To think that having a British translation of a foreign country or city name is nonsence?

[SlightlyJaded]

The 'Pav-a-lova' thread got me twitching about this again. It really annoys me because I don't understand why we do it, but am happy to be put right by a know all wiser person than me.

So why do we feel the need to have a British translation for the name of a foreign country or city? What's would have been wrong with calling Spain Espana or Munich Munchen? To me its an utter nonsense, you are not translating from an existing known word in one language to an existing known word in another language - someone has gone to the trouble of making up a completely new and meaningless word loosely based on a word that cannot be translated as it is a naming noun.

Equally mad in reverse - other countries inventing 'names' for the United Kingdom.

ZZZenAgain

Precisely! Lakelakelakelake. And I bet loads of people have congratulated themselves for being culturally sensitive through the years!

thanks, Annoying. Got a feeling Humber also means river.

There is Torpenhow Hill in Cumbria, which is (loosely) Hillhillhill Hill.

fascinating, isn't it? Maybe it goes to show our ancestors were also not the best at languages

Every country does it, I don't see the issue. Who decided what the name should be? Many countries change names and have had many official langauges. How would anyone decide what to call it? or do we change name every time the country does?

I know people who change their names in different countries.

that could be fun: my name is Helmut, call me Dylan

ZZZ - yeah, but it's still tricky. Would you pronounce Dylan the Welsh way, or the English?

YABVU

I wasn't born in the UK and the city of my birth is almost unpronounceable and unspellable to any British person.

The same is probably true the other way around: foreigners have difficulty saying English place names, etc

I suppose if your name is say Catherine and you were in Poland where they have their own version of the name without the "th" bit which their language doesn't have, it might make sense to tell people you are called Katerzyna etc so they can manage it

although I'd find it more fun personally to choose a name with a whole bunch of "th"s in it if I could think of one

It is tricky Edam, it is very tricky

W@ZZZenAgain. Our ancestors used language to conquer! The Normans were particularly good. Nasty common things remained Anglo Saxon - like 'pig', 'cow' and 'house' for example. Refined, nice versions of the same things were renamed in french - 'pork', 'beef', 'mansion'. One reason why there are so many different words in English for almost exactly the same thing!

My DH used to teach Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese students, and they almost always had an "english name" in addition to their own. Some of them were quite bizarre, words rather than names. I remember 2 young ladies in the same class called Milky and Sugar. Seriously, not a word of a lie. Good snippet here about it

just to totally derail for a minute.... whilst we're talking about lingos, does anyone know what "y deryn pur" would be in English because I am listening to this song over and over in the background (I just LOVE it) and I haven't a clue what it i s about.

Chil, it wasn't so much that they were renamed it was different usage.

The people who ate the meats spoke one language, French, and brought us Pork, Beef, etc, whereas the peasants who actually looked after the animals used their own language (Anglo-saxon? Old english? not sure). One made the food in one language, one ate it in another. THats why we have different words.

Buzz

I used to teach Chinese students and I remember their English names. They used to change them all the time without telling me depending on whichever name took their fancy.

After 'Titanic' came out, about 4 of the girls changed their names to Rose!!!

su fey maxi pads !

ha ha ha

nice video. Those Chinese people were great, how creative coming up with an English name etc

OP, I challenge you to pronounce the following in a way that any person of any nationality will know which places you are talking about, while at the same time getting the pronunciation right in the native language:

Norge, Honningsvåg, Tromsø, Kirkenes, Alta, Harstad, Reinøy, Saltstraumen, Åndalsøyra, Jægervatn, Kåfjord...

Incidentally,only ONE of the above has an English translation. Guess which one....

Admittedly, I do find Betws-y-coed slightly challenging.

I am confused now. But happy. I really thought i was right and that it was utter madness, but some very convincing arguments are starting to persuade me ever so slightly. The analogy about the mountain, the reference to the lake and other geographical references etc more so than the pronunciation thing.

I think pronouncing foreign words doesn't have to be embarrassing. I was always of the mind that if a place is from a country whose language is very different from your own, then that country should refer to said country or city in a way that is the best approximation that they can. Just not invent an entirely new word for is.

And i was never suggesting that English speaking people should one start incorporating Roma, Firenzie et al in to daily language now - tis too late. Rome and Florence rare done deals so of course if now sounds twatty.

I have learned much from this thread

Norway? Is that Norge?

Don't know

But again, an approximation that demonstrates an attempt to directly translate, is what i mean.

Take Norway for example.

Norwegen in german, Noreg in one of the norwegian written languages, modernised to Norge in the other official (most commen) written language.

Think about the geography, long and narrow, and if you follow the coastline by boat, which was the "road" in the past, Norwegen /Norway means "the way to the north", you had to sail along the coast of norway to get to spitsbergen, or to the north pole. Amundsen, Scott, Nansen, they all came to my town before setting out further north.

But you haven't really said why? I suspect it is colonial guilt or the dreaded PC-ness of it.

Language is about communicating and making ourselves understood. We do that perfectly well already with place names.

Where my mother is from they simply call the west by a singular word meaning "the white mans land", but do specify what particular place they are talking about depending on the context. For instance, a person might ask me "so when are you returning to the white mans land", but then they could also say "so how is the weather over there in Britain" depending on how specific they want to be.

TBH I think we would all be able to handle the pronunciations of foreign place names if we had simply been taught them from a young age. Its linguistic laziness to translate things and I think its a shame.

I really like pegonbread's posts. Elegant and cogent. I'm persuaded by them.

Incidentally, SlightlyJaded I understand what you mean about making the best approximation that you can, which brings me back to Beijing.

Beijing and Peking are each names for the capital of China, produced by following different transliteration systems. Neither name is "right", and I've read before that the matter of which one is more accurate depends on what area a Chinese person comes from. Which I suppose is hardly surprising- China is a large country, and even the comparatively tiny island of Britain has lots of different accents and a few languages.

Actually, it occurs to me that there may sometimes be grammar issues forcing a rename of another country's towns/cities/whatever.

I don't know of any examples in modern foreign languages (I don't speak forrin- am shamefully monolingual), but I know that Latin nouns had case endings. Perhaps some languages still do?

Then there's the possibility that a land's own name for a location may be something insulting in your own. For (hypothetical example) I would feel rather awkward referring to any overseas city as "Dogturd" even if it was what the locals called it.