Talk:Nangan

nankan.gov.tw
This post is meant to help explore the actual usage situation and official status of the spellings Nangan/Nankan. In my experience, government websites in Taiwan (ROC) are sometimes very consistent about using one romanization over another. However, in some percentage of cases, the local government uses multiple spellings simultaneously. I don't pass judgment on these practices; I am descriptivist. One example is Chupei/Jhubei/Zhubei (see my acerbic diatribe at Talk:Zhubei). Nangan/Nankan is another example where multiple spellings appear on the local government websites. Here are archived examples of what I'm talking about from 2021 & today (in 2022):. Here, like with Chupei/Jhubei/Zhubei, the atonal Wade-Giles-derived spelling is used in the URL, while the atonal pinyin-derived spelling (in this case perhaps perceived as either Hanyu Pinyin and/or Tongyong Pinyin) is used in the text. Beyond what we see at Chupei/Jhubei/Zhubei (Wade-Giles only seen in the URL), for Nangan/Nankan there is actually a large jpg that is clearly visible that uses 'Nankan'. My guess is that a difference like this would not be missed by the English language editor for the website, and that the use of 'Nangan' is required by the central government, but the use of 'Nankan' is an act of love. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:33, 28 September 2022 (UTC)