Feng shui

[Bert]

This expression was presumably translitterated from Chinese characters. If so, why was it not translittereated as "Fung shway", since that is the way it is meant to be pronounced?

[Quizmonster]

In the earliest use of the word in English - in the 1700s - it was spelt 'fong-choui'. I think that's a bit closer to the pronunciation, but language 'simplification' has over the centuries, as so often, changed things to the current spelling.

[Quizmonster]

I should perhaps have added above that transliteration from other languages frequently causes problems. From Arabic, we get 'Mohammed' and 'Muhammad', which some people doubtless assume to be two different names or find themselves asking which is the "correct" spelling. More recently, with Chinese itself, we have had changes such as from 'Peking' to 'Beijing' and, from the subcontinent, 'Bombay' to 'Mumbai' and so on.
If the place was originally called 'Mumbai', why - apart from ignorance or our usual lack of consideration for foreign tongues - did we Brits ever decide to call it 'Bombay' in the first place?

[drdeng]

"Feng shui " is translated based on the standardized romanization of Chinese characters, and is officially in use in Mainland China. Other translations should be considered obsolete.

[heathfield]

Transliteration from Chinese languages has always been a problem, since they contain sounds that cannot be reproduced using the English alphabet. The best we can do is to come up with approximations. Even the best approximations can be so far removed from the proper sound that a Chinese person may not recognise what we're trying to say.
In wondering how we should say 'Feng shui', It doesn't help that the letter 'i' can be pronounced in different ways, as in 'mitre', 'if', and 'mosquito'.
I've been used to hearing 'feng shoo-ey' for many years, and 'feng shway' only relatively recently.

[jno]

local pronunciations vary slightly as they do in most languages, including English; attempts to transliterate words into another language altogether can never be perfect. Beijing not only used to be Peking, as I recall it was Peiping before that - all the same word. And Bangalore is about to become Bangaluru. As for 'kangaroo', it apparently means 'I don't know'... you can probably guess how that happened.

[Peter Pedant]

Oh, when it comes to Peking,

Peking - Canonese

Bei jing Mandarin - I thought pei ping was somewhere else. Bei jing means northern City and so and so, is there a Nan jing - Soouthern City ? huh
Sure is, Nnking to usll

and I suppose it is the same with FUng Shui