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Renaming the cities of other countries... | ||
Tags: Names | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5773 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 25 of 192 16 November 2009 at 7:24am | IP Logged | |||||
Though there are subdialectical differences. The Xiamen residents of that day pronounced the name of the city as [ɛmuĩ] in the way of the neighbouring Zhangzhou city. Now it's pronounced like the Quanzhou dialect - [ɛmŋ]. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5932 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 26 of 192 16 November 2009 at 8:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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I thought of two more "renamings" though one is a direct tranlsation into English
Nederlands name: Groningen - English name: Grunnen. This one confused me, I don't find the Dutch version difficult to spell or pronounce. Afrikaans: Kaapstad - English: Cape Town. This is obviously a translation, but again Kaapstad is easy to pronounce. I don't really have a problem with renaming towns and cities if the original name is unpronounceable, but if the original name is pronounceable then don't change it. Edited by mick33 on 16 November 2009 at 8:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pookiebear79 Groupie United States Joined 6038 days ago 76 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Swedish, Italian | Message 27 of 192 16 November 2009 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
There's actually a different name for Groningen in English? That's sort of strange to me, actually. I mean it just looks weird and "off", (it looks more like it would be a German word or something) because I've never heard of it as anything but Groningen. Another one that always seems weird to me is when Krakow is spelled Cracow, because I had always encountered it as Krakow in English. But lately I'm reading a book (written in 2000, so it doesn't seem to be a matter of being an old fashioned spelling,) which uses Cracow. It makes no sense to me why the spelling would be changed to a C in when it's pronounced the same in English (though of course not the way it's pronounced in Polish,) whether they use a C or a K, but a K is more true to the Polish name. Not a city, but I also wonder why Romania/Romanian is often (especially in older books and maps, it seems,) written in English as "Rumania/Rumanian." It always looks strange too, (but not as much as "Cracow.") I'm curious how it works in other languages for major (i.e. large enough that they would generally have a different name in other languages) US cities which have names that are not of English origin to begin with? I mean, is a city like Los Angeles still called that in other languages? (Obviously I am not including Spanish in that question, since that's the language it came from.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Vinbelgium Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Belgium Joined 5832 days ago 61 posts - 73 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, English, French Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 28 of 192 16 November 2009 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The French equivalents of Flemish cities are strange too (sometimes).
Anvers - Antwerpen Malines - Mechelen Tirlemont - Tienen Courtrai - Kortrijk Bruxelles - Brussel etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| starst Triglot Senior Member China Joined 5522 days ago 113 posts - 133 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, Japanese, EnglishC2 Studies: FrenchC1, German, Norwegian | Message 29 of 192 16 November 2009 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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How about Aachen and Aix-la-Chapelle?
I was completely confused when I first heard it in the train from Aachen to Liège (Luik in Flemish). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5846 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 30 of 192 16 November 2009 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow, I have been to Gröningen and had not realised it had an English name (despite the fact that I live in England). Good thing "Grunnen" wasn't used or I wouldn't have understood it was the same town...
Some people seem to have got the impression that I have a problem with this. I don't, at all... Just consider it interesting, and have some personal experience of being confused by it. And like I said, there are many places, Polish cities in particular, that I have no idea how to pronounce and use the German name despite knowing that this might be controversial. As Starst said: Train journey are among those times when you can really get tripped up by this unless you know all the locally used names.... On the motorways in my experience, both options tend to be used. Also English is not better or worse than any other language in this respect. Agree with Liz that the Southern European versions of "Stockholm" (my city) makes it sound charming and interesting.... Edited by cordelia0507 on 16 November 2009 at 2:04pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5846 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 31 of 192 16 November 2009 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Have you noticed how the British pronounciation of "Los Angeles" is always "Los Angeleeees" on the (UK) news? That's puzzling, and I don't know why Brits don't pronounce it the same way as Americans do. Does anyone know? Edited by cordelia0507 on 16 November 2009 at 2:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6159 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 32 of 192 16 November 2009 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I haven't seen it mentioned in this thread but Vienna is Bécs in Hungarian.
In Ireland we've confused matters with our capital city, Dublin. Dublin originates from the Irish Dubh Linn meaning black pool. However, the official translation for the city's name is Baile Átha Cliath (The Fort of the Hurdles). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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