So why DO we call Torino "Turin?" We had no problem pronouncing

[Redstone]

"Torino" when it was a Ford.

Why do we call Roma "Rome?"

Why do we call Wien "Vienna?" It's not hard to pronounce it the way the Austrians do: "Veen." We can all pronounce that, can't we?

We call Palermo "Palermo," but we call Napoli "Naples."

I've never understood this. Anyone know why?

Redstone

[JitterbugPerfume]

1. this bugs me too

Italian is such a beautiful language ---Why do we insist on making it common and ugly>

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Dude, you have opened up a whole world of history and linguistics

and evolution of language.

Fascinating stuff. And I have no specific answer for any of those specific questions.

It's even more bizarre and outrageous when you move over into Asia, like China and Japan and etc., where the first europeans had to figure out how to spell words that had sounds that they didn't...

[Redstone]

5. And we can pronounce "Praha." Easy, right? So why "Prague?"

And furthermore, why the gratuitous "ue?" It would sound the same if spelled "Prag," and we'd save two letters.

Redstone

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. For us English speakers, it all depends through which language

we picked the city's name, and through what other country's language that name might have gone.

And English is not the only one that does this - all languages do it.

In German, the word for Japan sounds like "Yah-pahn", even though the Japanese (as we call them) call it Nippon. We call it "Holland", they call it "Nederland", and we call the people who live there "Dutch" while the Germans call them "Nederlander" (except with an umlaut, I believe).

And we're not even close on Chinese names.

It's the way that history has evolved. There certianly is no sinister intent on the part of anyone.

But it is a fascinating and wonderful question.

[Redstone]

12. And there's Allemande.

Christ, this gets complicated, doesn't it?

Redstone

[NashVegas]

29. Holland / Netherlands

http://worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/holland.htm

[Redstone]

31. Hey, thanks for that! You'd never know it from seeing the place today, but

way beck when, there was a damn good reason to call that area "Netherlands." It was cold and windy and we and swampy and miserable, and pretty much nobody went there.

Redstone

[FuzzySlippers]

3. What's even stranger is calling Firenze "Florence".

:wtf:

[liberaltrucker]

4. Just good ole American superiority complex

Sad to say.:grr:

[Redstone]

7. Maybeso. But why?

Redstone

[liberaltrucker]

13. In historical context

We're the new kid in town, born of violent revolution against European influnce.
220 years as a Nation is just a flash in the pan by historical standards.
Truth is, we just haven't grown up as a Nation. In human terms, we're still
about 18, and armed with nukes:scared: Off topic? Maybe.

[Redstone]

17. You know, you may be right about American pigheadedness.

My grandfather was such a fucking old reactionary Yankee that when he bought a Plymouth Volare, he refused to call it a "Vol-ar-ee" and insisted that it was a "Vol-air."

Redstone

[Left Is Write]

33. It's a good thing he didn't call it a Vol-ar-ee...

'Cause it's Vo-LAH-ray.

:P

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. No it isn't. Every language has made compromises with geographic names

of other places. It is nothing new, and it certainly is NOT because of American superiority.

[Telly Savalas]

14. Not really.

As was posted upthread, all languages do this.

Are French speaking people being arrogant when they call our country L'etats-unis?

[liberaltrucker]

16. Which literally translates...

United States. Point taken:blush:

[Redstone]

18. No, that's not the same thing; it's a literal translation.

Just like "Netherlands" in German is "Niederlande."

I'm talking about changing the spelling and pronunciation, not translation.

Redstone

[tjwmason]

27. Nothing American about it.

We English call Turin, Turin; we call Rome, Rome; we call Vienna, Vienna - you picked it up from us.

But then the French call our capital 'Londres', and they call the English Channel 'La Manche', they call our country Angleterre - the Italians call it Inghilterra, the Russians, Anglia.

It's a universal trait.

[Left Is Write]

6. I don't know. Torino is easier to say than Turin.

And it's prettier, as is the case with most Italian words.

