basque/Basque/bask

FRITZ JUENGLING juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US
Wed Apr 17 22:19:51 UTC 2002


#        Basque with back vowel sounds somewhat affected/
#hypercorrect to me, an attempt at hispanization to be more correct,
#when the truly politically correct term would be Euskera.

But incomprehensible to most people. Shall we also speak, in English, of
Nihongo, Magya'r, Franc,ais, and Espan~ol?

Add 'Deutsch' and 'Nederlands' to the list.  Of course, the cognates of 'Dutch' in both Dutch and German mean 'German', not 'Dutch'.
I have been interested in the phenomenon of names of peoples in other languages being significantly different from what they call themselves.  Some words are easily explained, such as 'Dutch,' but how about 'German'?  Why didn't English stick with 'Dutch'?  Also, why 'Finnish'?
Also, would it be more sensitive in today's climate to switch to the native term?  After all, shouldn't we call people what they want to be called (just as someone on the list recently wrote that we should say Ms. if a lady wants that).  For example, when I was a kid, we spoke about the 'Sioux' and 'Eskimo'.  I rarely hear Sioux anymore, hearing now Lakota or Dakota and Inuit (although my Eskimo acquaintance prefers Eskimo, not Inuit.  So, if for some, why not for all?
Fritz



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