Which European cities have most different names in different languages?
October 10, 2020 10:36 AM Subscribe
Last week it occurred to me that I have never seen a map of European cities labelled with their endonyms (names for themselves) and exonyms (external names). And so, I thought I would make one.
By Alix Mortimer for CityMetric. Previously from CityMetric.
By Alix Mortimer for CityMetric. Previously from CityMetric.
For Edinburgh Dùn Èideann is listed as the endonym, that's the Scottish Gaelic name, but the language used in Edinburgh is Scottish Standard English.
The lowlands of Scotland have never used Gaelic as a native language.
posted by Lanark at 11:04 AM on October 10, 2020 [16 favorites]
The lowlands of Scotland have never used Gaelic as a native language.
posted by Lanark at 11:04 AM on October 10, 2020 [16 favorites]
1. Manchester has a 'jaunty little quiff' over the a in Spanish for pronunciation. (So you know it's about the man, and not the chest.)
2. 'Everyone calls it Amsterdam' - except in Amsterdam, where a lot of people call it Mokum.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:54 AM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
2. 'Everyone calls it Amsterdam' - except in Amsterdam, where a lot of people call it Mokum.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:54 AM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
So, while all its exonyms sport a 'Fl,' Florence is Firenze in Italian. Interesting.
posted by y2karl at 12:02 PM on October 10, 2020
posted by y2karl at 12:02 PM on October 10, 2020
In my past life working in the travel industry, I once had to field a complaint from a guy reporting a glitch on the website. Every time he tried to book accommodations in Venice, he said, the website kept redirecting him to some place called Venezia.
It took a lot to get the issue through to him and eventually his understanding came close to enlightenment. “So you’re telling me ‘Venezia’ is Italian for ‘Venice’?” At the back of my lips pressed the refinement that strictly speaking, ‘Venice’ is English for ‘Venezia,’ but I let it go. I reckoned we were close enough.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:35 PM on October 10, 2020 [14 favorites]
It took a lot to get the issue through to him and eventually his understanding came close to enlightenment. “So you’re telling me ‘Venezia’ is Italian for ‘Venice’?” At the back of my lips pressed the refinement that strictly speaking, ‘Venice’ is English for ‘Venezia,’ but I let it go. I reckoned we were close enough.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:35 PM on October 10, 2020 [14 favorites]
We should have never changed the English names for Polish cities.
"Szczećin" is an affront to God in anything other than a Slavic language.
posted by groda at 1:03 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
"Szczećin" is an affront to God in anything other than a Slavic language.
posted by groda at 1:03 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
Can anyone explain to me why the Croatians (and maybe others) call Vienna Beč (Bech)? Once we went from Vienna to Cakoveč Croatia to visit Mrs. Zedcaster's family. When they'd ask where we had been, and we said "Vienna", they'd reply wistfully, "Ah, Beč". At first I thought it was them saying "Ah, good" or "Ah, fun", but no! It was "Ah, Vienna". When I would ask why they called Vienna Beč, they'd say they didn't know. They had always called it Beč.
posted by Zedcaster at 1:15 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Zedcaster at 1:15 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
Can anyone explain to me why the Croatians (and maybe others) call Vienna Beč (Bech)?
Wikipedia cites the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (last edition out of copyright) for the claim that "[t]he name of the city in Hungarian (Bécs), Serbo-Croatian (Beč; Cyrillic: Беч) and Ottoman Turkish (Beç) has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area".
posted by jedicus at 1:36 PM on October 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
Wikipedia cites the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (last edition out of copyright) for the claim that "[t]he name of the city in Hungarian (Bécs), Serbo-Croatian (Beč; Cyrillic: Беч) and Ottoman Turkish (Beç) has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area".
posted by jedicus at 1:36 PM on October 10, 2020 [4 favorites]
Hungary always felt extremely challenging in terms of the Hungarian names for cities outside its borders being way different from those place's endonyms. I always wondered if that had anything to do with the Hungarian language being way different from anything...else in the world, really. (Finnish is distantly related?)
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:13 PM on October 10, 2020
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:13 PM on October 10, 2020
Update, never mind, Wikipedia has a list of some of them and the ones that are most different honestly seem to have been in Hungary's borders at some point. That would explain a lot.
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:17 PM on October 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:17 PM on October 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
Someone, I think it was Oliver Sacks, wrote that Hungarian was the easiest language to translate poetry into but to translate poetry from, the hardest.
posted by y2karl at 2:26 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 2:26 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
Speaking of "multilingual autochthonous populations," my wife and I had an interesting conundrum travelling around Spain, er, España. We wanted to buy train tickets from Bilbao to San Sebastián, and they had ticket vending machines for this. There was also an office with a couple of guys hanging out, and a sign in the window saying something to the effect of "don't bother us."
I've lived in Japan and have navigated some very complex ticket vending machines, so I figured between that experience and my wife's Spanish ability, this wouldn't be a problem. The machines even had screens that helpfully showed maps of the places you could buy tickets to. But San Sebastián wasn't among them. We knew the train went there, though. After ten minutes of futzing around, we bothered the staff in the office. One of them laughed and helped us out. The machine was only showing cities by their Basque names. For San Sebastián, that's Donostia.
posted by adamrice at 3:17 PM on October 10, 2020 [12 favorites]
I've lived in Japan and have navigated some very complex ticket vending machines, so I figured between that experience and my wife's Spanish ability, this wouldn't be a problem. The machines even had screens that helpfully showed maps of the places you could buy tickets to. But San Sebastián wasn't among them. We knew the train went there, though. After ten minutes of futzing around, we bothered the staff in the office. One of them laughed and helped us out. The machine was only showing cities by their Basque names. For San Sebastián, that's Donostia.
posted by adamrice at 3:17 PM on October 10, 2020 [12 favorites]
@adamrice
Bilbo in Euskara, not Bilbao.
