It also occurs to me that some countries, it seems, have a preferred transliteration scheme for other languages.
I'm thinking in particular of the Chinese, where in my youth the capital of China was Peking, before becoming Beijing. Does or did Polish have a similar approach? Was the situation any different before WW2 or before Poland gained independence after WW1 (could there have been Russian or German influences then)?
Certainly all I learned about China in a course I did at university (political not linguistic) was rendered of no account when all the familiar places and people changed their names (Mao Tse-tung became Mao Se-dong or similar).
Phil
I'm thinking in particular of the Chinese, where in my youth the capital of China was Peking, before becoming Beijing. Does or did Polish have a similar approach? Was the situation any different before WW2 or before Poland gained independence after WW1 (could there have been Russian or German influences then)?
Certainly all I learned about China in a course I did at university (political not linguistic) was rendered of no account when all the familiar places and people changed their names (Mao Tse-tung became Mao Se-dong or similar).
Phil
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