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Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 1.Â
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
I was chatting with someone about how somebody must have decided in the past that place names would be changed for the benefit of the English speaking world.
We have obvious small examples - Milano to Milan, Roma to Rome, or Den Haag to the Hague. I guess they make some sense.
Then there are bigger changes, like Bruxelles to Brussels.
Perhaps buoyed up with confidence from this, someone really started some serious changes on places in central Europe especially. Munchen to Munich, Nurnberg to Nuremburg, Wien to Vienna, and then astonishingly - Koln to Cologne. How on earth did anyone think this was the right thing to do? Another classic example from Italy is changing Firenze to Florence. What was going on here?
French names seem to have escaped largely unscathed though - Marseilles, Perpignon, Avignon and Lyons seem to be obvious examples to change completely, yet they haven't been.
Does anyone know why, who, or what was going on here?
It seems strange to me that someone - or some people - must have sat down and decided to do this, and yet these days we have to say Mumbai when everyone in Bombay is still saying Bombay.
Does anyone know why this happened?Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 2
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
Not all French town names are unaffected. Try Dunkirk for Dunquerque as an example.
In some cases, such as Cologne, the English version is closer to the original -
Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium - than the modern German (and I've seen a cap tally from about 100 years ago still using the spelling "Coeln")Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 3
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
I was chatting with someone about how somebody must have decided in the past that place names would be changed for the benefit of the English speaking world.Â
Easier to pronounce? Names mis-heard? Some names seem to have arrived via a "Chinese Whispers" route.
Personally I blame the French who also use Vienne, Rome, Munich, Milan, Florence, and Cologne.
French names seem to have escaped largely unscathed though - Marseilles, Perpignon, Avignon and Lyons seem to be obvious examples to change completely, yet they haven't been.Â
Aha! Further evidence that it was the French who started this renaming lark!
Bombay, according to wikipedia, is a Portuguese name, which became ingrained with its inhabitantsLink to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 4
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 29th March 2011
Well, the French pronunciation has certainly changed - the current English version of "Paris" is a lot closer than the modern French to what it was in Norman times.
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Message 5
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
It wouldn't have been a 'decision' at all - language doesn't generally work like that. People change words closer to their own speech where-ever they are, generally. European names in NZ changed to the Maori versions of them in the early days (and remain part of Maori nomenclature now). William is Wiremu, John is Hone, Victoria is Wikitoria (and is called thus on the Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi). The Maori language however was very lucky that someone put it into dictionary form and standardized spelling and vowel forms, so though in early writing there are odd bastardisations of their names, that did not linger in writing (though it has in speech and there has been a push in the last 30 years to get everyone to pronounce it properly.)
I don't know when these names were first anglicized, but before written words were read by everyone and spelling dictated pronunciation a bit (though only a bit), surely. I note we now call the king Cnut but for many years he was Canute, and that seems to me to denote that English people find that sound (as they do Cologne - why the 'g' in Cologne though?) easier than the combined cn/ln sounds).
At any rate I don't think it's some sort of empire-building or English-taking-over-the-world trick imposed from high.
We need Stoggler here.
Cheers, Caro.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 6
Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
So what’s the story with Vlissingen in Holland and Flushing… same place?
Also, but not sure if this is the place to bring this up, watched a question on QI last night… where is Groningen…?
Answer... the Netherlands… Holland being different to the Netherlands… ?
Is this another one of those pedantic demographic arguments…Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 7
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
The Netherlands is the name of the country; Holland is a province of the country, well two, becuase there is North and South Holland. Flushing is the English name for Vlissingen. Not pedantic, just wrong usage of a country's name.
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Message 8
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
SilverJenny is quite correct bandick.
The name of the country is the Netherlands and Holland is only a region in the western part of the Netherlands and not the name of the overall country. Never let the Dutch hear you call their country Holland, they don't like it at all. Quite understandably.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 9
Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
Well I never… the number of Dutch coasters I’ve sailed on, Dutch shipping companies I’ve worked for and the number of times I’ve sailed into Dutch ports I never knew that… for a good part of the 70s I must have spent 50% of my time there, along with my wife and children before they went to school.
Vlissingen was one of my home ports. Utrecht was another and so was Groningen. One company I worked for had offices in Sleidrecht where most of our repairs were usually carried out.
