Firaxis needs to change Chinese cities naming!

[Lockesdonkey]

Thanks.

As a third-year student of Chinese, I'd like to point out that Pinyin is superior to W-G. So Pinyin beats W-G on two fronts: accuracy and officialness. However, Hong Kong and Taiwan need to be adressed: Taiwan in particular is very important; Taipei (Pinyin, Taibei) is a city of at least a million, and so is Kaohsiung (PY, Gaoxiong, I think). If Taiwanese cities are included (which the should be!) the Wade-Giles system should prevail in their cases. Since there are only three cities of note in Taiwan (the two above and Tainan, spelled the same way in W-G and Pinyin), this shouldn't be that big of a deal.

 

[Invisible Rhino]

I can't stand Wade-Giles. For the love of God I hope they cut it out entirely.

 

[dc82]

yeah that's tru... taiwanese cities still offically retain their wales-giles spelling, at least in the us

 

[Knight-Dragon]

At the very least, I hope they will not include Shantung as a city name again, since it's actually a province...

As for the whole set, they shld use a common standard; be it hanyu pinyin or the other, older, more romantic-sounding one. Not a mixture of both...

 

[sav]

If they ever make New Zealand a Civ, I'd like my home town of Hamilton to be spelt 'Hamiltron'. It's the city of the future, you know.

Or if they wanna go backwards, Kirikiriroa - the name of the Maori village the town was built around...

 

[Evie]

That's the great advantage of living in Canada, Australia, NZ, etc. We donT' have to worry about our home cities ever having their names misspelled in Firaxis' Civilizations (special scenarios not withstanding).

 

[Desertsnow]

Actually I was thinking of that! Like.. every country use their own language... :-D

How many people not familiar with (for example) German would recognize Köln as Cologne, or München as Munich?

What to call cities from the ancient civs then? Like the egyptian cities? They surely werent named Memphis, Thebes or Elephantine...

I think the naming should be as it is... If not you can prolly change em when you found as always.

Most of the Egyptian city names are probably close to their historic names. I do know that the historic Pi-Rameses is associated with an Egyptian city that now has a different name (I forget which though). There are a few others, and but my brain seems disinlined to match the old cities with their modern names.

(Edit: add Bans quote and reply)

 

[Urederra]

That's the great advantage of living in Canada, Australia, NZ, etc. We donT' have to worry about our home cities ever having their names misspelled in Firaxis' Civilizations (special scenarios not withstanding).

You can make a mod, or something, and misspell them.

Washington -> Guasinton.
New York -> Niuor.
Miami -> Mayami.
San Francisco -> San Paco.

and so on...

 

[Evie]

I wasn't talking about America.

And the very good reasons why Canadians, NZers and Aussies don'T have to worry about it is that we'll never be civs to begin with

 

[sav]

NZ never be a Civ? I suppose 'Helen the Conqueror' doesn't quite sound right...

 

[Old_Man]

How many people not familiar with (for example) German would recognize Köln as Cologne, or München as Munich?
(Edit: add Bans quote and reply)

And then we can fight over whether it is Aachen or Aix-la-Chapelle.

 

[N3pomuk]

trust me its Aachen and its Elsaß and Lothringen, America didn't change the name of Los angeles San fransico ect after they captured it. Fact remains there are more germans there than french end of story. But to be fair I think every thing should be named to give the highest recognition factor, so people will know WTH.I'd like to not have to look on a map every time I read a chineese city name, any way all this city renaming crap is just ultra Nationalistic frevor anyways.
Keep it the way we know it and like it.

cheers

 

[ogmoir]

Most of the Egyptian city names are probably close to their historic names. I do know that the historic Pi-Rameses is associated with an Egyptian city that now has a different name (I forget which though). There are a few others, and but my brain seems disinlined to match the old cities with their modern names.

No one knows how most of the Egyptian names were pronounced, since, when the Egyptian wrote them phonetically, they still left the vowels out. And anyway, many of the "Egyptian" names are Greek, like Heliopolis. We would only be true to the Egyptian names if we wrote them in hieroglyphics.

 

[xiaoafei]

well, i think the players can change the city names as they like in civ2. i haven't try this in civ3. but i believe civ4 will give us this flexibility. actually, playing civ2 is the first time i met this english style city names and it taught me a lot. I still remember wondering where is 'canton' for a whole year at that time, 'cos no Chinese city (major city) sounds like this. it's really a training of your mind.

 

[dc82]

canton is the wales-giles/outdated spelling for guangdong, which isn't even a city to begin with; it's a province. from "canton" is where we get "cantonese," the regional dialect spoken in the guangdong region. the main/capital city of guangdong is guangzhou, a city of over 2000 years (believed to have been founded in 214 b.c.) with a population today of over 6.85 million.

nearby and directly connected to guangzhou by train is hong kong, which techinically lies in its own special administrative region, despite it's proximity to guangdong.

 

[Tomoyo]

in fact, there's actually two errors - not only is canton to wrong official english spelling (it's guangdong), but canton is not even a city! so either way u look at it, there r errors that need to be fixed.

Canton is a city...

Canton is Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong, the province. And Guangzhou is my hometown. Everytime I see Canton, I cringe. Just like when Americans pronounce it "Gwang-shoo".

 

[dc82]

Canton is a city...

Canton is Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong, the province. And Guangzhou is my hometown. Everytime I see Canton, I cringe. Just like when Americans pronounce it "Gwang-shoo".

what i mean is that while canton does refer to the city of guangzhou, it came from "guangdong" (hence "can-ton"), which wud be a pretty bad representation of the city's name, since it shud be refering to the name of the province.. it's like an a foreigner calling chicago, "illinois"

"Its international name was formerly Canton, after a French language corruption of Guangdong."

ERGO - canton is at this point in time, a pretty incorrect way of referring to the city of guangdong, in many ways.

 

[Tomoyo]

Oh, okay.

 

[troytheface]

Canton? Canton is a small town in the state of Georgia in the United States. Look it up. And i am sure it was there before the egytptian or chinese one....

 

[Tomoyo]

Wha? The Chinese one was founded a few thousand years before the American one... It was a major city at around 200BC and still is... it was the only port that was open to western trade during the isolationism period...

Get your facts straight.

EDIT: There's a bigger Canton in Ohio, just so you know.