Ongi etorriak zarete
posted by davebarnes at 3:40 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
Bilbo in Euskara, not Bilbao.
Ongi etorriak zarete
posted by davebarnes at 3:40 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
conceivably this is revenge for Turin, which everybody else refuses to call Torino
This one is justified though because if anything Torino was the exonym before it was the official name of the place
posted by vibratory manner of working at 4:04 PM on October 10, 2020
This one is justified though because if anything Torino was the exonym before it was the official name of the place
posted by vibratory manner of working at 4:04 PM on October 10, 2020
I had to visit Belgium a few times in the two years prior to lockdown. The dual name thing requires building up a knowledge not just of your destination but also where the train is heading to. The Belgian train service will happily have one name on the printed timetable and another on the platform signage.
posted by biffa at 5:27 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by biffa at 5:27 PM on October 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
It took a lot to get the issue through to him and eventually his understanding came close to enlightenment. “So you’re telling me ‘Venezia’ is Italian for ‘Venice’?”And that man went on to be President of the United States.
posted by midmarch snowman at 8:24 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
Just off stage: Lviv /L'viv, Ukraine aka Polish: Lwów; German: Lemberg, Yiddish: לעמבעריק, Lèmberik; Russian: Львов, Lvov; Hungarian: Ilyvó; Serbo-Croatian: Lavov; Romanian: Liov.
We got lost on the autoroute system trying to cross Belgium via the Antwerp ring-road when it disappeared from the road-signs and we definitely didn't want to get diverted to "Anvers".
On a much more parochial note, might I recommend Translations [Grauniad review] a play by Brian Friel set in rural Ireland in 1833 when the Ordnance Survey was making the first national map of the island. The dilemma was whether to translate or transliterate: should Baile Beag become Ballybeg or Littleton? Dublin Dubh Linn could have become Blackpool [and acquired more exciting fish and chip shops] but at the foundation of the state the authorities scrabbled about in the Liffey and came up with Baile Átha Cliath - "town of the hurdled ford" just to be contrary, as far as I can see.
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:03 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
We got lost on the autoroute system trying to cross Belgium via the Antwerp ring-road when it disappeared from the road-signs and we definitely didn't want to get diverted to "Anvers".
On a much more parochial note, might I recommend Translations [Grauniad review] a play by Brian Friel set in rural Ireland in 1833 when the Ordnance Survey was making the first national map of the island. The dilemma was whether to translate or transliterate: should Baile Beag become Ballybeg or Littleton? Dublin Dubh Linn could have become Blackpool [and acquired more exciting fish and chip shops] but at the foundation of the state the authorities scrabbled about in the Liffey and came up with Baile Átha Cliath - "town of the hurdled ford" just to be contrary, as far as I can see.
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:03 PM on October 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
And that man went on to be President of the United States.
For some definition of President of the United States.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:21 AM on October 11, 2020
For some definition of President of the United States.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:21 AM on October 11, 2020
What do you call the city at 54°59'N 7°18'W?
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:29 AM on October 11, 2020
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:29 AM on October 11, 2020
Italy wasn’t a country (or Italian a unified language) as we know it until 1871, so it makes sense that all the cities have various exonyms, particularly when those names are from their local language (Turin in Piedmontese, Milan in Lombard, etc).
posted by graymouser at 12:51 AM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by graymouser at 12:51 AM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
Cardinal Fang: the city at 54°59'N 7°18'W?
That would be Oakgrove, twinned with Dubrovnik.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:24 AM on October 11, 2020
That would be Oakgrove, twinned with Dubrovnik.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:24 AM on October 11, 2020
I live near Arnhem, which the Germans call Arnheim. I always consider that to be a bit rude. After all, it's called Arnhem and they're making it sound like a German city.
Of course it's totally different when we do the same thing to Keulen, Aken en Berlijn.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:16 AM on October 11, 2020 [6 favorites]
Of course it's totally different when we do the same thing to Keulen, Aken en Berlijn.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:16 AM on October 11, 2020 [6 favorites]
That the mapmaker, for understandable reasons of personal time management, only used five languages severely distorts his findings. The closer a place is, and the better connected, to a language community, the likelier it is to have an exonym. For just one example, Stockholm has exonyms in Icelandic and Finnish, Stokkhólmur and Tukholma, respectively. The mapmaker is missing out on at least half the story, if not more.
posted by Kattullus at 4:09 AM on October 11, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 4:09 AM on October 11, 2020 [9 favorites]
I loved relearning geography auf Deutsch as an exchange student in Austria. For example, Ljubljana —> Laibach, and Bratislava —> Pressburg. I couldn’t get the map in the article to load on my device... But now that I try to search German-language maps online, it’s hard to find the Germanized city names - is it more of a colloquial thing? Or an Austrian thing, like once a part of the Habsburg Empire, forever remembered by Austrians?
posted by Maarika at 6:45 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Maarika at 6:45 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
I no longer remember the exact circumstances that prompted me staring at a map in my second or third grade classroom and sputtering "but... but we don't call him Sam Hussein!" but it was shortly after the USA's first stupid venture into Iraq, and my realization that I was being taught the WRONG names for things left me indignant. I'd read enough fantasy at that point to understand that true names have power, so why would anyone teach me the wrong one deliberately?
posted by deludingmyself at 7:03 AM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by deludingmyself at 7:03 AM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
The explanation of the exonyms for my birthplace, München - mostly Munich (Múnich en español, Munique in Portuguese), but Monaco di Baviera in Italian, is fairly straightforward: the older German form of "by the monks" (the city having been founded by Benedictine monks) was Munichen, whereas the modern German is München.