We even took an apartment above the offices there for a time as otherwise I would have taken more leave to see my wife and children.
Can’t believe in all that time I never knew…Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 10
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
Isn't that the beauty of these boards bandick? We are all learning something new, all the time.
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Message 11
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
I was chatting with someone about how somebody must have decided in the past that place names would be changed for the benefit of the English speaking world.Â
I think it is only in the English speaking world that the names are used, the locals would still use the traditional names for their places.
I use Greece as an example, where most place names have an English version and absolutely none of the English versions are used by Greeks themselves, unless they are speaking to foreigners.
Athina-Athens, Sparti-Sparta, Thera-Santorini, Thessaloniki-Thessalonica, Konstantinopoli-Constantinople, Mytilene-Lesbos, Kerkyra-Corfu, Criti-Crete, just to name a few.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 12
Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
Isn't that the beauty of these boards bandick? We are all learning something new, all the time.Â
I totally agree with you ID… I certainly own up to being almost addicted to the diverse knowledge available hereabouts… its also interesting to see the different styles people adopt to get their point across, or explain some of the complexities of the topic…
I wish this as an educational aid was available in my youth, instead of having to sit through a three quarter hour lesson of drudge… on the other hand if the same drudge were to be given by another teacher… it could turn the lesson into something to be remembered forever and give some meaning to your school days being the happiest.
There are teachers… and there are teachers. There are people that are not teachers that you can learn a lot more from that some teachers. It’s not always a case of how much you know… it’s very important to have the knack of getting that knowledge across.
Some posters on here… have ‘the Attenborough effect’… and I can sit and listen to him until the cows come home.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 13
Posted by PaulaG (U3004479) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
Names of English towns can change too, depending on who is top dog at the time... had a brilliant time tracking down the town of Granborough in Buckinghamshire, when I was on a certain branch of the family tree...
It started in Saxon times as Greneburga, mutated to Greneburne, on to Greneborewe, then Grandborough, finally loosing the d in the middle.
last time I looked it was Granborough... but I don't know how long for....Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 14
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
Personally I blame the French who also use Vienne, Rome, Munich, Milan, Florence, and Cologne.Â
With all due respect to the German and Italian languages I think that the anglo-francophonic names Cologne, Vienna, Venice and Florence are much more attractive that the native Wien, Venezia and Firenze.
Besides - the phenomenon works both ways. The names Londres and Londra are arguably lighter and prettier than the heavier-sounding London.
Also - some people see having a different name in a foreign language for your country or city as being not so much a matter for offence but rather a badge of honour. For example Cornish nationalists are quick to point out the French name Cornouailles and the Italian name Cornovaglia as proof that Cornwall is not just another county of England but was/is recognised overseas as being a distinct nation in its own right.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 15
Posted by WarsawPact (U1831709) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
Interesting that the French retained our original tribal name (Anglais/Angleterre) whereas we allowed it to change to English/England.
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Message 16
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 30th March 2011
Returning to the OP, of course many of the inhabitants of Brussels refer to it as Brussel
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Message 17
Posted by hoddles off into the sunset (U14129169) on Thursday, 31st March 2011
With all due respect to the German and Italian languages I think that the anglo-francophonic names Cologne, Vienna, Venice and Florence are much more attractive that the native Wien, Venezia and Firenze.Â
Do you think the same of Leghorn/Livorno?Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 18
Posted by Thomas_II (U14690627) on Thursday, 31st March 2011
Hello Vizzer,
For example Cornish nationalists are quick to point out the French name Cornouailles and the Italian name Cornovaglia as proof that Cornwall is not just another county of England but was/is recognised overseas as being a distinct nation in its own right.Â
So what is England then if every region claims to be "a distinct nation in its own right"?Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 19
Posted by Nielsen3 (U14417619) on Friday, 1st April 2011
And to add further distortion - one of the main aims in my present lifestyle - the habit of French and English speaking peoples of freely changing the Germanic postfixes of 'berg and 'burg as these names are pronounced the same, but with the first meaning mountain or hill, and the second being castle or perhaps borough.
