Place names in foreign languages (was: Re: Peking/Beijing (Re: Burma/Myanmar))

From: Karl Pentzlin (karl-pentzlin@acssoft.de)
Date: Sat Oct 09 1999 - 08:58:41 EDT


----- 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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