<p>&quot;Peking&quot;, &quot;Nanking&quot;, and &quot;Chungking&quot; are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_postal_romanization" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Chinese postal romanisations</a> of the pronunciations based on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Ming-era</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Qing-era</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_(late_imperial_lingua_franca)#History" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Nanjing Mandarin</a>. This is a different dialect of Mandarin than what the Pinyin system (used to transcribe <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Standard Chinese</a>) is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Comparison_with_other_orthographies" rel="nofollow noreferrer">based on</a>, which is 20th century <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_dialect" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Beijing Mandarin</a>.</p>
<p>As an approximation, you can expect Ming/Qing-era Nanjing Mandarin to be somewhere in-between <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Middle Chinese</a> (MC) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_dialect" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Modern Nanjing Mandarin</a>. Example <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet" rel="nofollow noreferrer">IPA</a> are given below (tones omitted):</p>
<ul>
<li>北京 (Pinyin: <strong>Beijing</strong>, Postal romanisation: <strong>Peking</strong>):
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhengzhang_Shangfang" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Zhengzhang</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese#Phonology" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Reconstruction</a> (ZR) MC: <strong>/pək̚ kˠiæŋ/</strong></li>
<li>Modern Nanjing dialect: <strong>[pɛ tɕĩ]</strong> (Note the tilde on the &quot;i&quot;, indicating a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_vowel" rel="nofollow noreferrer">nasal vowel</a>).</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>南京 (Pinyin: <strong>Nanjing</strong>, Postal romanisation: <strong>Nanking</strong>):
<ul>
<li>ZR MC: <strong>/nʌm kˠiæŋ/</strong></li>
<li>Modern Nanjing dialect: <strong>[lã tɕĩ]</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>重慶 (Pinyin: <strong>Chongqing</strong>, Postal romanisation: <strong>Chungking</strong>):
<ul>
<li>ZR MC: <strong>/ɖɨoŋ kʰˠiæŋ/</strong></li>
<li>Modern Nanjing dialect: <strong>[ʈʂʰõ tɕʰĩ]</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T15:36:22.090Z
Is the n in nanjing/nanking really pronounced l?
Akshat Goswami
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T17:48:31.030Z
@AkshatGoswami that's not what "Modern Nanjing dialect: **[lã tɕĩ]**" says or implies. **Nanjing** (pinyin, based on modern Beijing dialect) or **Nanking** (Postal romanisation, based on Ming/Qing Nanjing Mandarin) does not represent the [modern Nanjing Mandarin dialect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_dialect).
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T20:29:48.273Z
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_dialect This link does not explane the change from k to j and q.
PdotWang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T21:21:11.577Z
@PdotWang That page is about Nanjing dialect, so it does not describe features shared by all (or most) dialects of Mandarin. You should look [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Chinese_phonology#From_Late_Middle_Chinese_to_Standard_Mandarin) and [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Palatal_series). Also in discussions centred on (modern or historical) phonology, it is better to use IPA.
Arfrever
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T10:34:55.597Z
I had assumed that those romanizations (Peking, Nanking, Chungking) came from Cantonese (whose speakers early Portuguese/European traders encountered). Is that completely mistaken and is there no possibility of that?
user103496
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T11:04:39.547Z
@user103496 I'm not an expert on these sorts of things. However, Cantonese in particular is unlikely for 北 in 北京 (the vowel in Cantonese /pɐk̚/ is unlikely to be romanised as "e") and 南 in 南京 (Cantonese /naːm/ is unlikely to be romanised as "nan"). Also remember that Europeans not only arrived from the coastal south as traders; [Jesuit missionaries in China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_missions_in_China#Jesuits_in_China) were frequent since the Yuan Dynasty and were mostly settled in central or northern inland cities, especially Beijing.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T05:56:15.540Z
2024-03-04T03:13:45.870Z
2024-03-04T03:13:45.870Z
dROOOze
<p>This is sound change called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization_(sound_change)" rel="noreferrer">palatalization</a>. It occurred in history of many languages. That page lists various examples.</p>
<p>Palatalization most often affected velar consonants such as /k/, /g/. In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Palatal_series" rel="noreferrer">Mandarin language</a>, palatalization occurred in 18th / 19th century, it affected dental consonants [t͡s, t͡sʰ, s] and velar consonants [k, kʰ, x] before high front vowels and glides:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>[t͡s], [k] → [t͡ɕ] (Pinyin spelling: j)</p>
</li>
<li><p>[t͡sʰ], [kʰ] → [t͡ɕʰ] (Pinyin spelling: q)</p>
</li>
<li><p>[s], [x] → [ɕ] (Pinyin spelling: x)</p>
</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T02:29:20.853Z
Well, then why didn't they just retain the letter K, considering it only happened before certain vowels?
Akshat Goswami
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T02:48:55.457Z
Presumably creators of Pinyin wanted that different pronunciations be reflected in spelling. English orthography mostly retains spellings for medieval pronunciations, and result is horrible mess...
Arfrever
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T20:55:05.930Z
I agree that the Pinyin creators wanted to represent different consonants with different letters and without using (').
PdotWang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T21:24:38.660Z
@AkshatGoswami There were multiple different syllables that _merged_ as a result of this change. Pinyin "qi" could have resulted from either a /kʰi/ or a /t͡sʰi/ in the earlier language.
Stumpy Joe Pete
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T22:26:16.423Z
So were words like peking and nanking pronounced "pe-ching" and "nan-ching" respectively during the postal times?
Akshat Goswami
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T00:22:29.083Z
@AkshatGoswami Yes, they were already pronounced like today (Beijing, Nanjing) when the postal spellings were adopted. The audience for postal spellings was mostly foreigners trying to send mail to China, so long-standing spellings were often used (i.e., the spellings that missionaries had adopted for the cities a century or so earlier)