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Message 20
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 9th April 2011
Good point Nielsen although the French and the English might be forgiven for this confusion when the Germans themselves spell the name of one of their most famous cities Nurnberg / Nuremberg with and 'e'.
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Message 21
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Saturday, 9th April 2011
It's not uncommon to see umlauts replaced with following "e"s
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Message 22
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Sunday, 10th April 2011
Maybe so - but the umlaut in Nürnberg is on the first syllable.
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Message 23
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Sunday, 10th April 2011
The case of Dunkirk illustrates how it can be more complicated than that: Both the British Dunkirk and the French Dunquerque are variations on the original Flemish name, Duinkerke -- meaning church in the dunes. There are more places in the region that have dual names, reflecting their history and the expansion of the "langue d'oui" to fill the borders of France. (Some are much more confusing, such as Rijsel for the French town of Lille.) Old forms of placenames often persist in foreign languages, while the locals modify the name over time.
Also, we in our time trend to be a bit obsessive about spelling, regarding it as a sign of good education. If you go back a few hundred years people cared less, maybe because the fact that you could write was in itself sufficient sign of a good education. Placenames and even names of people were often spelled phonetically, according to whatever approach people felt to be "right" for their own language... Some people were inconsistent in the spelling of their own names. French versions were widespread because that was the shared language of diplomacy, trade and the upper class.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 24
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Sunday, 10th April 2011
Never let the Dutch hear you call their country Holland, they don't like it at all. Quite understandably.Â
It depends on where you are... It might certainly be a problem in Groningen, which is north and well east of Holland.
Historically, Holland was often the dominant province of the "United Provinces", because it was the center of commerce and shipping, with most of the population and most of the money. This made it natural to refer to the entire country as "Holland", just as people often say "England" when they mean Britain
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Message 25
Posted by Patrick Wallace (U196685) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
I agree with Caro. No-one "decided" they would call a place by a different name from the natives as an act of nationalistic arrogance, simply that people tend to pronounce foreign words more like something in their own language.
The interesting question is, why some foreign placenames are translated in this way, and others aren't. My suspicion is that this is a reflection of the point in time at which they became known to foreigners. Those with the longest-established links and connections are probably more likely to be translated in this way (just as Londres/Londra and Edimbourg/Edimburgo appear in other European languages but not some local version of Piddletrenthide), either as an Anglicisation or (also likely) a Latinisation (e.g., Munich, I would guess, came to us via the Latin which makes it Monaco in modern Italian).
Those with more recent or infrequent connections tend to have their native name used, simply because either the place wasn't known at all, or the translated version never became established in the days when few people would have known the native name for the place concerned (and nationalism as we know it today, and the notion of showing cultural respect by following native usage, did not exist).
An interesting case would be Leghorn/Livorno: presumably it was well known as Leghorn to a select class of British travellers, but not enough for it to become as widely known and used as places such as Brussels, so Livorno came to be accepted instead.
Now then, who knows the easiest ways to get from Liège to Lüttich via Luik? Or from Pressburg to Bratislava via Poszony?Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 26
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
And why does Liege have a grave accent now, when in the 19th C it used to have an acute accent?
And why do Americans pronounce their name for Moskva as "moss cow" - are they following the Germans with "Moskau"? In the UK it's Moscow pronounced Moss-co. From the French "Moscou" maybe.
Wonder when and why the Americans changed their pronunciation from ours. If they actually did. Or did we too call it Moss-cow long ago?Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 27
Posted by hoddles off into the sunset (U14129169) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
And why do Americans pronounce their name for Moskva as "moss cow" - are they following the Germans with "Moskau"? In the UK it's Moscow pronounced Moss-co. From the French "Moscou" maybe. Â
Moscow is Ayrshire (on the Volga Burn) is pronounced "moss cow". I believe this was the 19th century pronunciation of the Russian city's name in the UK.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 28
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
When a person who cannot read (eg a sailor in years gone by) hears a placename spoken by a foreign-language speaker, they will simply try to reproduce as nearly as they can what the other person has said so usage is what influences the pronunciation. Add to that the fact that there are some sounds in languages that a person from another country would be unable to pronounce (eg Japanese and the letter 'L') It's therefore natural that that person would mangle the foreign word into something they could manage.
