Why do we call peking beijing

I tend to call and try to pronounce place names as used locally. Consistency in place names, spellings, transliterations and pronunciations will vary from place to place and time to time. My point is, calling cities or countries consistently by its original names is simply unfeasable. So we ought to stick to our words for them.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Lilli Lee November 27, at pm. Paul Rolf Jensen August 13, at pm. John Cowan November 26, at pm. Graham November 26, at pm. Seth July 5, at am. This is why the namePekingis still echoing in our minds and people continue to use it even today. Needless to say, it is easier to pronounce thanBeijing. Both the old and new spelling are approximations of the Chinese sound, pronounced similar to "pay-cheeng. Remember the movie Chunking Express?

Chunking in mainlandChina where it is located anyway is written asChongqing-- it is the same thing under a different spelling system. A number of names did not change their spelling, however.

Shanghaihas always beenShanghaibut this is because both the old and new spelling systems transcribed in the same way. The change from Peking toBeijingis perhaps the most dramatic because, for starters, it is the capital ofChinaand thus one of the best known Chinese cities. I've been doing a lot of research around European newspaper websites at the moment, in preparation for my presentation in Amsterdam at the Euro IA Summit , and I couldn't help noticing that, actually, the Chinese Postal Map 'Peking' way of spelling Beijing seems to have persisted in most major European languages outside of English.

By Martin Belam on 22 August Read other recent posts about: Olympics. They seem to have fallen in line since, but for a very long time The Independent persisted with 'Peking' on the grounds that the Chinese government wanted the Western media to call their capital Beijing, and the paper wasn't minded to do as it was told by the Chinese government.

I only heard of Beijing when I moved to North America. If I had heard the word beijing I would probably think it is something that is served with a side of rice.

Skip to content Menu. Why did Peking change to Beijing? Language Curiosities. Stephen Whiteley. China: Why did Peking change to Beijing? Traditional or Simplified Chinese?