I dont care what you say, Im still calling it Bombay!

[theslickvik]

Originally posted by: Jassi
People who want the names changed are idiots, especially the ones ready to use force for it. The British occupation of India is was and always will be a fact of historical importance. How would Desi's feel if Brits start renaming Curry, Jungle etc.

Wow another fellow punjabi at last. Ki hal hain bhai sab???

 

[DeeKnow]

who gives a rat's ass anyway?

the damned city still stinks, is overrun by beggars, and drowns everytime it rains.

and don't tell me what do I know, cause I'm there right now

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: theslickvik

Originally posted by: FelixDeKat

Originally posted by: CarlKillerMiller

Originally posted by: FelixDeKat

Originally posted by: Rip the Jacker
seconded // co-sign

Hey....a petition drive...didnt think about that. Maybe we can force several million people in India to join our cause.

That is one of the funniest things that I have read in the past week.

Thanks. Whats really funny is that I was being serious. :shocked:








:laugh:

Stupid Gandu

People in India are missing out on all the steaks walking around in Bombay.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: Aflac

Originally posted by: sdifox
I don't get the Chinese name changes at all. Theoretically it has to do with the phonetic system they picked. But Beijing??? Phonetically it is closer to Peiging. Even the good old Peking is better than Beijing. I have to guess everytime I see an updated name what city they are referring to.

Do you really speak mandarin? I have absolutely no idea where you're coming from.

By the way, if you are in fact chinese, you should know about ping yin (ying? agh, southern accent getting the better of me).

I do speak Mandarin. BEI is just phonetically wrong, j or g is a bit less clear of an issue. I don't give a crap what the officially sanctioned phonetic system says, that is just messed up. Don't tell me you say Beijing in Mandarin sounds anything like Beijing.

Ummm, yes it does? (Even if my Chinese is very poor.) The difference between B and P is the consonant B is unaspirated.

And besides, trying to strictly impose Western phonetics on an Eastern language is somewhat silly. Reasonable consistency is a good thing, but there is no one-to-one mapping of spoken sounds in completely unrelated languages.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: Aflac

Originally posted by: sdifox
I don't get the Chinese name changes at all. Theoretically it has to do with the phonetic system they picked. But Beijing??? Phonetically it is closer to Peiging. Even the good old Peking is better than Beijing. I have to guess everytime I see an updated name what city they are referring to.

Do you really speak mandarin? I have absolutely no idea where you're coming from.

By the way, if you are in fact chinese, you should know about ping yin (ying? agh, southern accent getting the better of me).

I do speak Mandarin. BEI is just phonetically wrong, j or g is a bit less clear of an issue. I don't give a crap what the officially sanctioned phonetic system says, that is just messed up. Don't tell me you say Beijing in Mandarin sounds anything like Beijing.

Ummm, yes it does? (Even if my Chinese is very poor.) The difference between B and P is the consonant B is unaspirated.

And besides, trying to strictly impose Western phonetics on an Eastern language is somewhat silly. Reasonable consistency is a good thing, but there is no one-to-one mapping of spoken sounds in completely unrelated languages.

What do you mean by imposing western phonetics? The whole point of coming up with English phonetic names is so that the foreigners can try to speak the name correctly and make it sound like a native would call it. And the difference between B and P is that P sound that is missing in the B sound. I am a native Manadrin speaker, my accents are a bit off (too many languages learned leads to messed up accent)

 

[UlricT]

4 of the biggest cities in my state have changed its name. We just call it by whatever is easier now

 

[maximus maximus]

Behnch0d.... I dont care what the fvck they call it...

 

[BurnItDwn]

I think the people who live in India should get to pick the names of their cities and not an online message board.

Otherwise it woould be called "chuck norris town" or something stupid like that.

 

[mrkun]

Umm, the difference between "P" and "B" is that "B" is voiced and "P" isn't. That's it.

 

[Feldenak]

I can almost bring myself to care what they call their cities...almost.

 

[BoberFett]

I'm just disappointed I got in too late to join in the TMBG singalong.

 

[Jawo]

I've been to Bangalore, Mumbai/Bombay, and Madras/Chennai. All the local signs (when in English) call them the "Indian" name. If India wants to change the cities name, why don't they? Its thier right. For another example look at Burma (US Name) /Mynamar (Offical Name).

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: mrkun
Umm, the difference between "P" and "B" is that "B" is voiced and "P" isn't. That's it.

What do you mean voiced? They make different sounds no? Otherwise why would you have 2 letters?

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: sdifox
What do you mean by imposing western phonetics? The whole point of coming up with English phonetic names is so that the foreigners can try to speak the name correctly and make it sound like a native would call it. And the difference between B and P is that P sound that is missing in the B sound. I am a native Manadrin speaker, my accents are a bit off (too many languages learned leads to messed up accent)

I seriously doubt that's the sole or main purpose of pinyin. IMO it's to consistently represent (Mandarin) Chinese using the Latin alphabet. There's no consistency of spoken sounds amongst (all) the languages which use this alphabet. You're incorrectly assuming that Chinese (or any other language) should map closely to English, which is probably one of the least consistent languages out there. Chinese vowels do not vary, and many Chinese consonants don't map to any English equivalent: zh, q, c .