For example, there was a ship in the Royal Navy in Nelson's day called the 'Bellerophon', (a hero of Greek mythology). Not having been educated in the Classics, the name meant nothing to the sailors, so the name was transformed by them into "Billy Ruffian"Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 29
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
Sailors do this with ship names on a regular basis. The French cruiser Georges Leygues was rechristened "George's Legs", and Weston-super-Mare became "Aggie on horseback"
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Message 30
Posted by hoddles off into the sunset (U14129169) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
When a person who cannot read (eg a sailor in years gone by) hears a placename spoken by a foreign-language speaker, they will simply try to reproduce as nearly as they can what the other person has said so usage is what influences the pronunciation. Add to that the fact that there are some sounds in languages that a person from another country would be unable to pronounce (eg Japanese and the letter 'L') It's therefore natural that that person would mangle the foreign word into something they could manage.
For example, there was a ship in the Royal Navy in Nelson's day called the 'Bellerophon', (a hero of Greek mythology). Not having been educated in the Classics, the name meant nothing to the sailors, so the name was transformed by them into "Billy Ruffian"Â
And Tommy referred to Wipers, Plug Street and Armatiers.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 31
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
Also, when someone only knows a foreign word from seeing it written down, they tend to pronounce it according to how it would be done so in their language. Although I was familiar with the name 'Goethe' in print, not having done German at school, I assumed it was pronounced as it looks. How embarrassed was I to discover how wrong I was?
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Message 32
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
And why do Americans pronounce their name for Moskva as "moss cow" - are they following the Germans with "Moskau"? In the UK it's Moscow pronounced Moss-co. From the French "Moscou" maybe.Â
Moscow is Ayrshire (on the Volga Burn) is pronounced "moss cow". I believe this was the 19th century pronunciation of the Russian city's name in the UK.Â
So Moscow in Ayrshire doesn't rhyme with Glasgow in Strathclyde.
That said - I've heard some Americans pronounce Glasgow as Glasgao ... to rhyme with Moscao.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 33
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
To go back to the OP and the tendency for place names around the world to be anglicized- bandicks post on "the Netherlands" surely goes to the heart of the question. As global trade developed during the nineteenth century something like 75% of it was carried in "british bottoms"- while the pound sterling acted as a global currency and Lloyds of London was the centre of not only the world's best insurance for such risky business- but was also the hub of the maritime intelllgence.. When you add to that coastal impact the railway building of Thomas Brassey and others who put towns and cities away from the coast "on the map", it is easy to understand how places that wished to "go global" (or were forced to- like China's "Heavenly City") ended up being known most colloquially by a name suited to the "new world".
Many years ago the grown up daughter of a colleague of Greek (Cypriot) extraction asked her Dad at a dinner we were sharing just why he allowed himself to be addressed "incorrectly". She had tried to phone him, and found the person on the school switchboard correcting her about the pronunciation of their family name- which did involve one or two phonetics that were not common in Lambeth.
Nevertheless- to take up a point that Temperance (I think has made) the kind of English that was developing during the British industrial revolution was part of the new "technology" of the age.. It was the language of the emerging economic and intellectual middle class, and just like the technology of industrialization it imposed itself upon the age.. It was not the language of the effete aristocratic and courtly classes, that were obliged to send their sons to Public schools in order to have lessons in a new subject- English language- and correct English.
Of course the French had already had a top-down language foisted upon them by the ancien regime. But that is another story.
CassLink to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 34
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Tuesday, 12th April 2011
Reminds me of the following, from Ambrose Bierce's Devils Dictionary.
DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed. ÂLink to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 35
Posted by arty macclench (U14332487) on Wednesday, 13th April 2011
"the kind of English that was developing during the British industrial revolution... was the language of the emerging economic and intellectual middle class, and just like the technology of industrialization it imposed itself upon the age..
"the language of the effete aristocratic and courtly classes, that were obliged to send their sons to Public schools in order to have lessons in a new subject- English language-"
Eh? But then why let facts get in the way of some good generalisations. If those aristocratic and courtly classes {eh?} were so effete (and courtly) how did they need to send their sons to boarding school to be taught to English?
"Now then, who knows the easiest ways to get from Liège to Lüttich via Luik? Or from Pressburg to Bratislava via Poszony?"