But it made me wonder about the Principality of Monaco; also founded by monks? Nope! Completely different etymology: from the Greek "Monoikos" "solitary house". (One of the many Greek colonies in the Pre-Roman Western Mediterranean.) Does also get me wondering further, about the etymology of "Monaco" in Italian and how it became a translation of "by the monks", if that's its meaning in Italian, or if it's just a confusion of a similar-sounding name, pressed into service to make "Munich" easier to say by Italian native speakers.
posted by Philofacts at 7:40 AM on October 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
But it made me wonder about the Principality of Monaco; also founded by monks? Nope! Completely different etymology: from the Greek "Monoikos" "solitary house". (One of the many Greek colonies in the Pre-Roman Western Mediterranean.) Does also get me wondering further, about the etymology of "Monaco" in Italian and how it became a translation of "by the monks", if that's its meaning in Italian, or if it's just a confusion of a similar-sounding name, pressed into service to make "Munich" easier to say by Italian native speakers.
posted by Philofacts at 7:40 AM on October 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
But now that I try to search German-language maps online, it’s hard to find the Germanized city names - is it more of a colloquial thing? Or an Austrian thing, like once a part of the Habsburg Empire, forever remembered by Austrians?
It's, um, a fraught thing.
It is considered the correct and respectful norm, especially when referring to Eastern European countries who have their own histories with Viennese hegemony, to use the names they have chosen for themselves. There are intense issues of identity involved, just as there would be for individuals and their choice of name.
On the other side, you have those Austrians who call this "political correctness gone mad". They'll be bemoaning that "Brünn" was a much more aesthetically pleasing name than "Brno". They'll remind you nostalgically of the tramline that used to run from Vienna to Bratislava, back when the Habsburgs still roamed the streets and the city was called by its proper name, Pressburg. They'll crow in a tone of someone issuing an unanswerable killer argument that everyone else feels free to call Vienna whatever they want, yet Austrians are expected to bend over backwards when it comes to the demands other countries and isn't it frankly ridiculous.
So yeah.
posted by Omnomnom at 8:21 AM on October 11, 2020 [7 favorites]
It's, um, a fraught thing.
It is considered the correct and respectful norm, especially when referring to Eastern European countries who have their own histories with Viennese hegemony, to use the names they have chosen for themselves. There are intense issues of identity involved, just as there would be for individuals and their choice of name.
On the other side, you have those Austrians who call this "political correctness gone mad". They'll be bemoaning that "Brünn" was a much more aesthetically pleasing name than "Brno". They'll remind you nostalgically of the tramline that used to run from Vienna to Bratislava, back when the Habsburgs still roamed the streets and the city was called by its proper name, Pressburg. They'll crow in a tone of someone issuing an unanswerable killer argument that everyone else feels free to call Vienna whatever they want, yet Austrians are expected to bend over backwards when it comes to the demands other countries and isn't it frankly ridiculous.
So yeah.
posted by Omnomnom at 8:21 AM on October 11, 2020 [7 favorites]
why would anyone teach me the wrong one deliberately?
In his standup days, Steve Martin once said, “I've got a great trick to play on a three year old kid. Whenever you're around them, talk wrong. So, now it's like his first day of school and he says to the teacher, 'Mambo dogface to the banana patch?'”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:47 AM on October 11, 2020
In his standup days, Steve Martin once said, “I've got a great trick to play on a three year old kid. Whenever you're around them, talk wrong. So, now it's like his first day of school and he says to the teacher, 'Mambo dogface to the banana patch?'”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:47 AM on October 11, 2020
This gave me the idea of playing around with Google Maps, if you change the region settings to French or German or Norwegian or Italian or whatever it changes the interface text, but seems to make no difference to any of the city names. It does not surprise me that an American tech company would overlook this.
posted by Lanark at 8:48 AM on October 11, 2020
posted by Lanark at 8:48 AM on October 11, 2020
They'll be bemoaning that "Brünn" was a much more aesthetically pleasing name than "Brno".
I have a new German map of Europe at home. City names are printed exclusively in the main official language of each country, except for cities in Slavic language speaking countries which get the German form in parentheses.
So it's Wrocław (Breslau), Praha (Prag) and Gdańsk (Danzig) — but not Milano (Mailand), Venezia (Venedig) or Strasbourg (Straßburg).
Thought that was kind of odd.
posted by romanb at 9:13 AM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
I have a new German map of Europe at home. City names are printed exclusively in the main official language of each country, except for cities in Slavic language speaking countries which get the German form in parentheses.
So it's Wrocław (Breslau), Praha (Prag) and Gdańsk (Danzig) — but not Milano (Mailand), Venezia (Venedig) or Strasbourg (Straßburg).
Thought that was kind of odd.
posted by romanb at 9:13 AM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
I had an online argument over the pronunciation of "taekwondo", and the other guy quoted this exonym phenomenon as a reason for me to get over it and simply accept the mispronunciation.
But I wonder if exonyms will be less common moving forward. Part of the reason that we had exonyms in the first place was the problem of distance- I imagine it was like a gigantic game of telephone, and the mispronunciations become the standard exonyms over time.
There have been corrections over the years (Beijing instead of Peking, Myanmar instead of Burma, Kolkata instead of Calcutta, to name a few). I wonder if our modern interconnectedness will slowly phase out many of our commonly mispronounced names.
posted by ishmael at 9:22 AM on October 11, 2020
But I wonder if exonyms will be less common moving forward. Part of the reason that we had exonyms in the first place was the problem of distance- I imagine it was like a gigantic game of telephone, and the mispronunciations become the standard exonyms over time.
