzhing!” But did you know there are even better reasons to take a chill? Here are the top 3 arguments for not giving in to the correctionist impulse:
3. It’s quixotic
(An appropriate word given its present-day English pronunciation vs. the Spanish pronunciation of the originating surname.) Here’s the deal: Beizhing, as far as I can tell, is winning over Bay-jing in the US. Give it up already.
2. It’s misguided
If you’re using Bay-Jing/Beizhing as a shibboleth for geographical sophistication, or cultural knowledge, or something, it’s a really poor proxy for real judgment — trust me on this. Why? Take one example and think about what you call those mountains around Mt. Everest – Chomolungma – Qomolangma – Sagarmatha – whatever. The Himalayas? The Himalaya? The Himahlya? Then see what Grant Hutchison says about the madness. (Hilarious stuff — hat tip to Language Hat, who, by the way, also covers Beizhing)
1. It’s wrong anyway
Whatever you call Beijing is going to sound wrong — or at least like an affectation — to someone else. Let’s say you finally browbeat your friends (if you have any left) and your mom into saying Bay-Jing. To a Beijinger, the tones are going to be all wrong anyway. The J is going to be off. If you wanna get down & dirty: the English B isn’t exactly like the Mandarin B either.
Let’s face it: English, like every other language, needs its own pronunciation of the capital city. So relax! She can say Beizhing and he can say Bay-jing (or even Peking, which you almost never hear in the US anymore — don’t know about elsewhere in English-land; see this article on pinyin.info for some explanation about how we ever went from Peking to Beijing in the first place).
We all understand each other, so don’t be so self-conscious. Be like these folks that I talked to on a recent business trip and just say, “this is how we say it.”
In Albanian
Pekin
Taxi driver in Chicago:
In Algerian-Argentinian English
Bay-Jing
Taxi driver Hamimi in Chicago:
In American Midwest English
Beizzhing
Seatmate Dave from MN, on the plane to Chicago:
Grandfather Beijing Sounds, from the western US:
In Macedonian
Beizzhing
Taxi driver in Chicago:
[Note: When I tried to look this up in an online Macedonian dictionary, all I could find indicated it would be pronounced "Peking". Maybe that's an older form, as in English? Any Macedonians out there who could clarify?]
Post Mortem
If you native English speakers promise to be good, and to free your mind from the clouds of pride and prejudice, and hereafter to follow the placename-pronunciation advice provided above, I’ll tell you the real reason you keep harping on people to say BAY-JING, the real reason you grind your teeth and lose track of the conversation every time someone says Beizzhing.
Want a hint? It has nothing to do with Mandarin and wanting foreigners to say the word like they say it in Beijing. It has everything to do, though, with some other language that somehow just doesn’t play well with English.
Oh, what’s that? You promise? Really? OK, and I know you’d half-guessed the answer already anyway.
Your resentment of Beizhing comes from the deep-seated suspicion that people who say Beizhing have French-envy. And it makes you indignant and embarrassed for your native language. “They think anything exotic probably has to sound French and that’s why they’re saying Beizhing. They’re trying to sound sophisticated and worldly and think that a faux-French accent is going get them there!”
“It’s sick!” you say. “It’s got to stop!”
Yes, I reckon that’s how it began. And I will admit to the occasional twinge even now when I hear it. But regardless, Beizhing is here to stay. Be calm!
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Comments 13
Speaking as someone who uses “Beizzhing” unless actually speaking Mandarin, you, sir*, deserve a generous cash award for jumping on this particular conceit. But since I am not in a position to bestow one, appreciation will have to do. I am reminded of the old Jimmy Smits SNL skit where everyone is trying to speak Spanish words with a “correct” Spanish accent (and thus may date myself).
*Groundless assumption
Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 12:12 am ¶I totally agree; French = foreign to most monolingual American English speakers. I’ve definitely corrected a few people, but after a while, it’s just like you said. There’s just no way to stop the momentum. I just waiting for the other shoe to drop: hearing a native Chinese speaker say it (of course when they’re speaking English).
I’m gonna stick to just unceremoniously code-switching to Mandarin for that one word.
Some speculation about why French specifically? Because Mandarin is full of weird fricatives, and French has that prominent yogh [ʒ]. Also, Mandarin vowels are too unlike Spanish to go that route, you definitely couldn’t use a Spanish “j”.