Stumpy Joe Pete
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T00:55:43.560Z
@AkshatGoswami [This](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Peking#Etymology) describes that "Peking" spelling was introduced about 1655, before palatalization of [k].
Arfrever
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T01:13:31.830Z
I think, now if Peking is ever used as a spelling at all, it's probably pronounced the same as Beijing in Chinese, "pei-ching"?
Akshat Goswami
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T01:21:48.460Z
@AkshatGoswami "Peking" remains in usage in some English names of some Beijing-related things. E.g. [Peking University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_University) ([homepage](https://www.pku.edu.cn/)) uses "Peking" in its English name.
Arfrever
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T01:40:17.047Z
I know. I'm just asking, in China, would it be pronounced "pei-ching"?
Akshat Goswami
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T04:09:15.757Z
@AkshatGoswami I don't think anyone would pronounce the English proper noun "Peking University" as "Beijing University", regardless of whether someone was in China, if that's what you mean. Personally, I'm used to hearing and pronouncing "Peking" as "Pei-king". In *Chinese*, however, the name is going to be the Standard Chinese **Běijīng Dàxué**; nobody will revert to a Ming/Qing-era Nanjing Mandarin pronunciation.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T02:16:07.453Z
2024-03-03T02:16:07.453Z
Arfrever
<p>Different people may have different opinions on your question and the answers. That is totally OK on a public discussion forum. My answer posted here is different from other people. I hope those who disagree with me will be OK too.</p>
<p>Why has Chinese replaced so many Ks in city names with Js and Qs? What's the historical reasons?</p>
<p>Most of the obsolete city names in your examples were based on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_postal_romanization" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Chinese Postal Romanization</a> (邮政拼音) that was invented in 1907. The new citi names are based on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Hanyu Pinyin</a> (汉语拼音) of 1958. The International Organization for Standardization accepted Pinyin (ISO 7098) in 1982.</p>
<p>The first modification to the Postal system was to merge k and k' just for conveiniece in postal applications. Therefore Ch'ungk'ing became Chungking. It has nothing to do with the pronounciation of the Chinese language.</p>
<p>Then, after a number of versions of Chinese Romanization, the way of representing the consonants k and k' changed from the Postal system to the Pinyin system, as we see it today. Again, those changes are merely &quot;representing&quot; issues, which has nothing to do with the spoken language. (Someone has an opinion against this statement, that is totally OK to me. In 1950's there were a couple of hundreds Hanyu Pinyin proposals and each one has his/hers own reasonings.)</p>
<p>k'e -&gt; ke (可)</p>
<p>ke -&gt; ge (哥)</p>
<p>k'u -&gt; ku (哭)</p>
<p>ku -&gt; gu (姑), Kweilin -&gt; Guilin (桂林)</p>
<p>k'i -&gt; qi (齐), such as Ch'ungk'ing -&gt; Chongqing (重庆)</p>
<p>ki -&gt; ji (基), such as Peking -&gt; Beijing (北京)</p>
<p>k'v -&gt; qv (取), such as Kufow -&gt; Qufu (曲阜)</p>
<p>kv -&gt; jv (居)</p>
<p>Note: v is the vowel of 鱼, which may be written as u in Pinyin.</p>
<p>There are also other differences if directly comparing the Postal system and the Pinyin system. But those changes did not happen in one night. There were a couple of important versions of the Chinese romanization, including Wade-Giles pinyin, BOPOMOFO, Mandarin Alphabet, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, etc.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T05:06:32.107Z
True but did the change of Ks to Js or Qs in many words have anything to do with palatalization that K got palatalized?
Akshat Goswami
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T05:28:24.447Z
I do not think so. Because there are very few people even know anything about pinyin or any form of romanization, including the Chinese version Bopomofo. Only since 1958, Hanyu Pinyin becomes popular in education. But Pinyin only regulates the standard pronounciation, not mean to alter it. I am not an expert on the history though.
PdotWang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T17:53:21.213Z
*... those changes are merely "representing" issues, which has nothing to do with the spoken language.* This doesn't make sense. When postal romanisation (**Nanking**) was used, they did not speak Modern Standard Chinese, which is based on the Beijing dialect, and which Pinyin (**Nanjing**) is based on. Of course you would expect *representation* issues due to differences in pronunciation.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T20:20:58.170Z
That the Postal romanisation (1907) represents the Nanking dialect and the Hanyu Pinyin romanization (1958) represents the Beijing dialect is an explanation of the letter-representing-sound matter. That the Postal romanisation (1907) represents the classical spoken Chinese and the Hanyu Pinyin romanization (1958) represents the mordern spoken Chinese is another explanation of the letter-representing-sound matter. My point of view is that the letter-representing-sound matter are more subjective choice than objective fact.
PdotWang
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-03T03:14:22.847Z
2024-03-04T02:41:41.300Z
2024-03-04T02:41:41.300Z
PdotWang
<p>When looking at the history of name changes, one of the most common changes to city names seems to be the replacement of K with J and Q. For example, the spelling &quot;Peking&quot; has been changed into &quot;Beijing&quot;, Nanking into Nanjing, Chungking into Chongqing, etc. But my question is why exactly has K been replaced with J and Q in so many Chinese city names? K sounds nothing like those letters in Chinese. Even the city name &quot;peking&quot; (and its varieties) when borrowed into English or other languages sounds more like &quot;pe-king&quot; and &quot;beijing&quot; more like &quot;peiching&quot;. Why exactlly has Chinese replaced so many Ks in city names with Js and Qs? What's the historical reason?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-02T21:10:23.983Z
IPA, e.g.: /p/ vs. /p‘/ or /tɕ/ vs /tɕ‘/
Mou某
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-02T21:24:56.513Z
Yeah that's what I meant
Akshat Goswami
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-04T04:09:14.887Z
It is simply a case of double standard. For example, of all the official names of university of mainland China that are translated into English, only the two based in the capital city, namely, 北京大学 and 清华大学, still keep their old version, Peking U and Tsinghua U respectively.
NanningYouth
<pinyin><spelling><romanization>
Why did so many Ks change into Js and Qs?
# Why did so many Ks change into Js and Qs?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-03-02)

