Talk:Taipeh

Taipeh: synonym or alternate form?
I understand how you would want to make this edit. Here's how I look at this: Is Taipeh a synonym or alternate form of Taipei? If it is a synonym, then this is not a spelling issue. If it is an alternate form, then it could be considered a dated spelling. Peking is considered a synonym because it originates from something beside Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese. I saw Taipeh as falling into the synonym category too. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:15, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I (and I would guess most editors) see synonyms as being truly distinct words with both different etymologies and different pronunciations that share semantics. These have (essentially) the same etymology and the same pronunciation; the difference is notable enough to be worth mentioning, but not to treat them as separate words. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:21, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The problem is that "essentially" word. I and I would guess most editors wouldn't want to be too hasty about demanding Peking to be an alternate form of Beijing instead of a synonym and same here. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The goal is to make the full-throated demand that everything written in Chinese characters in the territory of the PRC is and always was only one language when that is a bald-faced lie. All turning on the moral equivocation invoked by use of the word "essentially" as we make the bow. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:25, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * 1. That is not a problem, and we use this all the time (e.g. for spellings of that have come via different languages). 2. You are almost certainly wrong;  is currently an alt-form, and I think the definition line there is good as is. (Notably, one cannot say "Beijing duck" in English, so Peking has much more of a claim to special status than Taipeh.) 3. You are wrong again about the unification of Chinese being relevant; nobody has suggested that Mandarin written in Chinese script be split into multiple languages on Wiktionary. 4. You sound unhinged, and you need to learn to control yourself instead of ranting, as I have told you before. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:32, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Change it to an alternate form on the Taipei page before changing it here covertly; also change Peking over to an alternate form on the Beijing page, otherwise this is 100% invalid. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:37, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:42, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The link to Chinese Postal Romanization is non-functional. You're playing into the dangerous game where any use of Chinese characters means it's "Chinese" (not a language, a language group and you know it), so I would advise you to be careful. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:15, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * What, are we going to pretend that doesn't say "Chinese is a family of East Asian analytic languages that form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages."? I don't like what you think you're doing here by equating these dialects like this- in very poor taste! 'Peking' is not 'Beijing', is it? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:17, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Fix the postal romanization broken links you added. I wonder what the relationship is between postal romanization and Modern Standard Mandarin. Hope you figure that out before changing Peking to an alternate form. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:19, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Terrible decision! Yet another layer of foolishness future generations going to have to dig Wiktionary out of! Quite sad. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I fixed the link, thanks. Please don't ping me on your further rants — nobody on Wiktionary wants to read them, and your criticisms of Wikipedia aren't even relevant here. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:30, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Nanjing Mandarin?
Earlier versions of the Nanjing dialect seemed to have "ai" (as a diphthong), as seen in old dictionaries like Die Nanking Kuanhua. That said, I think it's not necessarily the Nanjing dialect that this "Taipeh" spelling comes from, but a koine based on the Nanjing dialect. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 06:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems analogous to how many Southerners I know blur the distinction between the dialect of Beijing, which has its own noticeable features, and Putonghua, as a standard they associate with Beijing. Feel free to make the wording here more precise; I was just sick of the IP trying to insist on some wacky idea about Japanese. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how to word it. I think people call it "Court Mandarin", but I'm not sure. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 06:49, 22 April 2020 (UTC)