Also, Beijing is a foreign name, and using the English j [dʒ] just doesn’t make it sound foreign enough. English already has “ei” = [ei]: vein, rein, lei, etc., so if you don’t have the [ʒ], then it’s no more foreign-sounding than “Springfield”.
Another thing that makes me cringe inside is Shanghai [ʃɑŋˈhɑi], and the other shoe already dropped on that one because I’ve heard plenty of Chinese native speakers use that when speaking English, which is particularly strange because pronounced that way (shānghài) it means “hurt”. Chinese like to make names sound all pretty and elegant, and here they’re taking a nice-sounding name and making it sound negative. I guess Americans avoid the older American pronunciation [ˈʃænghɑi] because of its negative meaning as a verb, so in keeping with the in-vogue “make it sound exotique” idea, it shifted to [ʃɑŋˈhɑi].
Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 7:39 am ¶In the nation of Québec, people usually pronounce Pé-kin. A minority say Bé-jin. And only a few say Bei-jing. However, I’ve noticed that French speaking people, especially from Québec, are excellent with Beijing’s “er” sound, which is commonly used in the Québécois slang, such as “asteure”.
Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 2:57 pm ¶Will — Indeed, I’m not only a member of the dimmer sex, but also evidently a co-generationist. After you suggested it, I thought I’d just be cute and go get the youtube link to the SNL skit and paste it into this conversation. I remember chortling until I snorted over that one, not least because as a freshman I had come back from a trip to Mexico saying TeeHwahnah (not getting that spelling? Tijuana, of course). What an ape. I’m sure the SNL skit helped me overcome that impulse. But alas, my youtube skills are failing me and I can’t find the piece anywhere. Where’s that easily accessible illegally uploaded content when you really need it?!
Randy: this is a great line
Beijing Sounds will pay top renminbi if you ever get a real recording of that one.
RogerMouche: This makes the whole “French influence” part even funnier, to think that French speakers (at least in Quebec) aren’t even saying Beizzhing anyway. If you’re inspired, email me and we’ll talk about getting a French-Canadian recording to append to this post.
Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 7:04 pm ¶People can say what they want, but I have a friend who insists on WRITING it as Peking. I think he thinks it makes him sound cultured.
Posted 04 Mar 2008 at 7:25 am ¶I think what we really need to do is start spreading the pronunciation of Beijing with that fantastic Beijinghua twang in place of the “ing.” I don’t know how to begin writing it, though… my best guess is something like “Beijyiunnh.” Any better ideas?
Posted 04 Mar 2008 at 11:11 pm ¶Much fun to listen and read about!
Posted 05 Mar 2008 at 5:08 pm ¶The Grant Hutchison article is great, especially the bit about Octopus.
My family are of the BeiZhing thought train but when my parents came to Tianjin I had a bit of a problem telling my dad how to pronounce Tianjin as he kept saying ‘Tien tsin’ which I’ve never heard people saying before. And one of his friends was convinced that Tien tsin and Tianjin were two different places so he was very pleased when he found out his friend was wrong…..
Meeting someone in China who was saying that next they were going to Zion to see the Terracotta Army made me laugh.
Posted 08 Mar 2008 at 8:01 pm ¶In German ‘Peking’ is standard, usually nobody would understand ‘Beijing’.
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 7:29 pm ¶Hi Jan, it’s good to hear this:
That means we can add German speakers to the vast majority in the world willing to just take a name and run with it!
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 12:45 pm ¶Given the often barely recognizable transliteration (yīnyì) of English place names and proper nouns into Mandarin, I’d say English speakers are doing pretty well by comparison no matter which pronunciation they use for Běijīng.
Posted 19 Oct 2008 at 4:30 pm ¶A year later it hardly seems to matter, but for what it’s worth Japanese, despite using kanji, pronounces 北京 as “pekin” (a “native” non-loanword pronunciation would be “hokkyō,” but such a word does not exist).
Posted 15 May 2009 at 1:35 pm ¶@Aaron: “hardly seems to matter”?!
Don’t let the importantists and significiers deceive you and belittle your undertaking: the pronunciation of the Chinese capital, around the world, is of immense industrial, military, social and economic importance. Only we privileged few have eyes with which to see this.
Good to know that we can count Japanese-speakers as another reasonable group of folks who choose to pronounce the name in the way that feels most comfortable. Let it be noted, though, that the BJS studios are open to hiring, in the name of intellectual diversity, a new analyst who inclines towards “Peiping”
Posted 20 May 2009 at 12:37 pm ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
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