When a foreign place name, or
toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
, occurs in Chinese text, the problem arises of spelling it in Chinese characters, given the limited phonetics and restrictive phonology of
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
(making it very difficult to
transcribe
Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including:
Genetics
* Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s), and the possible meaning of those characters when treated as Chinese words. For example:
* "
London Heathrow Airport
Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...
" is usually rendered in
Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...
as 伦敦希斯路机场 (Lúndūn Xīsīlù Jīchǎng), with the
English pronunciation of 'London' being fairly accurate, and of 'Heathrow' being less accurate: in Chinese the translation of each character literally means "kinship, honest" (for London, 伦敦), "hope, given/this, road" (for Heathrow, 希斯路), "aircraft, field" (机场), with the last syllable of "Heathrow" rendered as "lu" although the more accurate "lo" and "lou" are known Chinese words. The reason for this strange transcription for "Heathrow" is because the name of the airport was introduced to the Chinese language through
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
, in which the loanword is pronounced ''Hei1 Si1 Lo4'', which is actually more accurate to the English pronunciation of the name. However, when this word was adopted into Mandarin, the Chinese characters to write "Heathrow" were used without any regards to pronunciation, in which the Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations of the same Chinese character can often be drastically different from one another.
Sometimes, the endonym or the English exonym of a place can be literally translated in Chinese characters, such as "Salt Lake City" or the "Dead Sea", which are translated into Chinese as 盐湖城 (Yánhú Chéng) and 死海 (Sǐhǎi), which mean "salt-lake-city" and "dead-sea" respectively.
More often than not, however, characters are chosen simply because their syllables sound somewhat similar to the syllables of the endonym or the English exonym, regardless of the meaning of the individual characters. Examples include Dublin and Yemen, which are written in Chinese as 都柏林 (Dūbólín, which literally translates as "all-cypress-forest") and 也门 (Yěmén, which literally translates as "also-door") respectively. In both Chinese exonyms, the connection between the meanings of the Chinese characters and their respective places is not particularly obvious, so it is safe to assume these exonyms are transcriptions. Historically, the characters chosen to represent the sounds have sometimes been chosen to be intended as derogatory (see
graphic pejoratives in written Chinese), although many of these have been replaced with homophones with neutral or positive connotations.
There are other exonyms that are a combination of translation and transcription (meaning and sound) of the endonym. For example, New Zealand is written as 新西兰 (Xīnxīlán), in which the first character 新 (xīn) literally means "new" and the final two characters 西兰 (Xīlán) is a transcription of "Zealand". Likewise, America is written as 美国 (Měiguó), which is a combination of 美 (měi), one of the characters in another exonym 阿美利哥 (Āměilìgē), and 国 (guó), the translation for the word "country". The full name of the United States in Chinese, “美利坚合众国” (Meilijianhezhongguo), which is very rarely used in China, roughly translates to the "United States of America" and is not an exonym, as the official Chinese word for the nation of the United States is different for the Chinese word for the continent of America. Acronyms including the character 国 (guó) is common among exonyms.
Names of foreign nations are sometimes shortened to their first character when used in compounds. For example, the name for Russia in Chinese is 俄罗斯 (Éluósī), but the name of the Russian language is 俄语 (Éyǔ), anything Russian-style is 俄式 (Éshì), and the Russian military is 俄军 (Éjūn).
However, some Chinese exonyms exist which are not immediately obvious because they are neither translations nor transcriptions, such as 旧金山 (Jiùjīnshān, which literally means "Old Gold Mountain") and 新金山 (Xīnjīnshān, which literally means "New Gold Mountain") for San Francisco and Melbourne respectively. These exonyms exist because they have a special history among Chinese people worldwide for one reason or another.
For Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese names, the Chinese exonym is often the Chinese pronunciation of the Korean
hanja
Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom.
(, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, ...
, Japanese
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
, or ancient Vietnamese
Chữ Nôm
Chữ Nôm (, ; ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters ('' Chữ Hán'') to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represent ...
writing of the toponym. In some cases, especially in Japan, the Chinese pronunciation may be completely unlike the native-language pronunciation.
However, if the country's or city's endonym is not internationally well-known, Chinese will often transcribe the endoynym or English name into Chinese characters.
Countries had been founded or had gained independence after 1949 (the year
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
had exiled to
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
after losing to the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
) often have different exonyms used in
mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
(
PRC
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
) and Taiwan (
ROC) due to differences in official standards resulting from the split in government. Exonyms used in mainland China are written in
simplified Chinese
Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to:
Mathematics
Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example
* Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...
on this page, and exonyms used in Taiwan are written in
traditional Chinese
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...
. The exception to this are exonyms for Japanese and Korean place names, which will be written in traditional Chinese.
The exonyms below are all in Mandarin Chinese.
Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Bhutan
Brazil
Brunei
Bulgaria
Burundi
Cambodia
Canada
Egypt
Ethiopia
France
Germany
Haiti
Iceland
The Chinese exonym is a literal translation of the endonym.
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Placenames in Israel will include places in
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The ...
.
Japan
Jordan
Laos
Mexico
Nepal
New Zealand
North Korea
In Chinese, the country can be referred to as North Korea, but it is usually referred to just by the
cognate for the endonym,
Choson (조선).
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Saudi Arabia
South Korea
In Chinese, the country is not usually referred to as South Korea, but by the
cognate for the endonym,
Hanguk (한국).
Sri Lanka
Syria
Turkey
Thailand
United Kingdom
United States
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Yemen
International bodies of water
International landmarks and regions
See also
References
{{Reflist
Lists of exonyms
History of the foreign relations of China