Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc. (was Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?)

Yeah, it does sound sort of crackpotty.  I'd have to see a more rigorous
comparisons before I'd even be convinced that they were loans ("back" and
"hill" are pretty basic).  He's also got some other funny ideas:

"The inquisitive layman naturally wants to know why this happened. Most
authorities would assert that it was simply a natural language change. Not
being satisfied that anything in the universe happens without a cause or
concatenation of causes, I feel compelled to seek a reason for these
dramatic modifications in the northern topolects."

The theory he elaborates after that actually sounds reasonable (though I'm
not a Sinologist by any means), but the fact that he came up with out
because he just can't imagine that anything happens without a reason sounds
just a bit unscientific.

Granted -- I'm sure most linguists would say there's *some* mechanism behind
regular sound changes, one we're just not sure of yet.

I've seen Victor Mair (the editor of this series) show a few odd ideas
himself -- but I very much enjoy his coverage of Chinglish for Language Log.

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