Calcutta/Kolkatta

[Shilpi Misty Bhadra]

[ moderator snip ]

Dear Rohan,

That was an excellent commentary on Kolkata. I have seen it written both
Kolkatta and Kolkata (already), so that made it confusing. The fundamental
problem is transcription of the language to Roman letters/sounds. Of course
there are political issues. In Budapest, after the Hungarians got rid of
communism and Soviet influence, they renamed every street that had a
Russian name to a Hungarian one. I have been told by many a Hungarian that
the older generation spoke and knew Russian, but most refuse to speak
Russian now. They will speak in Hungarian or German. The Shik pronunciation
is news to me. But then again, I don't know that many Bengalis and more of
them say it than I know. No one (Brits, Bengalis, etc.)can pronounce every
phoneme or sound in the world perfectly, and I fully understand that. That
is why studying loanwords and how different cultures transliterate words is
interesting. I hope I didn't offend anyone. I myself cannot do the -dn-
cluster in Dnieper among many other sounds. I think that regardless of the
name change, most people will pronounce or mispronounce the names. I think
if people have been using a name for many years, most people will continue
using that name out of habit, and the real generation that it will affect
are those learning the language or word for the first time or early in
their life (i.e. children). I apologize for my lack of knowledge. You
handled the question much better. And you are right, it was better for the
Indo-Iranian or Indology list.

Shilpi Misty Bhadra
University of Texas at Austin
Ancient History, Classics, and Humanities (focus: Indo-European Studies)
senior undergraduate
evenstar at mail.utexas.edu
512-320-0229 (ph)
512-476-3367 (fax)