From: Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin (antonio@tuvalkin.web.pt)
Date: Tue Dec 16 2003 - 12:09:23 EST
On 2003.12.15, 19:13, Doug Ewell <dewell@adelphia.net> wrote:
> It's always bothered me that speakers of European languages, including
> English but especially French, have seen fit to rename the cities and
> internal subdivisions of other countries.
(Sigh.)
Every language, whose speaking community ever conteacted others, does
it. Чул Хула, f.i., is the Chuvash name for neighbouring Нижний
Новгород, which is probably still known in English as Gorky, a clumsy
transcription of the 1934-1991 name Горький.
The world is full of these assimilations, and all these silly OT
discussions about Burma/Myanma(r) etc. are really tiresome and
pointless.
> An English speaker could travel from <...> Venezia to Milano to
> Firenze to Roma to Napoli, and never once call any of those cities by
> its proper local name.
"Venezia", for one, in not the proper *local* name (same for Bilbao,
Marseille, etc.). Moreover, as said, this would happen to any foreigner,
not only to an English speaker.
OTOH, things like pronoucing, f.i., "Brasil" (with unvoiced "s") are the
mark of the idiot -- as the Portuguese word "Brasil", using local
orthography and pronouciation rules and uses sounds rather something
like "brrah-ZEEW".
The *English* word "Brazil" ("z" stemming from a previous Portuguese
orthography) is traditionally pronounced in English a bit like the
Portuguese word "Brasil" is actually pronounced in Portugal, fancy that.
Etc. All this crackpot misguided political correctness reeks of
unconscious glottophagic hegemony, cultural parochalism and well-meaning
gringocentered patronizing -- it's unsettling to sniff (in this and
other threads) whips of it in a forum such as this.
> ("Pair-iss" is a bit over the top; English speakers are certainly
> capable of saying "par-ee.")
Sure. Try it some day.
> But changing the name altogether, like "Londres" for London, just
> doesn't seem right.
Yeah. But keeping "oi" instead of "gha" as the name of U+01A3 (to put
this back on topic) is a Very Important Thing, in the name of stability.
What about 1000 years of usage of the word "Londres"? (Which is used not
only in French, BTW...)
> Country names will probably always be localized, but I've always
> thought we should leave the naming of states and cities and counties
> and oblasts and prefectures to the locals.
Locals could not care less what any other people (including all-mighty
English speakers) call their toponyms in their own languages -- every
language does it to any other!
-- ____.
Anto'nio MARTINS-Tuva'lkin | ()|
<antonio@tuvalkin.web.pt> |####|
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