When looking at the history of name changes, one of the most common changes to city names seems to be the replacement of K with J and Q. For example, the spelling "Peking" has been changed into "Beijing", Nanking into Nanjing, Chungking into Chongqing, etc. But my question is why exactly has K been replaced with J and Q in so many Chinese city names? K sounds nothing like those letters in Chinese. Even the city name "peking" (and its varieties) when borrowed into English or other languages sounds more like "pe-king" and "beijing" more like "peiching". Why exactlly has Chinese replaced so many Ks in city names with Js and Qs? What's the historical reason?

**Tags:** pinyin, spelling, romanization

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: IPA, e.g.: /p/ vs. /p‘/ or /tɕ/ vs /tɕ‘/  
> **username_0**: Yeah that's what I meant  
> **username_2**: It is simply a case of double standard. For example, of all the official names of university of mainland China that are translated into English, only the two based in the capital city, namely, 北京大学 and 清华大学, still keep their old version, Peking U and Tsinghua U respectively.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2024-03-03. Score: 8

"Peking", "Nanking", and "Chungking" are [Chinese postal romanisations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_postal_romanization) of the pronunciations based on [Ming-era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty) and [Qing-era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty) [Nanjing Mandarin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_(late_imperial_lingua_franca)#History). This is a different dialect of Mandarin than what the Pinyin system (used to transcribe [Standard Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese)) is [based on](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Comparison_with_other_orthographies), which is 20th century [Beijing Mandarin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_dialect).

