From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Mon Dec 15 2003 - 14:13:52 EST
<jon at hackcraft dot net> wrote:
> I respect the right of any nation (or for that matter any individual)
> to call themselves whatever they want, more troublesome would be if
> they wish to change their ISO 3166 codes. CR is taken and CP
> exceptionally reserved, so hopefully they'll remain static.
I'll go farther than that. It's always bothered me that speakers of
European languages, including English but especially French, have seen
fit to rename the cities and internal subdivisions of other countries.
An English speaker could travel from Nürnberg to München to Venezia to
Milano to Firenze to Roma to Napoli, and never once call any of those
cities by its proper local name. (Thank goodness "Leghorn" for Livorno,
one of the worst examples ever, seems to have lost some of its
popularity!)
Changes in pronunciation to fit different languages seem less offensive
somehow, depending on how difficult it is for speakers of language A to
make the sounds of language B. Most English and French speakers, for
example, are unlikely to pronounce the "gh" sound in "Baghdad"
correctly. ("Pair-iss" is a bit over the top; English speakers are
certainly capable of saying "par-ee.") But changing the name
altogether, like "Londres" for London, just doesn't seem right.
Country names will probably always be localized, but I've always thought
we should leave the naming of states and cities and counties and oblasts
and prefectures to the locals.
As for ISO 3166, this whole morning I've had my fingers crossed that the
MA won't jump at the opportunity to assign a new code for "Corea"
(possibly reassigning a formerly used code, or breaking their own rules
about exceptional reservations, as they did with ROU). But I suppose
they will consider it their mandate to do so.
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
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