Why is there an apostrophe in Xi'an
 

I've noticed people write with an apostrophe in Xi'an? Is it pronounced differently from Xian? Is it because "an" has the accent? If so, are there any more cities that have the accent in the second syllable? I am trying to learn to speak Mandarin in preparation for my upcoming trip (exact date still unknown), and I am curious about this. I have not noticed any other cities's name using apostrophe.

It is because it is two separate syllables and needs to be pronounced as such. If I remember correctly it means western (xi) peace (an) (can't provide the correct tonal marks).

Just what thursdaysd said, and yes, Xian would not be pronounced the same way. The apostrophe is needed to separate the vowels. I don't remember the 2nd syllable having the stress; I could be wrong.

BTW, how are you learning Mandarin? You do know that it is a tonal language, right? Have no idea what you mean by "accent", but if you mean "stress" I think there is some dispute as to whether that concept applies to Mandarin.

Thank you, thursdaysd and kja. So the apostrophe is there to separate the vowels. And yes, I meant stress.

As for learning Mandarin, I started with Pimsleur Mandarin One. I am not sure if you ever tried the method, but I used it to learn Spanish and Japanese. I use my car's CD player to learn other languages - Everytime I get into my car, I listen to foreign language instruction. I do not think the method will make me speak fluently but being able to speak some helps a lot while traveling.

By the way, since when using an apostrophe separates vowels? Is it a some sort of standard? A Chinese rule? If so, any other Chinese cities name? I have learned about 7 different languages but never heard such a thing before.

Hanyu pinyin, the current official way to write Mandarin Chinese (but not any other sort of Chinese), is very clear on spelling the sounds (that's what it's name means, 'Chinese language spell sounds'), but lacks rules for spacing and punctuation. The use of the apostrophe is to clarify when there are two syllables that might otherwise be mistaken for a single one.

Xī (西) is 'West', and ān (安) is 'peace'. So Xī'ān is pronounced with two clear first tones (high, level tones) as two separate syllables.

Xiān, however, would be pronounced as a single noise, x as the initial consonant, and 'iān' pronounced more as 'yen'--completely different. Depending on the character, and assuming also a first tone, the meaning could be 'before' (先), 'fresh' (鲜), celestial being (仙), or many others.

Apostrophes also help to show where syllabic breaks should come, in combinations such as Ji'nan, the capital of Shāndōng Province. Jinan might be read as Jǐn + án, instead of Jǐ + nán, potentially producing entirely different meanings and entirely different characters. The apostrophe makes it clear.

The apostrophe should always be used when it helps clarity, such as in Tiān'ān Mén. This is frequently run together with no apostrophe (both because pinyin is lacking in rules, and because of the usual English-language speaker's indifference to accuracy in foreign languages).

'Mén' simply means 'gate', and deserves to stand alone. Tianan can in fact only exist as Tian + an, because Tia doesn't exist as a sound in Mandarin, so there's no Tia + nan possibility. But the use of the apostrophe avoids slip-ups by the foreigner or the Chinese infant (the only people who ever use pinyin), and makes things entirely clear.

In the earlier Wade-Giles transliteration system in which some place names and the names of historic figures are sometimes still written, the apostrophe serves an entirely different purpose, indicating that an initial consonant is hard rather than soft (there are better technical linguistic terms to describe the difference). For example, p is pronounced 'b'. p' is pronounced 'p'. This may help to explain why people believe the name of Peking (in Post Office, a similar system) changed to Beijing. It didn't change at all. Pinyin (although not without problems) does a better job to the native English speaker of indicating the sounds he or she expects (although its roots lie in Russian. But that's another story.)

I'm not sure how common the use of the apostrophe is in romanized Mandarin, but of course, it is romanized and so would not have been part of any Chinese language <i>per se</i>. It is, however, a convention used in pinyin to disambiguate pronunciation and before certain vowels that start new syllables. I don't know all the rules, but for to learn more, and to learn about other non-English uses of the apostrophe, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostr...rd_English_use

I've used Pimsleur's, too, for several languages and have found it a very helpful system. In China, though, there was at least one major disadvantage -- because I could say a few (exceedingly few!) things quite well, several people were convinced that I could understand much more than I could -- leading to some decidedly awkward moments. :-O

Thanks, Peter -- I should have waited for you to respond! I'm glad I was on the right track.

Many Polynesian languages use this.

<b>Hawaiian Language Online</b>
<i>About Hawaiian diacritical marks
The Hawaiian language uses two diacritical markings. The ‘okina is a glottal stop, similar to the sound between the syllables of "oh-oh." In print, the correct mark for designating an ‘okina is the single open quote mark.</i>

Thank you, Peter, for your detailed explanation. You must be very knowledgeable of Chinse language. Now it is clear to me why an apospophe is used.

Very enjoyable and instructive thread!

I had heard vague murmurings that pinyin had roots in some "Eastern European language" rather than English, but I never looked into it (nor fully understood the import of such an observation). Is there anything more that we can learn here about pinyin's Russian roots?

Good luck with your studies, Tominrm.

When it came to choosing a phonetic system to replace Chinese characters (or not--the government wobbled on this all the time) there were originally over 1000 candidate systems. Mao had said that a system should be created specially for Chinese, probably referring in some way to the existing system of strokes used to make the characters, but for once he was ignored and something using the Latin alphabet was created. Its creator, Zhou Youguang, died only last year at the age of 111.

Much on pinyin can be read here:

http://pinyin.info