why do Chinese words/names use X for the Sh- sound?
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Chinese actually has two sounds that sound similar to the English “sh-“ sound.
One of them is indeed spelled “sh”, and it appears before back vowels like “a”, “o”, and “u”. When “i” comes after “sh” in Chinese, it represents a sound like the vowel in English “ship”.
The “x” sound is different from the “sh” sound in that it’s produced more in the front of the mouth and the front teeth are closer together while the “sh” sound is produced more in the middle or back of the mouth and the front teeth are further apart.
The “x” sound is a retracted s that sounds similar to the “s” in modern Greek, and come before front vowels: “i” and “ü”. When “i” comes after “x”, it represents a different vowel, the same vowel as the “ee” in English “sheep”, which is why you hear Xi Jinping’s name pronounced like English “she”.
Pinyin is weird in that it makes the letter “i” do double duty to represent two vowels, and the dots over “ü” get dropped when the normal “u” vowel isn’t possible, so spellings like “xu” and “xue” drop the dots from the “ü”.
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