As an approximation, you can expect Ming/Qing-era Nanjing Mandarin to be somewhere in-between [Middle Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese) (MC) and [Modern Nanjing Mandarin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_dialect). Example [IPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet) are given below (tones omitted):

* 北京 (Pinyin: **Beijing**, Postal romanisation: **Peking**):
  + [Zhengzhang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhengzhang_Shangfang) [Reconstruction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese#Phonology) (ZR) MC: **/pək̚ kˠiæŋ/**
  + Modern Nanjing dialect: **[pɛ tɕĩ]** (Note the tilde on the "i", indicating a [nasal vowel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_vowel)).
* 南京 (Pinyin: **Nanjing**, Postal romanisation: **Nanking**):
  + ZR MC: **/nʌm kˠiæŋ/**
  + Modern Nanjing dialect: **[lã tɕĩ]**
* 重慶 (Pinyin: **Chongqing**, Postal romanisation: **Chungking**):
  + ZR MC: **/ɖɨoŋ kʰˠiæŋ/**
  + Modern Nanjing dialect: **[ʈʂʰõ tɕʰĩ]**

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Is the n in nanjing/nanking really pronounced l?  
> **username_3**: @AkshatGoswami that's not what "Modern Nanjing dialect: **[lã tɕĩ]**" says or implies. **Nanjing** (pinyin, based on modern Beijing dialect) or **Nanking** (Postal romanisation, based on Ming/Qing Nanjing Mandarin) does not represent the [modern Nanjing Mandarin dialect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_dialect).  
> **username_4**: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_dialect This link does not explane the change from k to j and q.  
> **username_5**: @username_4 That page is about Nanjing dialect, so it does not describe features shared by all (or most) dialects of Mandarin. You should look [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Chinese_phonology#From_Late_Middle_Chinese_to_Standard_Mandarin) and [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Palatal_series). Also in discussions centred on (modern or historical) phonology, it is better to use IPA.  
> **username_6**: I had assumed that those romanizations (Peking, Nanking, Chungking) came from Cantonese (whose speakers early Portuguese/European traders encountered). Is that completely mistaken and is there no possibility of that?  
> **username_3**: @username_6 I'm not an expert on these sorts of things. However, Cantonese in particular is unlikely for 北 in 北京 (the vowel in Cantonese /pɐk̚/ is unlikely to be romanised as "e") and 南 in 南京 (Cantonese /naːm/ is unlikely to be romanised as "nan"). Also remember that Europeans not only arrived from the coastal south as traders; [Jesuit missionaries in China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_missions_in_China#Jesuits_in_China) were frequent since the Yuan Dynasty and were mostly settled in central or northern inland cities, especially Beijing.  

---

### Answer by username_5 on 2024-03-03. Score: 5

This is sound change called [palatalization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization_(sound_change)). It occurred in history of many languages. That page lists various examples.

Palatalization most often affected velar consonants such as /k/, /g/. In [Mandarin language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Palatal_series), palatalization occurred in 18th / 19th century, it affected dental consonants [t͡s, t͡sʰ, s] and velar consonants [k, kʰ, x] before high front vowels and glides:

* [t͡s], [k] → [t͡ɕ] (Pinyin spelling: j)
* [t͡sʰ], [kʰ] → [t͡ɕʰ] (Pinyin spelling: q)
* [s], [x] → [ɕ] (Pinyin spelling: x)

