From: Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se)
Date: Thu Nov 03 2005 - 14:52:27 CST
On 3 Nov 2005, at 19:14, Philippe Verdy wrote:
> From: "Hans Aberg" <haberg@math.su.se>
>
>> On 3 Nov 2005, at 07:27, Erkki Kolehmainen wrote:
>>
>>> Åland is actually not an island. It is an archipelago.
>>
>> Or "groups of islands" (and a province): sorry I did not think of
>> that. My Bonnier's Encyclopedia from 1967 suggests that the word
>> Åland comes from Primitive Norse: either Ahwiland, "land of
>> island", or "Ahvaland", "land of water". So it has never been
>> considered an island. The situation can perhaps be compared with
>> that of the Canaries, or Hawaii. So not only is "island" not a
>> part of the name Åland, the latter is not even an island! :-)
>
> And nothing currently indicates in the standards or in the CLDR
> database that it is an island. Note the plural which is
> consistently used "Åland islands" or "Îles Åland". Note also the
> ISO 3166-1 standard was changed (after a request by Findland) from
> "Îles d'Åland" to "Îles Åland", and not to "Åland" only.
> The comments in the ISO 3166-1 bulletin are clear and normative.
I have no comment on this standard. There is no base in local use to
call Åland the "Åland Islands".
> Why continuing to discuss that?
You tell the others.
> Removing the term "Island" (or "Îles") would denote that the
> territory is independant, which is wrong.
As indicated, Åland can refer to two things, a group of islands, and
a province in Finland, which indeed has a special political status.
Hans Aberg
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