Re: List of natlangs

John Cowan wrote:

> > > > Ta Chung-hwa Min-Kuo (Republic of China)
> > > I do not know if they have abandoned this name or not.
> > Not. But no "Ta".
> Yes, what is that doing there, and which "ta" is it?
I took it to mean "great", which, while it may elicit a patriotic
frisson, is not part of the official name.

> Also W-G uses "hua", not "hwa" AFAIK.
Correct. And in another post:

> The scheme used above looks like Wade-Giles, but isn't quite;
> it is not Pinyin or Gwoyeu Romatzyh; it may be Yale.
I doubt it. My Yale is *very* rusty (only needed to use it for one
semester *many* years ago), but I remember it looking more pinyinny than
this. Chung, min, and kuo, are lovely W-G while hwa is GYRMT (ptui!). As
I've ranted before, that "not-quite" feel permeates romanization in
Taiwan (in the latest twist -- the government decided to convert
roadsigns to pinyin since it's the system most international travellers
are familiar with and Taiwan wants to be seen as 'international'. Yet
they couldn't adopt the system whole hog because _that_ would show too
much acquiescence to Beijing (Heaven forfend), so you have not-quite
pinyin running around now, further confounding an already chaotic
situation.) So is the above the official romanized form of the name?
Could be. I daren't guess; I've been singed a couple of times using pure
W-G when romanizing ('w's, 'r's, and 'h's pop up in the most unexpected
places). A quick buzz through some local government sites to see if they
had the romanized name somewhere was a bust. For the record, though, *I*
prefer "Chung-hua Min-kuo".

Kou