Ahoy from Amoy! (Historic Xiamen, China). One reason it is so hard to research Chinese cities in Western historical texts is that foreigners had so many ways to spell cities' names! Consider Marco Polo's and Ibn Battuta's legendary port of Quanzhou, the world's greatest port in the Middle Ages, which the Arabs called Zayton (and which was probably the inspiration for the story of Aladdin, who was Chinese) had probably two dozen spellings.
Even Amoy--historic Xiamen--was spelled many ways, including Emowi, Emoui, Emeng, etc. My favorite was from a 160-year-old map that spelled it Emony. (way ahead of their time: eMoney).
Here are variations of foreigners' spellings of Quanzhou, Enjoy!
زيتون (Arabic) Zayton, Zaytiin, Zaytun, Zaytûn, Zaytún, Zaiton, Zaitun, Zaitûn, Zaitún, Zaitūn, Zeiton, Zeitūn Zeitûn, , Caiton, Çaiton, Çayton, Chinchew, Chincheo, Chincheo fu, Chincheo fou, Ch‘üan-chou, Chuan-chiu, Choan-Chiu, Chwanchow-foo, Chwan-chau fu, Chwanchew, Chwanchew foo, Chwanchew fu, Chwanchew fou, Tswanchau, Tswanchau fou, Tswanchau foo, Tswanchau fu, T'swanchau, T'swan-chau fu, T'swan-chau foo, T'swan-chau fou, Ts'üan-chou, Ts'üan-chou foo, Ts'üan-chou fou, Ts'üan-chou fu, Tswanchow, Tswanchow-foo, Tswanchow-fu, Ts’wan-chow, Ts’wanchow-foo, Ts'wan-chow-fu, Ts'wan-chiu, Ts'wan-chiu foo, Ts'wan-chiu fu, Ts'wan-chiu fou, Thsiouan-tchéou, Thsiouan-tchéou fou, Thsiouan-tchéou foo, Thsiouan-tchéou fu, Thsíouan-chéou, Thsíouan-chéou fu, Thsíouan-chéou foo, Thsíouan-chéou-fou, Shanju 等等！
Enjoy Amoy!
Dr. Bill
School of Management, Xiamen University
Amazon eBook "Discover Xiamen"
www.amoymagic.comAmazon eBook "Discover Xiamen"
Bill Brown Xiamen University www.amoymagic.com
