|
 |
Renaming the cities of other countries... | ||
Tags: Names | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5846 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 192 15 November 2009 at 3:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
Just for info and for fun:
Have you noticed how many languages tend to "rename" cities in other countries? The trouble with this is that it can be really confusing and have some silly results. Here are some of mine: --------------------EXAMPLES-------------------------------- ----- --Number 1: Discovering that "Munich" was not some little town in Germany that had escaped my attention... But in fact the multi-million city that I knew very well as "München"! --An Englishman who said that "Gothenburg" was his favourite name ever for a city.... Only the city is in fact called "Göteborg"! The name he liked was the English name.. --Köln and Cologne are the same place! That took me a LONG time to figure out. --Why does English add "-in" on "Kreml"?? --Copenhagen the city with a different name in practically every European language...! I guess it's a case of "a well-loved child has many names"! --Warsaw - ditto, and I suspect that only speakers of other Slavic languages pronounce it even remotely correctly. --Moscow - ditto (but what's the problem with saying "Moskva" closer to the original? ) --Cities that have changed names many times and are referred to differently in older material and by old people. Some in Northern Europe come to mind: Kaliningrad, Gdansk, Stettin... --Places that lots of people pass through, that have a name that only natives can pronounce: The Polish ferry port of Swinousjzce, aka Swinemünde! (Thanks DE!) --Finnish cities that have both a Finnish and a Swedish official name which are often COMPLETELY different. This can create confusion unless you know the name in both languages. I.e. Turku = Åbo etc. --Peking changed "name" in the West to "Beijing".... What was behind that? --Why did English drop the "o" in "Milano"? --Oslo, called by its' real name in all languages? ------------------------------------------------------------ Sorry I couldn't think of any really cracking examples and my list has a strongly Northern European bias.. I know there are many better ones across the world! What are some examples? Full marks for Russian, I think (do you agree?) for at least trying to "name" cities as closely as possible to their real name.. The differences seem to be down to misunderstandings or pronounciation difficulties. Which languages are the worst culprits of "renaming" cities, and which try to be as faithful as they can to the real names? Have you too been confused by this in the past? Is it right to "rename" cities to something different or is it more suitable to try to pronounce the name in the local way? Edited by cordelia0507 on 15 November 2009 at 3:27pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6776 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 192 15 November 2009 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
They're not "renamed". Those English names have long historical pedigrees that may be older than the modern
local name.
Misguided newspaper editors who thought one word was more correct than the other.
The o's and a's at the end of Italian place names are a function of the Italian language, and English doesn't need them. See also Turin, Venice, Rome, Naples, Sicily, Italy … you get the picture. Besides, English didn't drop the 'o' from Milano. The English 'Milan' comes from the earlier Latin name of the city, Mediolanum. Yes, the English name for Milan is older than the Italian name. Speaking of local names, the name of the city in the local Lombardic dialect is Milán. Does that mean everyone else in Italy is using the wrong word? Place names are words. They are a linguistic feature, and like all other words, they vary according to the etymology, phonology, morphology, and culture of the language being spoken.
No. I find place names fascinating.
Again, no renaming is taking place. Just languages doing their thing.
What is the correct "local way" in a place with two or three or fifteen languages, or in a place that has existed for millennia under the sway of dozens of cultures and conquerors? Edited by Captain Haddock on 15 November 2009 at 3:41pm 22 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Thatzright Diglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5680 days ago 202 posts - 311 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English Studies: French, Swedish, German, Russian | Message 3 of 192 15 November 2009 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
Haha, glad I'm not the only one who fell for the Munich one. It is München in Finnish too, I was so shocked when I originally found out it and Munich were one and the same.
I think the city names in Finnish seem to be derived from the old Swedish versions more often than not. Helsingfors = Helsinki, Tammerfors = Tampere, Dickursby = Tikkurila, Lahtis = Lahti etc. Some glaring exceptions do exist though. The town of Högfors was renamed Karkkila. 'Karkki' means candy, the la-ending doesn't really mean anything but it could basically be equivalent to -ville, -town etc. In a weird way, Karkkila could be interpreted as 'Candyland'. I think "renaming" cities is quite justified, some quite useless renamings do exist though - in almost every language I've come across. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6791 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 192 15 November 2009 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
The Italians call Munich "Monaco" for some reason. As opposed to, you know, the Monaco right across the border. Thanks for not confusing :/
And yes, the renaming (I stand by that word) does annoy me. The German names for Polish cities for obvious reasons just looks like a classic swipe at imperialism. They also sound horrible. In Polish for instance, Istanbul is called "Stambuł" for no apparent reason. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7384 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 192 15 November 2009 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
This is a cultural fact and not some conspiracy to disparage other countries by renaming them. We have this in Switzerland, Kerzers is Chiètre, Chur is Coire. Or within the same canton, Sion is Sitten and Siders is Sierre. Gives you a different perspective.
8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5504 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 6 of 192 15 November 2009 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
I think it is inevitable. It is sometimes quite difficult to use the foreign name without any changes - the script, the pronounciation, it may be hard to inflect it correctly... so the most popular places are translated. In Czech language, we call some famous cities Londýn, Paříž, Řím, Vídeň, Moskva, Ženeva ... you can probably guess what places I am talking about.
But some cities are bilingual, which name is correct then? It is the case of many cities in Czech Republic and Germany. Should all the Czech citie which used to be mostly German still use German names? Or what name is correct? Dresden (German) or Drážďany (Czech?). It is a Sorbian city and its original name is Drježdźany... Some cities just have multiple names and all are equally correct. 5 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 7 of 192 15 November 2009 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Wow! I had no idea... So how do they avoid confusion with the "real" Monaco?
Haha yes, one of the many charming things about Switzerland. It makes travelling by train there more interesting, for sure. I once needed to get off the train at Sierre (for Crans Montana) and almost missed it because it because I had got mixed up about the names.
If I was catching a train from Prague / Praha / Prag ..... then I wouldn't necessarily be able to work out that "Drážďany" was Dresden... So some double-signing would definitely help... Edited by cordelia0507 on 15 November 2009 at 4:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5917 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 192 15 November 2009 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
|
Italian has some phonetic ones too, like Stoccolma. Makes sense. (And isn't that just... pretty? Seriously?) Others retain most of their spelling but are pronounced differently, like Barcellona.
It makes sense to adapt things slightly if the original is difficult to pronounce - I've seen some truly impossible place names especially in Eastern Europe (notably Poland) so I think that in some ways it's just easier to have an official translation that is close enough and understandable, rather than make a huge deal out of it whenever you need to name a city. But I don't understand why city names are translated when they're perfectly straightforward to pronounce, like Milano, Roma, Torino... Yes I read the comment above about the original name having features of Italian that don't exist in English, but I don't think that's enough to justify changing it. Sometimes it becomes a political issue, some people in Spain will consistently use Lérida (Castilian) instead of Lleida (Catalan) which might tell you something about their political standpoint. I imagine there have been more heated discussions about this than what I got to hear, but it is an issue. I've known several people who would correct you if you say Lérida, even if you're a tourist with a Castilian-based map... 3 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
