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Incorrectly Translated Station Names

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30907

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Really? I have DR timetables from DDR days that use Sorbian names alongside German ones, have a Sorbian "How to Use" page, and have the Sorbian names on their maps too.
I stand corrected.
 
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Tomos y Tanc

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What is interesting is how the attitudes towards minority languages have changed over time.

Today most people seem to regard having a local language, even if it is spoken by very few people, as being something they like and appreciate and which has an economic value in terms of tourism and a cultural value in terms of fostering a local identity.

Neither Manx nor Cornish, for instance, are 'dead' languages but the numbers who speak them are very small, yet there seems to be little resistance to their use on signage etc.

Spin back fifty years and the vitriol employed against any official status at all for even relatively strong languages like Welsh seems extraordinary to us today.
 

johnnychips

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Sorry but you are completely mistaken. To explain how would take a very long and off-topic post.

To provide a European analogy, we were talking about how the famous beer brewed in Llandudno is sold as Flandidno Beer in the USA, and then you jumped in to say that Florence, the English translation of "Italia", is derived from a corruption of "Vatican".
@paddington
Let me have a go, then you can correct me. To try and keep on topic, I once caught a train in Qingdao.

- the Germans leased the place in 1898.
- They called it Tsingtau under their system
- An Anglo-German company set up a brewery in 1903 and changed the name slightly to Tsingtao. This became the name of the beer, and the postal address.
- However, in the Wade-Giles system, it was called Ching-Tao
- And now it is called Qingdao

I am not sure where Peter got Canton from. It is now called Guangzhou (roughly pronounced Gwan-joe) which is evidently not a variation of pronunciation.

Back to trains, I was in a Chinese restaurant when changing at Kings X, and the menu was bilingual. A Chinese couple asked for ‘Qingdao beer’ and of course it was understood immediately as the Chinese symbols for Tsingtao and Qingdao are the same.

Sorry to go on about this, but these things fascinate me.
 
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BeijingDave

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In reply to the above, there are many interesting historic examples of this in China, due partly to the move from one Romanisation system to another. But even with the now nationally standardised Mandarin (based on Beijing dialect) and Hanyu Pinyin transliteration, the Beijing subway can't seem to decide on one standard way of producing 'English' names.

Some examples:
'National Library' (English translation in English, non-capitalised) - makes sense as a likely tourist spot, but...
'BEIGONGMEN' - North Gate of the Summer Palace also a tourist spot, just transliterated, not in English
'CHEGONGZHUANG West' (suburb name capitalised, location not capitalised, no gaps between phonemes)
'Tian Cun' (suburb name not capitalised, gaps between phonemes) Note also that 'Cun' means village.
'WEIGONGCUN' (suburb name capitalised, no gaps between phonemes) Same 'cun' as above, meaning village.

I could go on and on
 

hexagon789

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In reply to the above, there are many interesting historic examples of this in China, due partly to the move from one Romanisation system to another. But even with the now nationally standardised Mandarin (based on Beijing dialect) and Hanyu Pinyin transliteration, the Beijing subway can't seem to decide on one standard way of producing 'English' names.

Some examples:
'National Library' (English translation in English, non-capitalised) - makes sense as a likely tourist spot, but...
'BEIGONGMEN' - North Gate of the Summer Palace also a tourist spot, just transliterated, not in English
'CHEGONGZHUANG West' (suburb name capitalised, location not capitalised, no gaps between phonemes)
'Tian Cun' (suburb name not capitalised, gaps between phonemes) Note also that 'Cun' means village.
'WEIGONGCUN' (suburb name capitalised, no gaps between phonemes) Same 'cun' as above, meaning village.

I could go on and on

I don't think that's purely found with Chinese translation, I seem to recall reading that the situation is similar in Israel with different spellings, capitalisations and even words in various English translations of place, building and street names from Hebrew into English. I'm sure there are other examples but regardless of the original language I'm sure it confuses many!
 

daodao

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I don't think that's purely found with Chinese translation, I seem to recall reading that the situation is similar in Israel with different spellings, capitalisations and even words in various English translations of place, building and street names from Hebrew into English. I'm sure there are other examples but regardless of the original language I'm sure it confuses many!
This does not just arise from English translations/transliterations. One of the issues with Ivrit is the vowels; they are not printed in modern Ivrit and the pronunciations are different in the Jewish diaspora, not only between Sephardi & Ashkenazi, but also within subgroups of these communities. Some consonants at the ends of words are also written (and pronounced) slightly differently.
 

hexagon789

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This does not just arise from English translations/transliterations. One of the issues with Ivrit is the vowels; they are not printed in modern Ivrit and the pronunciations are different in the Jewish diaspora, not only between Sephardi & Ashkenazi, but also within subgroups of these communities. Some consonants at the ends of words are also written (and pronounced) slightly differently.

I take it Ivrit is the writing system used to render Hebrew? I was aware it left out vowels but not of the degree to which sounds differ across the Jewish diaspora though of course I should've expected that given the same applies to most languages
 

daodao

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I take it Ivrit is the writing system used to render Hebrew? I was aware it left out vowels but not of the degree to which sounds differ across the Jewish diaspora though of course I should've expected that given the same applies to most languages.
Ivrit is merely the (modern) Hebrew word for the Hebrew language.
 

jumble

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A bit OT
When I was much younger I went to see a Hitchcock film called Frenzy in a cinema in Switzerland
It had German and French subtitles
In the film one of the characters said he was going to the Strand

The German translation said Strand as well
The French Translator then interpreted this as Plage ( beach) since in German Strand is a beach

So the character said he was going to the beach from Covent Garden !
 

HowardGWR

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A bit OT
When I was much younger I went to see a Hitchcock film called Frenzy in a cinema in Switzerland
It had German and French subtitles
In the film one of the characters said he was going to the Strand

The German translation said Strand as well
The French Translator then interpreted this as Plage ( beach) since in German Strand is a beach

So the character said he was going to the beach from Covent Garden !
Funnily enough that was in a sense correct, as the 'strond (sic)' meant the side of the river when the Thames was a lot wider prior to construction of the Embankment. The words are etymologically linked. Shakespeare would have known strand as that we now call the beach. That latter word is derived from 'bech' (or now beck) and 'bach' which meant a pebbly river valley as in Wisbech and Sandbach.

I find this stuff fascinating and station names often get me googling!
 
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