Chinatown

:Alternative meanings: Chinatown (disambiguation)

Names

In Chinese, Chinatown is usually called in Standard Mandarin Tángrénjiē (唐人街): "Tang people streets". The literal translation of the word is an uncommon term for the Chinese, used here since the Cantonese, who make up a large proportion of immigrants, were only fully brought under imperial control under the Tang dynasty). Indeed, some Chinatowns are just a street, such as the relatively short Fisgard Street in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada or the sprawling 4-mile long new Chinatown of Bellaire Boulevard in Houston, Texas. In Cantonese, it is Tong yan gai (Tang people street) and the modern Tong yan fau (唐人埠), which literally means Tang people town or more accurately, Chinese town (in the subdialect, Hong yin fau is used in Taishanese, the once prevalent spoken Chinese tongue in North American Chinatowns). It is Tong ngin gai in Hakka, one of the widely spoken and diffused dialects among overseas Chinese. Tang and Tong refer to the Tang Dynasty, an era in Chinese history.

Related Topics:
Chinese - Standard Mandarin - Tang - Streets - The Chinese - Cantonese - Victoria - British Columbia - Houston, Texas - Cantonese - Subdialect - Taishanese - Dialect - Overseas Chinese

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A more modern Chinese name is Huábù (華埠: Chinese City), used in the semi-official Chinese translations of some cities' documents and signs. Bù, pronounced sometimes as fù, usually means seaport; but in this sense, it means city or town. The literal word-to-word translation of Chinatown is Zhōngguó Chéng (中國城), occasionally used in Chinese writing.

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In Francophone regions (such as France and Quebec), Chinatown is often referred to as le quartier Chinois (the Chinese Quarter; plural: les quartiers Chinois) and the Spanish-language term is usually el barrio chino (the Chinese neighborhood; plural: los barrios chinos), used in Spain and Latin America. (However, barrio chino or its Catalan cognate barri xines do not always refer to a Chinese neighborhood: these are also common terms for a disreputable district with drugs and prostitution, and often no connection to the Chinese.) Other countries also have idiosyncratic names for Chinatown in local languages and in Chinese; however, some local terms may not necessarily translate as Chinatown. For example, Singapore's tourist-centric Chinatown is called in local Singaporean Mandarin Niúchēshǔi (牛车水), which literally means "Ox-cart water" from the Malay 'Kereta Ayer' in reference to the water carts that used to ply the area. Some languages have adopted the English-language term, such as Dutch, German, and Bahasa Malaysia.

Related Topics:
Francophone - France - Quebec - Spain - Latin America - Catalan

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Several alternate English names for Chinatown include China Town (generally used in British and Australian English), Chinese District, Chinese Quarter and China Alley (an antiquated term used primarily in several rural towns in the western United States for a Chinese community; these are now historical sites).

Related Topics:
British - Australian English - Rural - Western United States

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