Talk:Guangdong

English Wikipedia name

To the best of my knowledge this province and its capitol city have been universally known, in English, as Canton. Indeed the main dialect in China is Cantonese (Mandarin being originally reserved for the nobility). I have five atlases here at home, the latest being 1978, and all say Canton. The Travels of Marco Polo also refer to it as Canton. Since when did English-language speakers world-wide start referring to it as Guangdong? Is this just another example of political correctness gone mad? Will the names of Rome, Munich and Warsaw now be changed on Wikipedia to that spelt/spoken by the locals? And if so, will instructions be given to foreign language versions of Wikipedia insisting that London only be spelt London? David Lauder 12:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The traditional definition of "Canton" in English, as well as other European languages, only referred to the provincial capital(at the time of the Portuguese' arrival, the capital had no name but was simply called "Shang Shing", meaning Provincial Capital. Therefore, the name of the province was used for the city. NEVERTHELESS, in spite of its etymology, Canton as an English word only carries the meaning of Guangzhou). Please refer to Longman http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/Canton, and Webster http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Canton . On the other hand, only "Kwangtung" was listed as a variant of "Guangdong" in Webster http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guangdong. Confusing Canton as Guangdong might have been caused by the similarity of pronunciation, or misinterpretation by the Hongkongers (e.g. "Canton Road" was erroneously translated into "Gwong dung Lou" in HK.). Melop (talk) 06:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Actualy Cantonese (Guangzhou dialect) is the local dialect of Guangzhou and the surrounding areas, which is a very small part of China (not including HK and Macao). In China, the Yue dialect group which includes all varieties of Cantonese is only spoken in Guangdong and parts of Guangxi. And most Cantonese speakers in Guangdong, can speak both the local Cantonese and the national Putonghua (Mandarin). LDHan 18:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks for the discussion on the language but it fails to answer the fundamental question I have put. David Lauder 18:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I have answered your question. The word "Canton" does NOT refer to the province to begin with. The definition in standard English dictionaries only uses Canton to mean Guangzhou. The former Romanization of Guangdong was Kwongtung or Kwangtung.Melop — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.107.225.220 (talk) 12:24, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I note that virtually every reference cited on the article page is, er, Chinese. I thought this was the English language Wikipedia? Surely these articles should not just be translations, but reflect also the world's English speaker's histories, &c.? (I suppose this follows on from my comment above). David Lauder 10:22, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

English references would be nice if more effort is put onto the article. But yeah i think theres a rule somewhere indicating that for some reason wikipedia uses pinyin on articles like this. Ian Kiu (hahaha...) 05:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm a youngling and I've always referred to the place as Canton. Biofoundationsoflanguage 18:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. No-one calls it ding dong or would have the faintest idea where such a place was. Just another example of the politically correct at work on Wikipedia. David Lauder 16:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

No-one calls it "ding dong" because that is not its name. "Guangdong" is now the most widely used and most widely accepted name (in Roman letters) of the province. To use "Canton" to mean both the city and the province is confusing. LDHan 17:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

No one under the age of 35 continues to refer to the province as anything but "Guangdong," as far as I'm aware. "Canton" is a relic carried on by people who learned geography prior to the change, and will die out with them. Similarly, nobody calls Instanbul "Constantinople" anymore, barring those with an ax to grind. Nor does anyone call Iran "Persia" or Thailand "Siam." 66.130.100.34 (talk) 20:26, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Incorrect on both counts, especially Constantinople. Politically correct and reality are two different things. I'm only commenting on your mistaken assumption, not on what the article should be named. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.51.247 (talk) 09:58, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

This anon and David Lauder above want to make this yet another “culture war” but it’s not. On the other hand the lede of this article says that the toponym in question was «formerly romanized as Canton». That’s not a fact as can be seen in the extensive list of romanizations in the CJK name infobox present in the article: None of them is "Canton".

It’s not a romanization, it’s the English name of this city and province, itself coming from the French name, in turn from Portuguese "Cantão" — assimilated from the Yue name in use in the 1500s, likely a cognate of "Guangdong". Of course when English speaking societies suddenly found out that the PRC had created pinyin, in the early 1970s, there was among some a rush to adopt it to replace the other romanization schemes, which I think was a great idea, on linguistic grounds. However a handful of the altered spellings affected what are, such as "Canton", actual English words, not mere romanizations, and that should have not happened.

(And obviously this is not a case akin to Iran or Thailand, as there was no name change in the local language itself.)