There have been corrections over the years (Beijing instead of Peking, Myanmar instead of Burma, Kolkata instead of Calcutta, to name a few). I wonder if our modern interconnectedness will slowly phase out many of our commonly mispronounced names.
posted by ishmael at 9:22 AM on October 11, 2020
I had an online argument over the pronunciation of "taekwondo"
That way lies madness - I'm continually amazed by how many Anglo Americans tack a hard h and an ñ into "habanero" for instance.
WRT the placenames thing, this drives me particularly batty in China and SE Asia, where I learned a bunch of English names that aren't even tangentially related to what the locals call their cities.
Must be even more complex in Indian cities with 5+ local names in different languages. Also big cities always seem to have nicknames in various languages - I'd love to see a map of those.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:43 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
That way lies madness - I'm continually amazed by how many Anglo Americans tack a hard h and an ñ into "habanero" for instance.
WRT the placenames thing, this drives me particularly batty in China and SE Asia, where I learned a bunch of English names that aren't even tangentially related to what the locals call their cities.
Must be even more complex in Indian cities with 5+ local names in different languages. Also big cities always seem to have nicknames in various languages - I'd love to see a map of those.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:43 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
So it's Wrocław (Breslau), Praha (Prag) and Gdańsk (Danzig) — but not Milano (Mailand), Venezia (Venedig) or Strasbourg (Straßburg).
Huh. That's somewhat backwards from my experience when I lived in Germany (1990). There was no question that "Mailand" or "Venedig" was the correct word for those cities, but I tended to see the central European Slavic cities get primarily their current government's name. So I even went from Austria through Bratislava without ever realizing it was the same as Pressburg. Even Prag seemed to be Praha fairly often if memory serves.
The rules that define this are interesting and there are multiple standards. If you are speaking English and pronounce it "Par-ree" or use "Milano" I will think you are wrong and pretentious dolt to boot. On the other hand I'm worried about embarrassing myself by mispronouncing the name of a Mexican city--meaning not coming at all close to the endonym. Except, go figure, Mexico City (which gets the Paris pronunciation rules)
Similarly with names of historical figures--is it Charles V or Karl or Carlos?
posted by mark k at 10:12 AM on October 11, 2020 [4 favorites]
Huh. That's somewhat backwards from my experience when I lived in Germany (1990). There was no question that "Mailand" or "Venedig" was the correct word for those cities, but I tended to see the central European Slavic cities get primarily their current government's name. So I even went from Austria through Bratislava without ever realizing it was the same as Pressburg. Even Prag seemed to be Praha fairly often if memory serves.
The rules that define this are interesting and there are multiple standards. If you are speaking English and pronounce it "Par-ree" or use "Milano" I will think you are wrong and pretentious dolt to boot. On the other hand I'm worried about embarrassing myself by mispronouncing the name of a Mexican city--meaning not coming at all close to the endonym. Except, go figure, Mexico City (which gets the Paris pronunciation rules)
Similarly with names of historical figures--is it Charles V or Karl or Carlos?
posted by mark k at 10:12 AM on October 11, 2020 [4 favorites]
On the other hand I'm worried about embarrassing myself by mispronouncing the name of a Mexican city--meaning not coming at all close to the endonym.
I think with Nahuatl and other native Mexican names could be made easier if they were broken into their component parts. For example: Popocatepetl = Popoca(Smoke) + Tepetl (Mountain), or Nezahualcoyotl = Nezahual (Fasting) + Coyotl (Coyote).
I think a lot of foreign names (to English-speakers) get that German treatment where a lot of common words get strung together. That's a problem with Korean names not parsing syllable groups, too.
posted by ishmael at 10:24 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
I think with Nahuatl and other native Mexican names could be made easier if they were broken into their component parts. For example: Popocatepetl = Popoca(Smoke) + Tepetl (Mountain), or Nezahualcoyotl = Nezahual (Fasting) + Coyotl (Coyote).
I think a lot of foreign names (to English-speakers) get that German treatment where a lot of common words get strung together. That's a problem with Korean names not parsing syllable groups, too.
posted by ishmael at 10:24 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
I have a new German map of Europe at home. City names are printed exclusively in the main official language of each country
I just checked the German world map hanging behind me, and it has a weird mixture - Warschau, Rom, Prag, Mailand, yet Gdańsk and Strasbourg.
posted by scorbet at 10:35 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
I just checked the German world map hanging behind me, and it has a weird mixture - Warschau, Rom, Prag, Mailand, yet Gdańsk and Strasbourg.
posted by scorbet at 10:35 AM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
There's a fun game you can play with this when you run into a physical globe - try to figure out when and where it was printed based on placenames.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:44 AM on October 11, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 10:44 AM on October 11, 2020 [4 favorites]
Bratislava —> Pressburg
Or Pozsony, to the Hungarians.
posted by gimonca at 12:52 PM on October 11, 2020
Or Pozsony, to the Hungarians.
posted by gimonca at 12:52 PM on October 11, 2020
aspersioncast: There's a fun game you can play with this when you run into a physical globe - try to figure out when and where it was printed based on placenames.
This is maps, not necessarily globes, but XKCD has a flowchart for this.
posted by hanov3r at 5:37 PM on October 11, 2020
This is maps, not necessarily globes, but XKCD has a flowchart for this.
posted by hanov3r at 5:37 PM on October 11, 2020
The rules that define this are interesting and there are multiple standards. If you are speaking English and pronounce it "Par-ree" or use "Milano" I will think you are wrong and pretentious dolt to boot.
100 percent. I guess the distinction between an example like Par-ee and the examples I quoted above is that those mispronounced names were assigned by colonial cultures, and so correcting them carries a different meaning.
posted by ishmael at 8:33 PM on October 11, 2020
100 percent. I guess the distinction between an example like Par-ee and the examples I quoted above is that those mispronounced names were assigned by colonial cultures, and so correcting them carries a different meaning.
posted by ishmael at 8:33 PM on October 11, 2020
why would anyone teach me the wrong one deliberately?