I do !Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 36
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 13th April 2011
arty macclench
There are plenty of studies to explain just how and why the English monarchy and aristocracy- unlike the French and those of most of "ancien regime" Europe- became dependent upon the English Society from which their power was derived. My personal recommendation would be Harold Perkins "Origins of English Society".
From a purely linguistic point of view this was surely a tendency that was already reflected in the late Middle Ages when English- the language of the common people- increasingly replaced both French and then Latin as the language that dealt with "real life" both in current affairs and in popular fiction.
During the eighteenth century this ability of the English people of all classes to enter into public discourse and seize the opportunities of the age created an economic dynamism to which all classes of English society contributed- creating the world's first "economic take-off"- and the English aristocracy and even the royal court famously learned to adapt to the "lessons of the age". Unlike the French elite they understood that the modern world believed in power and wealth not mere ostentation, bravado and show. Places like India and China could "beat Europe hollow" in those age-old human obsessions. The future- it seemed- lay with material and intellectual wealth.
These points are I believe very relevant to the crisis of the World of 2011- because- for reasons that I am just about to describe on the disasters thread- that kind of upward thrust was lost, and with it, it seems, the capacity of Western Europeans to take charge of their own destinies having created our own "democratic" version of a civilization obsessed with mere ostentation, bravado and show.
CassLink to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 37
Posted by Mr_Edwards (U3815709) on Wednesday, 13th April 2011
SilverJenny is quite correct bandick.
The name of the country is the Netherlands and Holland is only a region in the western part of the Netherlands and not the name of the overall country. Never let the Dutch hear you call their country Holland, they don't like it at all. Quite understandably. Â ...and yet, the official English-Language website of the Dutch tourist board uses "Holland" as a synonym for "the Netherlands".
On the other hand the Dutch Foreign Ministry has received complaints, seemingly from the entire populations of Gelderland, Overijssel, Zeeland, Friesland etc., and has stopped using the two words interchangeably.
It's a bit like referring to the UK as "England".Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 38
Posted by hoddles off into the sunset (U14129169) on Wednesday, 13th April 2011
So Moscow in Ayrshire doesn't rhyme with Glasgow in Strathclyde.
That said - I've heard some Americans pronounce Glasgow as Glasgao ... to rhyme with Moscao.Â
Additionally, the stress is on the final syllable in the Ayrshire Moscow - Moss-COW.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 39
Posted by arty macclench (U14332487) on Wednesday, 13th April 2011
Dear Cass,
Sometimes, I really have no idea what you are talking about.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 40
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 13th April 2011
arty
To change tack I would point you to the heading of this thread..
People only change things "for the delectation of an English audience" because it pays them to do so in this era in which Imperialism has been replaced by tourism. All over the world people are desperate for tourist spending and English speaking tourists have been some of the most important for local dreams of future prosperity- not least in those would be Holiday Â鶹ԼÅÄ countries of the recent building boom and crash like Rumania, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland.
CassLink to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 41
Posted by arty macclench (U14332487) on Wednesday, 13th April 2011
Well, to repay the compliment ,I would direct you to the text of the OP:
"somebody must have decided in the past that place names would be changed for the benefit of the English speaking world".
'In the past'
However, I don't imagine, the recent rejigging of Mumbai, Beijing, Ka-bul, et cetera, was done in pursuit of the Anglophone dollar and I'm not aware, for instance, of any Spanish place names being changed for convenience of the Guiri, notwithstanding the ever spreading twang and boom of Saxon vowels all along the coast and inland.
At heart, you're a jazz man, arent you? You just make it up from one note to the next.
C'est groovee mais ce n'est pas l'histoire!Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 42
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 13th April 2011
It certainement is l'histoire, just not la verite (like Churchill and The Grocer, my French is committed in a strictly English accent, hence the dearth of accents).
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Message 43
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 14th April 2011
arty macclench
"In the past"-- but meaningful History draws out the continuity between Past, Present and Future- and my knowledge of the Past seemed by your own assertion to involve aspects of our Past that you could not recognize.