In my view, eschweing an established toponym and replacing it with an unassimilated form is a kind of exotification, at best (if not not outright paternalism or eurocentric gate-keeping), and indeed most such changes seldom affect European toponyms (Leghorn, comes to mind as a exceptional example).

And of course, should not be "Guangdong", which in itself is meaningless. It should be always and only "Guǎngdōng", with marked tones, much the same way it’s a terrible idea to wish a Spaniard a feliz ano nuevo. And of course when pronouncing it, "g" should sound [k], and "d" should sound [t], because that’s how pinyin works. This should matter for all users of this English toponym, any time in the mentioned 35 years — unless the reason to switch away from "Canton" was indeed only for petty point scoring in a faraway culture war, caring little or nothing about this magnificent metropolis.

Tuvalkin (talk) 09:03, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

(Just so you know, you are replying to a years-old discussion.) Remsense留 16:29, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

(Just so you know, I noticed. And it still matters. This English arrogant exotification must end.) Tuvalkin (talk) 00:36, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Fine, I'll be clinical. Let's see here:

It’s not a romanization, it’s the English name of this city and province [...]

It's both. Romanization is the technique by which a spelling is of a word derived; a name is a word (etc.) we use to point to some referent.

[...] it’s the English name of this city and province, itself [...etymology...] likely [the Yue] cognate of "Guangdong"

It's indisputably, obviously cognate. In any case, I don't consider this means of acquiring a name to be any more or less natural. What matters is what names presently mean to people. Frankly, if Portuguese Jesuits came to my country and spent enough time to assign me a name, I would lament the situation regardless of how careful they were to adapt my idiolect.

Of course when English speaking societies suddenly found out that the PRC had created pinyin, in the early 1970s, there was among some a rush to adopt it to replace the other romanization schemes

They found out the PRC created pinyin because the PRC sent Zhou Youguang in his Sunday best to Warsaw to make totally sure it got adopted as the international (not just English-speaking!) standard. Your later point about an aloof "paternalism" does not align with historical events under any scrutiny, unfortunately.

[...] which I think was a great idea, on linguistic grounds. However a handful of the altered spellings affected what are, such as "Canton", actual English words, not mere romanizations, and that should have not happened.

Restating that they are both names and romanizations. It's very easy for anything to be a name, I struggle to conjur the sanctity you have for them here. In a sense, it's the same name: the pronunciation is distinct, the spelling is definitely distinct, but there is connection between the two. There's no magic spell that cleanly severs the two, that's inane. People changed what they were saying and writing over time for human and systemic reasons, just like we stopped calling the area Serica at some point. This is the peak definition of "culture war", I'm sorry: your means of acquiring signifiers is indeed superior to mine. There's nothing else of substance at stake, it's pure symbology games.

replacing it with an unassimilated form

It's assimilated for me. It's been Guangdong my entire life.

should not be "Guangdong", which in itself is meaningless. It should be always and only "Guǎngdōng"

Totally inane. Non-diacritical pinyin is an entire appendix in the standard document, for this very reason, because English is not a tonal language, and like you've said, we are speaking and writing English. Languages adapt loanwords, to whatever degree they were acquired phonetically or orthographically, to the phonemic inventory comfortable for a native speaker. There's nothing to do about that. Generally, I guess I have to emphasize that written language is language, and can be a way for meaning to spread not directly tied to spoken language—we're talking about Chinese, after all. There's a reason they didn't end up throwing away their logography in the early 20th century. Remsense诉 02:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

isn't guangdong province's largest city shenzhen?

shenzhen has a higher population then guangzhou as per 2021 census 119.56.107.82 (talk) 04:58, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

No. Yue🌙 06:40, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Conflict in facts with this article and "List of first-level administrative divisions by population"

The article states that Guangdong is the second most populous country subdivision in the world, but the linked list states that Punjab, in Pakistan is the second most populous, and Guangdong is the third. The article for Punjab itself states that it's the 5th most populous. Additionally, both population counts on the list align with those in their respective articles. The data about Punjab is from a more recent year than that of Guangdong, and I am unsure as to whether there is a reliable current count of Guangdong's population. At this point, I don't know who to listen to, so I just wanted to bring this up and maybe someone smarter than me can figure it out. Kosazhra (talk) 16:17, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

PPP data

Does anybody have PPP data for the region? USD 15,000 GDP per capita seems to be a huge understatement of living standards there. MingScribe1368 (talk) 07:32, 5 August 2024 (UTC)