Same reason we told the new kid at school that that teacher's name was 'Mr. Scrotum'.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:08 AM on October 12, 2020
Same reason we told the new kid at school that that teacher's name was 'Mr. Scrotum'.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:08 AM on October 12, 2020
This is one thing that I had no idea was a thing until I moved to Germany. Maybe this is just my American-ness, but it seems extremely rude to call a place something other than what it is called by the people who live there. And yes, maybe some names are harder to pronounce in their native language, but its just basic respect to take the time to learn to pronounce it.
That may be a very modern take on a process that started thousands of years ago. But still, it really bothers me and its something I can't get past (I say that as I continue to pronounce names in English though...)
This is a phenomenon in Europe, what about other parts of the world that have a high concentration of different cultures? Asia? Africa?
posted by LizBoBiz at 12:33 AM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
That may be a very modern take on a process that started thousands of years ago. But still, it really bothers me and its something I can't get past (I say that as I continue to pronounce names in English though...)
This is a phenomenon in Europe, what about other parts of the world that have a high concentration of different cultures? Asia? Africa?
posted by LizBoBiz at 12:33 AM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
This seems like a teaser for what is a much more complex exploration. Given the arbitrary parameters (top European languages? Modern populations?) the results are next to meaningless. I mean 4 of the 5 languages are from the same language family. This would make an interesting project with the inclusion of much more data and possibly even a time dimension of exonyms changing over time.
Also mispronunciations count as exonyms. So just the fact that the spelling has not changed is no indicator that it is not an exonym. Americans say 'Meksiko' when Mexicans call it 'Meheeko', they also say 'Peh-ris' when Parisians say 'Paree' or even Amsterdam which is pronounced AmsterDAM not AMSterdam?
posted by vacapinta at 3:31 AM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
Also mispronunciations count as exonyms. So just the fact that the spelling has not changed is no indicator that it is not an exonym. Americans say 'Meksiko' when Mexicans call it 'Meheeko', they also say 'Peh-ris' when Parisians say 'Paree' or even Amsterdam which is pronounced AmsterDAM not AMSterdam?
posted by vacapinta at 3:31 AM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
or even Amsterdam which is pronounced AmsterDAM not AMSterdam?
Or even Scheveningen, which is pronounced...
posted by Cardinal Fang at 4:38 AM on October 12, 2020
Or even Scheveningen, which is pronounced...
posted by Cardinal Fang at 4:38 AM on October 12, 2020
The rules that define this are interesting and there are multiple standards. If you are speaking English and pronounce it "Par-ree" or use "Milano" I will think you are wrong and pretentious dolt to boot.
The funniest is when people pronounce "Barcelona" as "bar-theh-LOH-nah" to sound "authentic" because of continental Spanish pronunciation but the city is Catalan and the preferred local pronunciation is "bar-seh-LOH-nah."
posted by graymouser at 5:08 AM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
The funniest is when people pronounce "Barcelona" as "bar-theh-LOH-nah" to sound "authentic" because of continental Spanish pronunciation but the city is Catalan and the preferred local pronunciation is "bar-seh-LOH-nah."
posted by graymouser at 5:08 AM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
This gave me the idea of playing around with Google Maps, if you change the region settings to French or German or Norwegian or Italian or whatever it changes the interface text, but seems to make no difference to any of the city names. It does not surprise me that an American tech company would overlook this.
While American tech companies definitely have a ways to go with localization, I'm not sure this is true?
If I change my map settings to languages that I can read, I definitely see toponym changes:
- In French, I see Londres, Anvers, Venise, Francfort-sur-le-Main, etc.
- In Spanish, I see La Haya, Bruselas, París, Varsovia, etc.
- In (traditional) Chinese I see both the Chinese-language equivalent and the endonym(s): so 布魯塞爾/Bruxelles/Brussel, 哥本哈根/København, 里斯本/Lisboa, etc.
posted by andrewesque at 6:48 AM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
While American tech companies definitely have a ways to go with localization, I'm not sure this is true?
If I change my map settings to languages that I can read, I definitely see toponym changes:
- In French, I see Londres, Anvers, Venise, Francfort-sur-le-Main, etc.
- In Spanish, I see La Haya, Bruselas, París, Varsovia, etc.
- In (traditional) Chinese I see both the Chinese-language equivalent and the endonym(s): so 布魯塞爾/Bruxelles/Brussel, 哥本哈根/København, 里斯本/Lisboa, etc.
posted by andrewesque at 6:48 AM on October 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
I've noticed something interesting when I watch pro bike races, which is overwhelmingly European. For one thing, the riders come from all over Europe, and the announcers generally make a good effort (I'm guessing) to pronounce their names correctly, so you hear a jarring mishmash of Slavic, Romance, and Germanic names. The races themselves are usually named after the cities where they start and finish, and there doesn't seem to be agreement on whether to pronounce those cities native-style or English-style. So in "Paris-Roubaix" I've only head "paree," but in "Paris-Brest-Paris" I've heard "pariss." Then of course there are races in cities with names that are just harder for English speakers to pronounce, or where most of us just won't have much of a handle on what the correct pronunciation should be, like Gent-Wevelgem ("xhent-vayvelxhem"), which was just run this weekend.
posted by adamrice at 8:24 AM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by adamrice at 8:24 AM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
But it made me wonder about the Principality of Monaco; also founded by monks? Nope! Completely different etymology: from the Greek "Monoikos" "solitary house".
Totally un-linguistic explanation of how it could be linked: monasteries often are, or at least started out as, solitary buildings usually well outside city areas.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:30 AM on October 12, 2020
Totally un-linguistic explanation of how it could be linked: monasteries often are, or at least started out as, solitary buildings usually well outside city areas.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:30 AM on October 12, 2020
This is one thing that I had no idea was a thing until I moved to Germany. Maybe this is just my American-ness, but it seems extremely rude to call a place something other than what it is called by the people who live there. And yes, maybe some names are harder to pronounce in their native language, but its just basic respect to take the time to learn to pronounce it.
That may be a very modern take on a process that started thousands of years ago. But still, it really bothers me and its something I can't get past (I say that as I continue to pronounce names in English though...)
This is a phenomenon in Europe, what about other parts of the world that have a high concentration of different cultures? Asia? Africa?
The complication here is that many European cities (most?) vastly predate the idea of the nation state. Many central and eastern European cities had substantial German minorities for centuries, even ones that were never part of any kind of German or proto-German state. That makes "the people who live there" quite a political concept. Of course in the specific case of Germany the events of WWII add *another* layer of complexity. I (not a German) might note that historically Gdansk was Danzig and was a "German" city which shares most of its history with other Hansa cities but if I were German I would be very careful about how I said that because any kind of German irredentism is going to signal "I am a neo-Nazi" even if that is not the intention.
Huh. That's somewhat backwards from my experience when I lived in Germany (1990). There was no question that "Mailand" or "Venedig" was the correct word for those cities, but I tended to see the central European Slavic cities get primarily their current government's name. So I even went from Austria through Bratislava without ever realizing it was the same as Pressburg. Even Prag seemed to be Praha fairly often if memory serves.
I would guess that this is the explanation for both of the observed map effects above: in one, the German name has been printed quite reasonably due to the close historical ties and German history in those places, in the other the map-maker has hyper-corrected and explicitly used the current government's name rather than the German language one. No-one would read a map that use "Venedig" and think that the German map-maker was making any kind of territorial claim but if I saw a German map that had all the former German territory in Silesia and Pomerania marked with the German placenames I might raise an eyebrow.
Naming is super political and this is not purely a European thing.
An example: the naming of Mumbai. Called Bombay by the British, it's only logical that the people who lived there would want to give it back the name used by the people of Maharashtra, right? Except that only about 40% - 50% of the inhabitants of the city are Marathi speakers and the name of the city in Hindi is apparently closer to "Bambai" [disclaimer, I speak very little Hindi and not a word of Marathi].
The name was changed in the 90s when Shiv Sena (originally just a Marathi nationalist / anti-migrant party but by the 90s also a right wing Hindu-nationalist party) was in power. Some Muslim and non-Marathi-speaking residents of the city were not in favour of this and saw it as an imposition by the Marathi majority (of the state, Marathi speakers are not a majority in the city itself). A friend from a Punjabi business family with generations of history in the city described it to me as the residents of upstate New York renaming NYC (a city that they politically have little in common with) in a language that wasn't even a majority language in NYC. It's not a perfect parallel, but there are definitely parallels there in that Mumbai is both wealthier and has many more "immigrants" from other parts of India than the rest of the state.
(N.b. as a white dude living in the UK, I call it Mumbai. If I went around calling it Bombay people would not assume: that guy really objects to Shiv Sena, they'd assume I had some heinous Imperial Views)
Another example: what do we call Everest? In one sense, the name "Everest" is clearly literally colonial and the man after whom it was named was himself completely opposed to naming geographical features in English and particularly peeved that a name had been selected that couldn't even be properly written in Devanagari scripts. So what do we call it? I've sometimes seen well-meaning people use the name "Sagarmatha" which is the Nepali name. That works, since it is on the Nepali-Tibetan border either the Nepali or the Tibetan name (Qomolangma/Chomolungma) should be used.
Except. The people who actually live near it are not Nepali speakers. Ethnic Nepalis live in the highlands and hills all the way down to the Terai marshes, not all the way up in the mountains. The Sherpa (an ethnic group from whom the legendary climbers and guides are drawn and who actually live near the mountain) actually means something like "Eastern people" because they live in Eastern Nepal and because they came from the East, the other side of the mountains on the Tibetan plateau in the 14th century. They are mostly Buddhists who speak a Sino-Tibetan language so naming the mountain in Nepali with a name that has Hindu religious connotations is not exactly ideal.
I have heard, but not been able to verify, that many Sherpa (capital letter, ethnic group) do not care at all and have not historically given names to mountains anyway. Makes sense - I don't name the rocks in my garden and the mania for labelling, categorising, and mapping is actually kind of a strange modern affliction anyway.
The sherpa (non-capital letter, the guides) mostly call it Everest because that's what their clients call it. They have many grievances with how they are treated by tour operators and by the Nepali government which charges high permit fees that don't always make it to the region. I've never heard of a guide who cared about the name either way.
Others:
-Persian Gulf / Arabian Gulf / the politically neutral "al Khaleej"
-Sea of Japan / East Korea Sea
-South China Sea
These are a bit different since they're not inhabited but all clearly point to naming and territorial claims going together.
posted by atrazine at 10:36 AM on October 12, 2020 [6 favorites]
That may be a very modern take on a process that started thousands of years ago. But still, it really bothers me and its something I can't get past (I say that as I continue to pronounce names in English though...)
This is a phenomenon in Europe, what about other parts of the world that have a high concentration of different cultures? Asia? Africa?
The complication here is that many European cities (most?) vastly predate the idea of the nation state. Many central and eastern European cities had substantial German minorities for centuries, even ones that were never part of any kind of German or proto-German state. That makes "the people who live there" quite a political concept. Of course in the specific case of Germany the events of WWII add *another* layer of complexity. I (not a German) might note that historically Gdansk was Danzig and was a "German" city which shares most of its history with other Hansa cities but if I were German I would be very careful about how I said that because any kind of German irredentism is going to signal "I am a neo-Nazi" even if that is not the intention.
Huh. That's somewhat backwards from my experience when I lived in Germany (1990). There was no question that "Mailand" or "Venedig" was the correct word for those cities, but I tended to see the central European Slavic cities get primarily their current government's name. So I even went from Austria through Bratislava without ever realizing it was the same as Pressburg. Even Prag seemed to be Praha fairly often if memory serves.
I would guess that this is the explanation for both of the observed map effects above: in one, the German name has been printed quite reasonably due to the close historical ties and German history in those places, in the other the map-maker has hyper-corrected and explicitly used the current government's name rather than the German language one. No-one would read a map that use "Venedig" and think that the German map-maker was making any kind of territorial claim but if I saw a German map that had all the former German territory in Silesia and Pomerania marked with the German placenames I might raise an eyebrow.
Naming is super political and this is not purely a European thing.
An example: the naming of Mumbai. Called Bombay by the British, it's only logical that the people who lived there would want to give it back the name used by the people of Maharashtra, right? Except that only about 40% - 50% of the inhabitants of the city are Marathi speakers and the name of the city in Hindi is apparently closer to "Bambai" [disclaimer, I speak very little Hindi and not a word of Marathi].
The name was changed in the 90s when Shiv Sena (originally just a Marathi nationalist / anti-migrant party but by the 90s also a right wing Hindu-nationalist party) was in power. Some Muslim and non-Marathi-speaking residents of the city were not in favour of this and saw it as an imposition by the Marathi majority (of the state, Marathi speakers are not a majority in the city itself). A friend from a Punjabi business family with generations of history in the city described it to me as the residents of upstate New York renaming NYC (a city that they politically have little in common with) in a language that wasn't even a majority language in NYC. It's not a perfect parallel, but there are definitely parallels there in that Mumbai is both wealthier and has many more "immigrants" from other parts of India than the rest of the state.
(N.b. as a white dude living in the UK, I call it Mumbai. If I went around calling it Bombay people would not assume: that guy really objects to Shiv Sena, they'd assume I had some heinous Imperial Views)
Another example: what do we call Everest? In one sense, the name "Everest" is clearly literally colonial and the man after whom it was named was himself completely opposed to naming geographical features in English and particularly peeved that a name had been selected that couldn't even be properly written in Devanagari scripts. So what do we call it? I've sometimes seen well-meaning people use the name "Sagarmatha" which is the Nepali name. That works, since it is on the Nepali-Tibetan border either the Nepali or the Tibetan name (Qomolangma/Chomolungma) should be used.
Except. The people who actually live near it are not Nepali speakers. Ethnic Nepalis live in the highlands and hills all the way down to the Terai marshes, not all the way up in the mountains. The Sherpa (an ethnic group from whom the legendary climbers and guides are drawn and who actually live near the mountain) actually means something like "Eastern people" because they live in Eastern Nepal and because they came from the East, the other side of the mountains on the Tibetan plateau in the 14th century. They are mostly Buddhists who speak a Sino-Tibetan language so naming the mountain in Nepali with a name that has Hindu religious connotations is not exactly ideal.
I have heard, but not been able to verify, that many Sherpa (capital letter, ethnic group) do not care at all and have not historically given names to mountains anyway. Makes sense - I don't name the rocks in my garden and the mania for labelling, categorising, and mapping is actually kind of a strange modern affliction anyway.
The sherpa (non-capital letter, the guides) mostly call it Everest because that's what their clients call it. They have many grievances with how they are treated by tour operators and by the Nepali government which charges high permit fees that don't always make it to the region. I've never heard of a guide who cared about the name either way.
Others:
-Persian Gulf / Arabian Gulf / the politically neutral "al Khaleej"
-Sea of Japan / East Korea Sea
-South China Sea
These are a bit different since they're not inhabited but all clearly point to naming and territorial claims going together.
posted by atrazine at 10:36 AM on October 12, 2020 [6 favorites]
For Edinburgh Dùn Èideann is listed as the endonym, that's the Scottish Gaelic name, but the language used in Edinburgh is Scottish Standard English.
Should, of course, have been listed as 'Embra'.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
Should, of course, have been listed as 'Embra'.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
What's the practice in China these days?
I took a few Mandarin lessons in the '70, didn't learn anything, but coming up with a Sinified version of your name was a thing for students (and we mostly thought it was cool.)
How does media in China reference the names of foreign public figures? Does it make a difference spoken or written?
posted by mark k at 9:39 PM on October 12, 2020
I took a few Mandarin lessons in the '70, didn't learn anything, but coming up with a Sinified version of your name was a thing for students (and we mostly thought it was cool.)
How does media in China reference the names of foreign public figures? Does it make a difference spoken or written?
posted by mark k at 9:39 PM on October 12, 2020
If I change my map settings to languages that I can read, I definitely see toponym changes
I was changing the region instead of the language, duh
posted by Lanark at 11:39 AM on October 13, 2020
I was changing the region instead of the language, duh
posted by Lanark at 11:39 AM on October 13, 2020
How does media in China reference the names of foreign public figures? Does it make a difference spoken or written?
Broadly speaking, as a Mandarin speaker:
- Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese public figures -- or, more precisely, public figures with names in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese -- are written using the Chinese characters of the name and are typically pronounced using the Mandarin pronunciation of those same characters. (Note that modern Vietnamese orthography doesn't use Chinese characters at all and instead uses the Roman alphabet, but most surnames and many given names correspond to Chinese characters.)
