VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
Editors: Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York
John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
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Let me add my two cents again (since I opened this can of worms) to note a city in Thailand that we farengi call "Bangkok"<br>is known there as Krung Thep (<span style="font-size: 16px;">”ĆŲ§ą·¾</span>). They don't insist that we call it that; Bangkok is the name of a grove of wild plums at a point in the river where Europeans found they could sail no further, so a port developed there; the original capital was on the other side of the Chao Phraya river, but then it was moved to Bangkok and renamed. But the renaming didn't catch on with us farengi.<br>
(see <a href="http://www.into-asia.com/bangkok/introduction/fullname.php">http://www.into-asia.com/bangkok/introduction/fullname.php</a>)<br><br>The Thais don't care that we call it Bangkok, and even use it in various semi-official ways, e.g. when you land in an airplane there,<br>
they announce it as 'Bangkok.' So it's often a matter of who cares about what--the Germans don't care (I guess) that we don't<br>call their country Deutschland, so they don't make a fuss about it.<br>
<br>Hal Schiffman<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 6:45 PM, Thrasher, Allen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:athr@loc.gov">athr@loc.gov</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
Editors: Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York
John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
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</div><div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US"><div><p class="MsoNormal">"<span style="color: black;"> But surely, it is for the people of a place to determine the name of their city and if they want to throw off the place names imposed on them by foreign invaders then who should deny it. It is a European custom that a city is given a different name by each foreign nation, vis London=Londres, Munchen=Munich ,Firenze=Florence, Venezia=Venice. It is certainly not a world-wide phenomenon. We are now in the post-clolonial period and perhaps it is time to stop such arrogance."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Actually, it is this attitude I personally find a bit arrogant. Are Anglophones really supposed to start talking not about Germany but about Deutschland, and if so, should we preserve the German spelling or rather make it phonetic in English, something like Doichlahnt? And should France be Frahns, or rather Lah Frahns? And the same question for speakers of other languages. Should the French stop talking of Angleterre and the Italians of the Tedeschi? I suspect that different names for the same place in different language is in fact NOT a world-wide phenomenon. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I presume the traditional Arabic names for various Indian ports are not an attempt at transliteration to Arabic of the current (21st c.) standard names in the local language whether Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, etc. What the local government wants to do is another thing, as is the policy of the U.S. Board of Geographic names or similar government bureaus elsewhere, but is there really a sort of universal moral obligation to follow it? And of course, the Chinese versions of foreign placenames are pretty unlikely to be anything immediately recognizable to a native of the place in question; many languages have a lot of consonant clusters Chinese and some other languages can't deal with.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Also, of course, what is meant by "the people of a place?" Speakers of the majority or official language of the state currently controlling it, whether or not they are regarded as legitimate or desirable by the locals? The local people? What if there are several ethnic groups locally who use different names for the place.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> </span></p><font color="#888888"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Allen Thrasher</span></p></font><div class="im"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Senior Reference Librarian and Team Coordinator</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">South Asia Team</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Asian Division</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Library of Congress</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Washington, DC 20540-4810</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">USA</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">tel. <a href="tel:202-707-3732" value="+12027073732" target="_blank">202-707-3732</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">fax <a href="tel:202-707-1724" value="+12027071724" target="_blank">202-707-1724</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p></div></div></div></blockquote></div>
<br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br>
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