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Well, then why didn't they just retain the letter K, considering it only happened before certain vowels?  
> **username_5**: Presumably creators of Pinyin wanted that different pronunciations be reflected in spelling. English orthography mostly retains spellings for medieval pronunciations, and result is horrible mess...  
> **username_4**: I agree that the Pinyin creators wanted to represent different consonants with different letters and without using (').  
> **username_7**: @AkshatGoswami There were multiple different syllables that _merged_ as a result of this change. Pinyin "qi" could have resulted from either a /kʰi/ or a /t͡sʰi/ in the earlier language.  
> **username_0**: So were words like peking and nanking pronounced "pe-ching" and "nan-ching" respectively during the postal times?  
> **username_7**: @AkshatGoswami Yes, they were already pronounced like today (Beijing, Nanjing) when the postal spellings were adopted. The audience for postal spellings was mostly foreigners trying to send mail to China, so long-standing spellings were often used (i.e., the spellings that missionaries had adopted for the cities a century or so earlier)  
> **username_5**: @AkshatGoswami [This](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Peking#Etymology) describes that "Peking" spelling was introduced about 1655, before palatalization of [k].  
> **username_0**: I think, now if Peking is ever used as a spelling at all, it's probably pronounced the same as Beijing in Chinese, "pei-ching"?  
> **username_5**: @AkshatGoswami "Peking" remains in usage in some English names of some Beijing-related things. E.g. [Peking University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_University) ([homepage](https://www.pku.edu.cn/)) uses "Peking" in its English name.  
> **username_0**: I know. I'm just asking, in China, would it be pronounced "pei-ching"?  
> **username_3**: @AkshatGoswami I don't think anyone would pronounce the English proper noun "Peking University" as "Beijing University", regardless of whether someone was in China, if that's what you mean. Personally, I'm used to hearing and pronouncing "Peking" as "Pei-king". In *Chinese*, however, the name is going to be the Standard Chinese **Běijīng Dàxué**; nobody will revert to a Ming/Qing-era Nanjing Mandarin pronunciation.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2024-03-03. Score: 2

Different people may have different opinions on your question and the answers. That is totally OK on a public discussion forum. My answer posted here is different from other people. I hope those who disagree with me will be OK too.

Why has Chinese replaced so many Ks in city names with Js and Qs? What's the historical reasons?

Most of the obsolete city names in your examples were based on the [Chinese Postal Romanization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_postal_romanization) (邮政拼音) that was invented in 1907. The new citi names are based on [Hanyu Pinyin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin) (汉语拼音) of 1958. The International Organization for Standardization accepted Pinyin (ISO 7098) in 1982.

The first modification to the Postal system was to merge k and k' just for conveiniece in postal applications. Therefore Ch'ungk'ing became Chungking. It has nothing to do with the pronounciation of the Chinese language.

Then, after a number of versions of Chinese Romanization, the way of representing the consonants k and k' changed from the Postal system to the Pinyin system, as we see it today. Again, those changes are merely "representing" issues, which has nothing to do with the spoken language. (Someone has an opinion against this statement, that is totally OK to me. In 1950's there were a couple of hundreds Hanyu Pinyin proposals and each one has his/hers own reasonings.)

k'e -> ke (可)

ke -> ge (哥)

k'u -> ku (哭)

ku -> gu (姑), Kweilin -> Guilin (桂林)

k'i -> qi (齐), such as Ch'ungk'ing -> Chongqing (重庆)

ki -> ji (基), such as Peking -> Beijing (北京)

k'v -> qv (取), such as Kufow -> Qufu (曲阜)

kv -> jv (居)

Note: v is the vowel of 鱼, which may be written as u in Pinyin.

There are also other differences if directly comparing the Postal system and the Pinyin system. But those changes did not happen in one night. There were a couple of important versions of the Chinese romanization, including Wade-Giles pinyin, BOPOMOFO, Mandarin Alphabet, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, etc.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: True but did the change of Ks to Js or Qs in many words have anything to do with palatalization that K got palatalized?  
> **username_4**: I do not think so. Because there are very few people even know anything about pinyin or any form of romanization, including the Chinese version Bopomofo. Only since 1958, Hanyu Pinyin becomes popular in education. But Pinyin only regulates the standard pronounciation, not mean to alter it. I am not an expert on the history though.  
> **username_3**: *... those changes are merely "representing" issues, which has nothing to do with the spoken language.* This doesn't make sense. When postal romanisation (**Nanking**) was used, they did not speak Modern Standard Chinese, which is based on the Beijing dialect, and which Pinyin (**Nanjing**) is based on. Of course you would expect *representation* issues due to differences in pronunciation.  
> **username_4**: That the Postal romanisation (1907) represents the Nanking dialect and the Hanyu Pinyin romanization (1958) represents the Beijing dialect is an explanation of the letter-representing-sound matter. That the Postal romanisation (1907) represents the classical spoken Chinese and the Hanyu Pinyin romanization (1958) represents the mordern spoken Chinese is another explanation of the letter-representing-sound matter. My point of view is that the letter-representing-sound matter are more subjective choice than objective fact.  

---

