Talk:Taoyuan
Britannica[edit]
On Britannica's entry for T’ao-yüan, it says "T’ao-yüan, Pinyin Taoyuan, special municipality (chih-hsia shih, or zhizia shi), northern Taiwan." We know from the 1953 example provided here that 'Taoyuan' already existed before Hanyu Pinyin, but the implication of the way this line on Britannica is written is that the word 'Taoyuan' wouldn't exist without Zhou Youguang's helping hand. I see that as a deceptive and dangerous presentation. If pushed, Britannica will say "well, we aren't saying 'Taoyuan' wasn't a pre-existing word, we're just telling people what the pinyin form would be.' Yeah yeah, sure- but you've written it in a way that leads the reader to believe 'Taoyuan' wouldn't exist without the helping hand of pinyin. In fact it's the opposite: the English loan word 'Taoyuan' has existed since ancient times and Hanyu Pinyin was piggy-backing on that history in respect to the word 'Taoyuan'. I struggle to imagine how to approach Britannica about this, but let me know if you have any advice or thoughts. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:09, 20 March 2021 (UTC)