Talk:南京

Origin of Japanese pronunciation

@TAKASUGI Shinji: Hi. Which Chinese dialect is the Japanese pronunciation based on, also for 北京(ペキン) (Pekin), is it a Nanjing dialect? Or is it from a European language, as some people suggest on Japanese forums, also in regards to 香港(ホンコン) (Honkon)? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:42, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

@Atitarev: 香港(ホンコン) (Honkon) is from English Hong Kong. It was not known to Japanese before the British rule. As for 南京(ナンキン) (Nankin) and 北京(ペキン) (Pekin), they must have come from English too, as well as 上海(シャンハイ) (Shanhai), because it was unusual to pronounce Chinese proper names in the Chinese way. The palatalization of ki and gi in Mandarin happened as late as the 18th century and the outside world didn’t accept it until recently (Nankin,Nanking,Nanjing, Pekin,Peking,Beijing,Peiping). — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 06:16, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

@TAKASUGI Shinji: OK, thanks. I am aware of the English or general European shift in the spellings/pronunciation of these two cities Beijing and Nanjing. It's harder to check the Japanese historical pronunciations, though. I understand there is no solid resource on the Japanese etymology here, so it can be either English or one of the non-Mandarin dialects of Chinese. Cf Middle Chinese: 南 (MC nom) + 京 (MC kjaeng). "k/g" is obviously more common in various dialects. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:33, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Also Nara

Wasn't this term also used to refer to the city of Nara in Japanese? 173.88.246.138 07:38, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Added. 173.88.246.138 07:39, 9 November 2020 (UTC)