I totally agree with Karl. For instance, the fact that Italian and other
languages have their own traditional names for German and French cities
(e.g. Mainz=Magonza, Aachen=Aquisgrana, Frankfurt=Francoforte,
München=Monaco, Toulouse=Tolosa, Paris=Parigi, Nice=Nizza,
Marseille=Marsiglia, Lyon=Lione, etc.) witnessess of the importance that
these cities have, or had in the past.
In Italy people are proud when their cities (e.g. Roma=Rome, Milano=Milan,
Torino=Turin) have traditional names in other languages, especially if they
are smaller cities with a long history (e.g Mantova=Mantua,
Siracusa=Syracuse). On the other hand, people are very disappointed to
discover that their cities (e.g. Bologna, Bari, Cagliari, Monza) are called
the same abroad, as if they "din't deserve an English name", like small
province towns.
Similarly, one cannot say that Europeans considered Beijing *less* important
than Bei'an (say) and, thus, treated its spelling in a less accurate way
(Peking, Pékin, Pechino, etc.)...
OK, but this is not much of an *Unicode* issue -0 until an Unicode
Conference will be held in a city with a traditional English name, like
München=Munich :-)
Regards. Marco
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karl Pentzlin [SMTP:karl-pentzlin@acssoft.de]
> Sent: 1999 October 09, Saturday 14.58
> To: Unicode List
> Subject: Place names in foreign languages (was: Re: Peking/Beijing
> (Re: Burma/Myanmar))
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: John Jenkins <jenkins@apple.com>
>
> > And I refuse to call it anything other than Peking myself.
>
> Anybody out there who requests Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice"
> to be renamed "The Merchant of Venézia"?
>
> Let's see it the other way round: If a country, city or place gets its own
> name or spelling in other languages, this is because the speakers of that
> language consider the country/city/place as important enough to integrate
> it
> in their own language. This is a honor which the vast majority of smaller
> and less important places never will get.
>
> (With a few exceptions of course, where the name in the other languages
> reflects discrimination or is caused by biased politics. In my opinion,
> only
> such reasons justify a request to rename places in foreign languages.)
>
> Regards
> Karl Pentzlin
> AC&S Analysis Consulting & Software GmbH
> München, Germany
>
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