I call Naples Napoli every time I sing along to "That's Amore". :D

[LynneSin]

8. Because we're lazy-ass Americans who do what we want

:shrug:

[FuzzySlippers]

9. Damn straight!!!

:patriot:

[blitzen]

15. Why do Italians call Paris "Parigi"?

[Redstone]

19. That's what I'm asking.

Redstone

[Bear down under]

20. By old custom

dating from the Middle Ages. Florence (from the Latin Florencia) is of course the classic example, but they can be multiplied indefinitely -- Rome, Turin, Athens, Venice, Lisbon, Cologne, Greece, Spain, Italy itself... all places with which the English have traded for many centuries, from the time when both modern English and the languages of the countries concerned were still in the process of formation. It's noteworthy that places that weren't important in trade or diplomacy, like Palermo -- or which are of more recent importance, like San Francisco -- tend to retain their native form.

It's not arrogant to use the English forms when speaking English, quite the reverse.
I recall some time ago when I was staying in Germany with a German friend who announced that the following morning we would be going to Cologne to see the cathedral.

"How far is Koln from here?" I asked.

"Don't be pretentious, Bear! Either speak English or German, but not a mishmash of both!"

The reverse is also true. When I'm speaking French, I call my own country "Australie" and the British capital "Londres" without thinking about it.

[Heidi]

22. Welcome to DU.

:hi:

[Bear down under]

23. thank you!

!t's nice to be here

[sandnsea]

25. Hi Aussie!!

Americans are so arrogant, we think our arrogance beats everybody else's arrogance, and consequently don't even know other countries have different names for different cities too. teehee, aren't we fun??

Welcome

:hi:

[LynzM]

26. Welcome to DU, Bdu!

Funny story about your friend, I like it! LOL I never thought about it that way, but I'm sure I've been 'pretentious' plenty of times!

[tjwmason]

28. Welcome to D.U.

I agree with your point entirely - it's just the way the world is, and the way language is. Also, there are far too many places to try and reverse pronunciation - folk might guess I mean St. Petersburg if I say Pyetyeburg, but how many would know I'm talking about Moscow if I say Maskva?

[InvisibleTouch]

32. "A mishmash of both"

The mother of a late friend of mine routinely mixes German and English - not only in the same sentence, but often in the same word - using, say, a prefix or suffix from one language and the root word from the other. It's quite amusing! :) A bit off-topic, I know.

Welcome to DU! :)

[VolcanoJen]

21. Because "Torino" sounds sexier than "Turin."

Isn't it cool, how much better everyone sounds in Italian?

As an example:

Japan = Giappone

Italians are all about the sexy.

[Left Is Write]

34. Definitely.

I think everything should be pronounced the Italian way.

Preferably by Alberto Tomba.

On television.

In a close up.

[NewJeffCT]

24. Why did we call Beijing "Peking" and Nanjing "Nanking"...

and Guangzhou was called "Canton"

[Bear down under]

30. different systems of transliteration from Chinese

Peking and Nanking come from the now-superseded Wade-Giles system; Beijing and Nanjing are in pinyin, the system adopted by the Chinese government in 1979 as an aid in teaching the pronounciation of Chinese characters in Mandarin, the official language. (Don't forget that Chinese is not a single language but many.)

Wade-Giles had the peculiarity that the same Roman consonant was pronounced differently according to whether it had an apostrophe after it or not. Thus P' is pronounced as P in Patrick, but P is b, as in Bush. Similarly, K' is pronounced as in Kerry, but K is a sort-of J sound. So Peking and Nanking *should* have been pronounced Beijing and Nanjing, but we Westerners rarely understood that.. (The Chinese characters remain the same, of course.)

Canton is a slightly different case. "Canton" is a fair approximation to the pronounciation in Cantonese -- the local language and the one spoken by the majority of overseas Chinese -- the pinyin Guangzhou follows the Mandarin pronounciation.

Incidentally, bey-zhing is the official pronounciation; bey-jing (with the j as in Johnny) betrays a "horrible" Beijing accent. Or so my Chinese-speaking cousin tells me. But you still order Peking Duck (not Beijing Duck) in a restaurant, at least overseas.

[jpgray]

35. Why do we call Cheng Ho Zheng He?

That's fucking offensive, that is.

:hide: