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Renaming the cities of other countries... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7164 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 17 of 192 15 November 2009 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hagen: Unfortunately, no. From what little else I know about the Chinese languages, I know that in Cantonese, "Beijing" is still pronounced like "Buck-king" (and is thus somewhat closer to "Peking" or the probable Fukienese source for "Peking"/"Pékin"/"Пекин" etc.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7164 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 18 of 192 15 November 2009 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Sennin: The pronunciation of Warsaw in North American English is "War-saw" (pronouncing it as 'worsol' sounds like British English but that still would be consistent with patterns in that variant of English). In general, English names of names of capitals or large cities from Slavic-speaking areas tended to come from German sources. This tendency explains why English uses "Warsaw" (cf. German 'Warschau'); "Cracow" (cf. German 'Krakau'); "Prague" (cf. German 'Prag'); "Moscow" (cf. German 'Moskau') among others. It is perhaps intertia or conservatism in English that explains the retention of such spellings even though English names or spellings for smaller cities in the Slavic-speaking world tend to be a bit closer if not identical to the native forms (e.g. Bydgoszcz, Zagreb, Kosice (Košice), Skopje, Ruse, Lviv). In the case of those "Germanicized" city names, hypothetical forms that are closer to the native terms such as *Varshava, *Krakoof, *Praha or *Moskva wouldn't be impossible since the phonological inventory of English seems to be wide enough to allow for such pronunciations/spellings. Given this evidence, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that English is more prone than other languages of butchering names because of a spurious link to the foreign policy of English-speaking empires/nations. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6902 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 192 16 November 2009 at 2:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Interesting, and it makes sense. As far as I know the exact same thing happened with another city, not quite as well-known as Beijing. The city I am thinking of was initially called Amoy, based on a transcription from the Fukien dialect, and it spread through the Western world as "Amoy". Nowadays the Mandarin name, written as "Xiamen" has been adopted instead. The locals of course never changed the name of their city. Just like Peking/Beijing it is only in the West that we have started using a different name which is closer to the Mandarin pronunciation. Edited by Hencke on 16 November 2009 at 2:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5717 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 20 of 192 16 November 2009 at 2:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Some examples for German:
Geneva - Genf Venice - Venedig Vienna - Wien Wroclaw - Breslau Milan - Mailand Belarus - Weissrussland Hungary - Ungarn Switzerland - die Schweiz 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Halie Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6118 days ago 80 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 21 of 192 16 November 2009 at 4:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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What about cities/countries with names that translate? The obvious example being the United States. Does it make sense for the French to say "United States" when they have words that mean the same thing (les Etats-Unis)?
(I don't really care either way, but I'm just curious as to what you all think.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5575 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 22 of 192 16 November 2009 at 4:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
No, it wouldn't make much sense for the French to say "United States" instead of "États-Unis". However, interestingly enough, the nation formerly known as the "Ivory Coast" officially changed it's English name to "Côte d'Ivoire". I don't really mind, since I speak French anyways, but I'm sure the change was confusing for a lot of English speakers. The confusion is compounded, undoubtedly, by the retention of the name "Ivorians" for its inhabitants. Then, deciding that the world's mapmakers and almanac writers were not sufficiently confused, they relocated their capital from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro. Edited by Levi on 16 November 2009 at 5:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7164 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 23 of 192 16 November 2009 at 5:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
As Levi stated, it's rather common to translate the native name into that of the second language, however it is inconsistent within a language. In English, we call Санкт-Петербург ("Sankt-Peterburg") as St. Petersburg which is a translation. Yet Владивосток ("Vladivostok") is expressed as in Russian and not translated in English as something like "rule the East". Using a few examples from other languages: Slovak: Dolný Kubín (town in northern Slovakia) Hungarian: Alsókubin German: Unterkubin English: Dolný Kubín The English name is the same as in Slovak and means "Lower Kubín" with "Kubín" being a name. The meanings in German and Hungarian mean "Low(er) Kubín" as Hungarians ruled what is now modern Slovakia for about 1000 years and German settlers arrived near the town in the Middle Ages. It wouldn't be outlandish for English to employ a translation as in German or Hungarian, but instead it just adheres to the Slovak version. Romanian: Târgu Mureş (town in central Romania) Hungarian: Márosvásárhely German: Neumarkt am Mieresch English: Târgu Mureş The English name is the same as the Romanian and it means "Market [on the] Mureş [river]". The versions in German and Hungarian basically mean the same thing (the German version translates as "New market on the Mureş"). Again it wouldn't be outlandish for English to translate the name, but as with "Dolný Kubín" above, English convention is to use the Romanian version. English: Tokyo Japanese: 東京 (Tōkyō) The name means "Eastern Capital" but we in English have adopted the Japanese term. In the past, Tokyo was called "Edo" meaning "estuary". I suspect that if the name "Edo" had been retained, we in English would still call it with the original name (i.e. "Edo") rather than translate it as "Estuary". Anyway "Tokyo" sounds more exciting or 'exotic' for a foreign capital than "Estuary" :-P 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5575 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 24 of 192 16 November 2009 at 6:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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We also don't refer to the capital of Argentina as "Good Airs", or to Brazil's second largest city as "River of January". ;)
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