What about Kazakhstan vs Kazakstan?

[William Ryan]

A fair question. I suppose I must respond in view of the previous
correspondence. It is not an area in which I have any expertise but I
think several general points can be made.

1. There is the fact that there has never been an 'English' version of
this name, nor, as far as I can see, has any mistaken notion of national
pride been invoked in making the change.

2. The -stan bit simply indicates a region, not necessarily a sovereign
state, and is found in several state and regional names (Fitroy Maclean
in Eastern Approaches found himself in the region and when he told a
local that he was from even further west than Moscow, the local said:
'Ah, Frengistan').

3. The problem is not one of English usage but an international one of
transliteration, or more specifically Latinization. I am not suffiently
familiar with Turkic linguistics to opine the quality of the 'K', nor do
I know if there is a single predominating Latinization system, although
I suspect that as with Arabic, there is not. The Asian republics have a
complicated history involving at various times Arabic, Latin and
Cyrillic scripts. How is the name dealt with in Turkish? An important
consideration which will eventually push us all into some kind of
conformity is the increasing reliance around the world of libraries and
IT on Library of Congress practice in these matters - we may not like it
but in globalized communications any convention is better than no
convention. Microsoft is not the only American cross which 'lesser
breeds without the law' have to bear!

4. The state of Kazak(h)stan, which as far as I know is still using
Cyrillic, obviously has a right to express its preference in the matter
of transliteration, and I would hope has obtained good linguistic advice
and not simply asked for a change just to irritate its Russian and
Ukrainian minorities. How does it spell its name in Russian? How do
Ukrainians spell it? As I mentioned in another message, the problem for
Russians (and presumably for Ukrainians, though I don't have my
Ukrainian dictionary to hand), is that they have to differentiate
between Kazakhi and Kazaki, although at one time the two were both
spelled 'kazaki' and may indeed have the same origin.


But my answer to this Solomonic question would have to be a little
cynical: if I were working for a Western firm or an international agency
in the country I would certainly follow the line requested. If I were
making an editorial decision from the safe distance of London, I think I
would look for guidance to an accepted agency such as the International
Place Name Commission (which may of course have taken the same line).
Local politics are so changeable - ars longa vita brevis (where ars =
books and vita = politics)



5. In the days of the Soviet Union the placename convention for
international purposes was to transliterate Soviet place names from the
official Russian transliteration of non-Latin script because Russian was
the official state language (which caused much offence in some
'republics' but was at least an easy convention for foreigners to
observe). With the ending of the USSR this convention presumably ceases,
although I haven't kept up with current International Placename
Commission decisions.

pyz at PANIX.COM wrote:
>
> > One good reason for keeping the Russian spellings distinct is to to distinguish
> > the word kazakh from kazak 'Cossack'. But this would not apply in English.
>
> Just curious, Will, which one would you choose to use - Kazakstan or Kazakhstan?
>
> > Will Ryan
>
> Max Pyziur                                     BRAMA - Gateway Ukraine
> pyz at brama.com                                  http://www.brama.com/
>
> > "Jolanta M. Davis" wrote:
> >
> > > Further on the topic of changes in spelling the names of countries -- can
> > > anyone explain why the Kazaks seem to prefer that the name of their country
> > > be spelled "Kazakstan" instead of "Kazakhstan"? (I was working previously
> > > for an international aid organization and the organization's regional staff
> > > placed in Kazakstan was asked to tell the publications office to remove "h"
> > > from the country's name in all reports discussing the projects in that
> > > country). But I still don't know why.
> > >
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> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > W. F. Ryan, MA DPhil FBA FSA
> > Warburg Institute (School of Advanced Study, University of London)
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--
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W. F. Ryan, MA, DPhil, FBA, FSA
Warburg Institute (School of Advanced Study, University of London)
Woburn Square, LONDON  WC1H 0AB
tel: 020 7862 8940 (direct)
tel: 020 7862 8949 (switchboard)
fax: 020 7862 8939
Institute Webpage  fttp://www.sas.ac.uk/warburg/
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