As for Mumbai, Beijing and Kabul they belong very obviously to countries whose economies can not benefit very much from Western tourism for various reasons, most obviously in the case of India and China because they are so huge and were not so many centuries ago the wealthiest and most developed economies in the world with appropriately varied and specialised societies equipped for world leadership. British involvement in these countries recognised this and overall sought to bring them "back to life", as opposed to regions of the world where historians and anthropologists found living models of what they considered to be remnants of age-old and prehistoric ways of life.
By the end of the Nineteenth Century the Indian National Congress- the annual meeting of the students and ex-students of the Universities that Britain had created in India- was calling for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Rule and pointing to the racist or otherwise discriminatory attitudes that with-held from Indians the right to Dominion status already accorded to "The White Dominions"- Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and soon South Africa. Major British politicians like Gladstone had even taken up the cause of Irish Â鶹ԼÅÄ Rule, when Irish history stood very little comparison with Indian history.
In the case of Beijing I understand that this was always the Chinese pronunciation and it may well be that "Peking" came into European culture through the tales of Marco Polo as he entertained his fellow prisoners in Genoa with his memories of his greatest life adventure in the land of Cathay and Jipango.
Bombay- as has already been mentioned on this thread- was so-called by the Portuguese who found this very suitable and round/curved bay very favourable for anchorage (from the Portuguese version of what that other "romance" language French still has as "bombe"). And the change to Mumbhai seems to have been a "consolation prize" thrown in the direction of the Hindu Nationalist Party that became quite powerful a few decades ago when several decades of independence under the British educated Indian elite of the Congress Party had failed to produce the vibrant, energised and successful India that had been hoped for.
Jawarharla Nehru after all had been educated at Harrow and Cambridge, and his daughter who married into the Gandhi family followed in the same tradition for herself- and her children and grandchildren. So like other Oxbridge dreamers Nehru believed in State control of the economy, nationalisation etc rather on the model of the post-war British Labour revolution with State Planning etc.. As in Britain this really just meant managed and rational decline.
Whereas in the UK Mrs Thatcher went back to Victorian Liberalism, Hindu nationalists went back to the very ant-British ideas associated for example with Tilak, who insisted that Indians should have nothing at all to do with the British or things associated with them- even the doctors and nurses who tried to cope with the Bombay plague c1905 that killed something like five million people.
The modern Hindu Nationalist Party revived this kind of approach and suggested that English, which T.B. Macaulay had decided was the best language to be used in order to open access to the thinking of the last few centuries that had brought World leadership to Europe, should be replaced by Hindi. But this, of course would give Hindi speakers an advantage over those Indians who spoke any of the several hundred other languages used within India; and would create the situation that Chief Luthuli complained about in South Africa, when the law insisted that the bantu should be educated in bantu. As Luthuli pointed out- having been a mission educated bantu, who went on to become a college lecturer- a command of English gave the bantu access to the whole world.
I have heard little of the idea of imposing Hindi upon the whole of India recently, not least because having possibly the largest single population of English-speaking graduates in the world has proved invaluable to the Indian economic boom that started up as soon as the dead hand of State control allowed Indian entrepreneurial skill and enterprise to take advantage of the new global economy.
But just as New Labour could join in on this trend for re-branding it seemed appropriate to appease the Hindu Nationalists by re-naming Bombay- as Mumbai.
CassLink to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 44
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Thursday, 14th April 2011
n the case of Beijing I understand that this was always the Chinese pronunciation and it may well be that "Peking" came into European culture through the tales of Marco Polo as he entertained his fellow prisoners in Genoa with his memories of his greatest life adventure in the land of Cathay and Jipango. Â
Apart form a few failed Chinese rebranding exercises, Beijing was the name of Beijing since its founding. However, thanks to the fact that Chinese dialects* vary hugely the indigenous pronunciation in the eastern ports was "Peking". Early western visitors copied the locals and pronounced it Peking too.
*Chinese is an interesting language, being a single written language, but the verbal version differs so much that it is considered in the west to be multiple languages (Mandarin, Cantonese etc). The modern Chinese government chooses to focus on the unifying written version and sees the verbal versions as merely regional dialects.Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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Message 45
Posted by arty macclench (U14332487) on Thursday, 14th April 2011
You are a poet, sir. I bow to your muse.
Link to this forum: Changing place names for the delectation of an English speaking audience
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