Talk:Shenyang

Historical name "Shengjing"

My translation of the Qing name for the city, Shengjing ("prosperous capital"), differs from that given at the moment in Wikipedia. Their article says that it means "rising capital" and that it derives from the Manchu name Mukden, which is said to be related to the Manchu verb "to rise." I'm ignorant of Manchu, but Chinese dictionaries consistently translate the "sheng" in the city's name 盛 as "prosperous, abundant, widespread, greatly," etc.; a different "sheng" 升 is "to rise, to promote/be promoted." Contributors with more fluency in either language are of course invited to correct this if it's wrong! Bruce M.Tindall 13:39, 12 December 2007 (CST)

I checked with my students, though their geography and history is very bad and they didn't know for a fact, they are native chinese speakers and instantly spotted that 升 was wrong. the word 升 means the 'number rises' or physicaly 'move up' where as the word '盛' they connected to wealth, power, growth and fortune rising. So they guessed that 盛 would have been the appropriate word. Another check, when I search the web for '盛京' baidu give me info about 1625-1644 history where as 升京 gives stock market reports. So 盛京 seems to be correct and your translation of 'prosperous' would be right too. Derek Harkness 04:01, 13 December 2007 (CST)