You probably speak much better Chinese than I can, but I'm still confused why you think Beijing is such a terrible example. Like I said, the consonant B is unaspirated (you don't expel air pronouncing it), just as it is in English. Maybe you speak a funky dialect of Chinese?

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: sdifox
What do you mean by imposing western phonetics? The whole point of coming up with English phonetic names is so that the foreigners can try to speak the name correctly and make it sound like a native would call it. And the difference between B and P is that P sound that is missing in the B sound. I am a native Manadrin speaker, my accents are a bit off (too many languages learned leads to messed up accent)

I seriously doubt that's the sole or main purpose of pinyin. IMO it's to consistently represent (Mandarin) Chinese using the Latin alphabet. There's no consistency of spoken sounds amongst (all) the languages which use this alphabet. You're incorrectly assuming that Chinese (or any other language) should map closely to English, which is probably one of the least consistent languages out there. Chinese vowels do not vary, and many Chinese consonants don't map to any English equivalent: zh, q, c .

You probably speak much better Chinese than I can, but I'm still confused why you think Beijing is such a terrible example. Like I said, the consonant B is unaspirated (you don't expel air pronouncing it), just as it is in English. Maybe you speak a funky dialect of Chinese?

What other purpose can pin-yin have other than for foreigners? Locals already know how to read Chinese. My problem with Beijing is with the letter B, it is the wrong sound for the word North. It should be P. And don't tell me you say "North" without aspirating since that is just wrong. Or are you saying Bot sounds exactly the same as Pot?

I don't have a problem with approximations when no matching sound can be found in the Latin based languages, but when there is a better fit they do not use it?

zhang is just messed up. Tsang is closer than zhang.

 

[theslickvik]

Originally posted by: DeeKnow
who gives a rat's ass anyway?

the damned city still stinks, is overrun by beggars, and drowns everytime it rains.

and don't tell me what do I know, cause I'm there right now

Hope you die in Surat you jerk off

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: sdifox
What do you mean by imposing western phonetics? The whole point of coming up with English phonetic names is so that the foreigners can try to speak the name correctly and make it sound like a native would call it. And the difference between B and P is that P sound that is missing in the B sound. I am a native Manadrin speaker, my accents are a bit off (too many languages learned leads to messed up accent)

I seriously doubt that's the sole or main purpose of pinyin. IMO it's to consistently represent (Mandarin) Chinese using the Latin alphabet. There's no consistency of spoken sounds amongst (all) the languages which use this alphabet. You're incorrectly assuming that Chinese (or any other language) should map closely to English, which is probably one of the least consistent languages out there. Chinese vowels do not vary, and many Chinese consonants don't map to any English equivalent: zh, q, c .

You probably speak much better Chinese than I can, but I'm still confused why you think Beijing is such a terrible example. Like I said, the consonant B is unaspirated (you don't expel air pronouncing it), just as it is in English. Maybe you speak a funky dialect of Chinese?

What other purpose can pin-yin have other than for foreigners? Locals already know how to read Chinese. My problem with Beijing is with the letter B, it is the wrong sound for the word North. It should be P. And don't tell me you say "North" without aspirating since that is just wrong. Or are you saying Bot sounds exactly the same as Pot?

I don't have a problem with approximations when no matching sound can be found in the Latin based languages, but when there is a better fit they do not use it?

zhang is just messed up. Tsang is closer than zhang.

Here's the thing. You incorrectly assume the Latin alphabet must map closely to spoken English, which is one of the more inconsistent languages out there. Furthermore, such an argument wouldn't apply to Chinese consonants that simply don't exist in English, i.e. zh. Ts is a bad choice because it was used in the old Romanization system (Wades-Giles) for a different consonant.

Back to Beijing, I've never heard the b aspirated before in my admittedly limited experience. I think you speak a variant dialect.

 

[BlancoNino]

It's not called England anymore, it's called Great Britain. I know, the whole world is going to hell.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: manly
Here's the thing. You incorrectly assume the Latin alphabet must map closely to spoken English, which is one of the more inconsistent languages out there. Furthermore, such an argument wouldn't apply to Chinese consonants that simply don't exist in English, i.e. zh. Ts is a bad choice because it was used in the old Romanization system (Wades-Giles) for a different consonant.

Back to Beijing, I've never heard the b aspirated before in my admittedly limited experience. I think you speak a variant dialect.

So because TS was used in WG you can't use it in Pin Yin for something else??? How messed up is this Pin Yin then? I speak Spanish, which is based on Latin phonetic and is a lot cleaner than English.

As you your last sentence, I think you just proved my point; Pin Yin is messed up. In deciding to use b to denote unaspirated p, it cut out the possibility of a light p if you will, which is what is called for in this case. A modifier symbol should have been included. So you can have a lightly pronounced P.

P.S., the way I say North is no different than CCTV's newscast and I would think their pronounciation is precise.