- All other public figures with names in other languages are sinicized to something approximating the original pronunciation, and especially with contemporary political figures there is often a difference between the name used in Taiwan and in China.
So, for example (omitting tone marks as they are a pain to type on my current keyboard):
- The former prime minister of Japan is Shinzo Abe 安倍晋三. In Mandarin, his name is pronounced Anbei Jinsan which is just the Mandarin pronunciation of those characters
- The current prime minister of South Korea is Chung Sye-kun 정세균, or 丁世均 in Chinese characters. In Mandarin, his name is pronounced Ding Shijun which is again just the Mandarin pronunciation of those names.
- The current leader of Vietnam is Nguyễn Phú Trọng. In Chinese characters, this is written 阮富仲 and pronounced Ruan Fuzhong, which is the Mandarin pronunciation of these characters.
This system covers most but not all cases, as:
- Not all Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese names can be written in Chinese characters (though most can be). In this case normally Chinese just approximates phonetically, as with all other non-J/K/V names.
- Japanese in particular has some "made in Japan" Chinese characters which are not normally found in written Chinese. In these cases strategies differ but Chinese readers will usually attempt to read these characters according to normal rules for guessing pronunciation of Chinese characters (i.e. trying to identify the phonetic component and/or looking at what the character might rhyme with).
Examples from other languages where Chinese basically uses a phonetic approximation of the original name:
- Emmanuel Macron's name is sinicized to 艾曼紐·馬克宏 Aimanniu Makehong in Taiwan, 埃马纽埃尔·马克龙 Aimaniuaier Makelong in China
- Angela Merkel is 安格拉·梅克爾 An'gela Meike'er in Taiwan, 安格拉·默克尔 An'gela Moke'er in China
- Barack Obama is 巴拉克·歐巴馬 Balake Oubama in Taiwan, 贝拉克·奥巴马 Beilake Aobama in China
In addition, you can see the dot · used to separate the first and last names that is not used for Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese names but is used for all other names.
Finally, in normal life C/J/K/V names are typically said in full, whereas all other names are usually said last name only. This is in part because approximations of non-East Asian names tend to be very long, and the often three-syllable approximation of the surname alone tends to sound like a "complete" C/K/V name of three syllables.
posted by andrewesque at 12:22 PM on October 13, 2020 [7 favorites]
Broadly speaking, as a Mandarin speaker:
- Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese public figures -- or, more precisely, public figures with names in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese -- are written using the Chinese characters of the name and are typically pronounced using the Mandarin pronunciation of those same characters. (Note that modern Vietnamese orthography doesn't use Chinese characters at all and instead uses the Roman alphabet, but most surnames and many given names correspond to Chinese characters.)
- All other public figures with names in other languages are sinicized to something approximating the original pronunciation, and especially with contemporary political figures there is often a difference between the name used in Taiwan and in China.
So, for example (omitting tone marks as they are a pain to type on my current keyboard):
- The former prime minister of Japan is Shinzo Abe 安倍晋三. In Mandarin, his name is pronounced Anbei Jinsan which is just the Mandarin pronunciation of those characters
- The current prime minister of South Korea is Chung Sye-kun 정세균, or 丁世均 in Chinese characters. In Mandarin, his name is pronounced Ding Shijun which is again just the Mandarin pronunciation of those names.
- The current leader of Vietnam is Nguyễn Phú Trọng. In Chinese characters, this is written 阮富仲 and pronounced Ruan Fuzhong, which is the Mandarin pronunciation of these characters.
This system covers most but not all cases, as:
- Not all Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese names can be written in Chinese characters (though most can be). In this case normally Chinese just approximates phonetically, as with all other non-J/K/V names.
- Japanese in particular has some "made in Japan" Chinese characters which are not normally found in written Chinese. In these cases strategies differ but Chinese readers will usually attempt to read these characters according to normal rules for guessing pronunciation of Chinese characters (i.e. trying to identify the phonetic component and/or looking at what the character might rhyme with).
Examples from other languages where Chinese basically uses a phonetic approximation of the original name:
- Emmanuel Macron's name is sinicized to 艾曼紐·馬克宏 Aimanniu Makehong in Taiwan, 埃马纽埃尔·马克龙 Aimaniuaier Makelong in China
- Angela Merkel is 安格拉·梅克爾 An'gela Meike'er in Taiwan, 安格拉·默克尔 An'gela Moke'er in China
- Barack Obama is 巴拉克·歐巴馬 Balake Oubama in Taiwan, 贝拉克·奥巴马 Beilake Aobama in China
In addition, you can see the dot · used to separate the first and last names that is not used for Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese names but is used for all other names.
Finally, in normal life C/J/K/V names are typically said in full, whereas all other names are usually said last name only. This is in part because approximations of non-East Asian names tend to be very long, and the often three-syllable approximation of the surname alone tends to sound like a "complete" C/K/V name of three syllables.
posted by andrewesque at 12:22 PM on October 13, 2020 [7 favorites]
The current prime minister of South Korea is Chung Sye-kun 정세균, or 丁世均 in Chinese characters. In Mandarin, his name is pronounced Ding Shijun which is again just the Mandarin pronunciation of those names.
Another factor hindering the correct pronunciation is that the offical romanization of characters is poor, at least for Korean. 정세균 should read as"Jung SeKyūn".
posted by ishmael at 12:44 PM on October 13, 2020
Another factor hindering the correct pronunciation is that the offical romanization of characters is poor, at least for Korean. 정세균 should read as"Jung SeKyūn".
posted by ishmael at 12:44 PM on October 13, 2020
Thank you kindly for the thorough answer andrewesque!
posted by mark k at 5:55 PM on October 13, 2020
posted by mark k at 5:55 PM on October 13, 2020
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