Why do westerners spell 哈尔滨(Haerbin) "Harbin"

[Frederik451]

One thing is that westerners in general probably find it hard to pronounce "haerbin", so we just pronounce it like "harbin", i get that! 

 

But why do we spell it harbin? Just randomly did a search and even google said "did you mean harbin" when i entered Haerbin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbin

https://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/heilongjiang/harbin/

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/china/heilongjiang/haerbin/travel-tips-and-articles/10-fascinating-facts-about-harbin-chinas-ice-festival-city/40625c8c-8a11-5710-a052-1479d2761ac1

 

Are there other names that we also spell differently in the western world? I thought about it, but could not think of any. Maybe I'm just tired and will realize that it is completely normal, when someone in here can think of 10 of these :-) 

 

Maybe there is a rule or something, that "ae" just becomes "a" ?

 

Cheers

[889]

Harbin was Harbin in English long before the introduction of Hanyu Pinyin.

 

Kashgar and Urumqi are among other places that have maintained traditional, pre-Pinyin English names.

 

Why, there are even some people who still call the capital Peking. Over a Tsingtao beer, no doubt.

 

Many but not all traditional English names of Chinese places come from the Postal Romanization system adopted in the early 20th century.

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/1947_Zhonghua_Minguo_Quantu.png

[陳德聰]

We call 陝西 "Shaanxi" lol that one has always amused me.

 

We used to call 北京 "Peking" and Cantonese comes from Canton = 廣州, thought we call it Guangzhou now I guess.

 

How about "Hong Kong" which doesn't follow any romanisation system in Mandarin OR Cantonese...

 

All of Taiwan follows a different romanisation scheme than China, so that can be a mindtrip in itself.

[889]

What's striking about that map -- which bears some study if you like maps -- is the few number of places that haven't changed romanization: Shanghai, Pingyao, Kaifeng, Anyang, Changsha, Kunming, and a very few others.

 

(Shaanxi of course is an accepted Pinyin aberration to avoid conflict with Shanxi. Are there any other official Pinyin aberrations?)

[trevorld]

26 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

We call 陝西 "Shaanxi" lol that one has always amused me.

 

We call 陕西 "Shaanxi" instead of "Shanxi" (like 山西) because that is how the PRC officially wants it to be (irregularly) romanized:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaanxi#Name

 

I guess they didn't want a situation like in the US where Washington (state) is often confused with Washington (D.C.).

[trevorld]

28 minutes ago, 889 said:

(Shaanxi of course is an accepted Pinyin aberration to avoid conflict with Shanxi. Are there any other official Pinyin aberrations?)

 

Shaanxi seems to be the only PRC official spelling using the older Gwoyeu Romatzyh romanization system instead of Pinyin romanization.  

 

Official Pinyin is full of unintuitive "traps" but those don't seem to be the aberrations you are interested in.

[Publius]

Harbin, according to the Wikipedia link, was originally a Manchu word meaning "a place for drying fishing nets".

Place names in ethnic languages are spelled according to their original pronunciation, for example, 烏魯木齊 Urumqi, 呼和浩特 Hohhot, 拉薩 Lhasa. 哈爾濱 Harbin is just one of them.

[Lu]

1 hour ago, 889 said:

Are there any other official Pinyin aberrations?

I don't know about place names, but some dynasty names are also changed a bit to avoid confusion. There's Jin (265-420) vs Jinn (1115-1234), and another one that I can't find at the moment.

[Frederik451]

Thanks for all the answers guys.  My headache is now gone!

 

And it is a very interesting map, i've never seen that before. I got completely lost trying to find some cities.  ...until i realized the characters should be read from right to left 

[skylee]

“All of Taiwan follows a different romanisation scheme than China,”

 

I wonder if this is still true. I often visit Taipei and this does not seem to be the case there.

[trevorld]

21 minutes ago, skylee said:

I often visit Taipei and this does not seem to be the case there.

 

Did Taiwan recently change the official romanisation of its capital 臺北 to Taibei (like according to mainland China's romanization scheme)?

[trevorld]

Seems parts (but not all) of Taiwan do use Hanyu Pinyu for street signs and transit systems even though large city and county names continue to officially be romanised according to earlier systems like Wade-Giles.

 

 

Quote

 

When the national government officially adopted Tongyong Pinyin in 2002, local governments were to make their own choices. Consequently, Taipei, adopted Hanyu Pinyin.^[15] Taipei replaced its earlier signage, most of which had used a modified version of Wade-Giles influenced by the Postal Office.^[16] Elsewhere in Taiwan, signs tend to a mix of systems, with Tongyong being common, but still having many signs left over from the MPS II (or even the GR) era.

The current legal standard since 2009, Hanyu Pinyin, is used fairly consistently in train stations, high-speed rail stations and highways. Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second most populous city, continues to use Tongyong in its streets and MRT.

The first- and second-level divisions of Taiwan (all counties and the biggest cities) are unaffected by the changing standards throughout the years, as their usage has become well-established. By tradition, all are in Wade-Giles, except Kinmen, which is a postal romanization, and Keelung, which is a long-standing way to refer to the city.^[17]

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language_romanization_in_Taiwan#Placenames

[happy_hyaena]

If you're not careful in Taiwan you might not realise that two different place names are referring to the same place, like Taidong and Taitung. The one that really tripped me up was Jhihben, which I would lazily read as Jiben, but surprisingly turned out to be Zhiben's alternative name.

[crazy-meiguoren]

When we eat spicy Chinese food, we still call it Szechwan instead of Sichuan.  Western restaurants still serve Peking duck instead of Beijing duck.  It's how we roll around here. lol

 

But don't take it personally.  It happens everywhere.  Muenchen is called Munich, Sverige is called Sweden, and White Center is called Rat City.  It also goes both ways.  You have to be from "Xiyatu" to get that last one.

[Zbigniew]

On 06/06/2017 at 5:18 PM, Frederik451 said:

But why do we spell it harbin?

I'd always assumed it was because most native English speakers would be confused about how to pronounce the ae sequence in Haerbin, and would be similarly confused by the sequence aa in Haarbin, or else would simply pronounce it as in aardvark, all of which leads to the conclusion that the spelling Harbin is a defensible one.

[Lu]

Most native English speakers are confused by Xi'an, but that one's not written She-ann. I don't think the confusion of English speakers is an important consideration.

[roddy]

 

8 minutes ago, Lu said:

I don't think the confusion of English speakers is an important consideration.

Not the reduction of it, anyway. 

 

In this case, there may also be a Russian factor complicating things.

[happy_hyaena]

Speaking of Xi'an, Shanxi 山西 and Shaanxi 陕西 is difficult for foreigners to differentiate between, especially since the difference is a matter of tone. To someone who doesn't understand Chinese tones, there are two neighboring provinces pronounced the same way