In certain circles, pronouncing “Iraq” as Eye-RACK will get you written off as an unsophisticated rube. But the same people who scoff at that have no compunction about rhyming “France” with “dance.” Anyone unironically using the pronunciation [fʁɑ̃s] in an English-language context risks being considered a pretentious twit.
Often, differences in names go beyond pronunciation. España at least has the same consonants (sort of) as “Spain,” but what about poor Germany/Deutschland? Sure, there are historical reasons for calling it Germany, but there are historical reasons for calling Thailand “Siam” and most of us don’t do that. On the other hand, I hear policy wonks and media outlets alternate freely between “Myanmar” and “Burma.”
And before anyone chalks it up to Anglo-American arrogance or ignorance, consider that other languages do the same thing. The French call Germany Allemagne, and the United States les Etats-Unis (which is at least a literal translation).
It’s also not the case that we change the name when the government changes.
So, what’s going on? Can anybody explain why it is customary to Americanize or Anglicize some country names but not others?
(“That’s the way we do it” might be a factual reply, but it’s not particularly helpful or interesting without some insight into why that’s the way we do it.")
Deutschland seems to have certain connotations you might want to avoid in English.
The country was named Burma for many years, until the military junta told everyone to call it “Myanmar.” There are historical reasons which make both attractive. The US government along with several others has a dispute with their government, and so we call them Burma in a big FU.
Thailand we are friendly with, so we called them that out of respect. Other countries, Like Côte d’Ivoire and Timor Leste, want people to call them by their native name. Most diplomatic outlets call them this, but the majority of people call them by the English name.
I think what you’ll find is that countries like France, Germany, Spain have had contact with English speaking countries for centuries if not millenia (true they were Hispania and such at one point). The other countries with a more native pronunciation tend to be “newer” as known to us.
FWIW – While I don’t want to say anything that comes close to endorsing the idiots in charge of Myanmar, their issue is much the same as Iran’s was (and there are probably other good examples) – “Burma” was the kingdom occupying central Myanmar which expanded to conquer the whole nation as we know it, before being defeated piecemeal in a series of wars by the British. (Think of “Russia” pre 1917, including Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, the assorted -Stans, Georgia, Armenia, and part of Poland, or “the Empire of the French” under Napoleon, where those great old French cities Lubeck and Dubrovnik were included in the Empire.) ‘Burma’ is the core of the country but only about half of it.
That’s the way we and all other languages do it. How’s that?
As for why we do it for some countries and not others, there are lots of factors, different ones in every case. Essentially, the longer a country’s historical ties to England, the more it risks having an English name different from the native one. (France is France because we got the name directly from French.)
Conversely, the most recently independent countries, including countries in the New World, tend to have English forms more similar to the native forms (Turkmenistan, Kosovo, and the like).
Another factor is when the name is easy to translate, it frequently will be translated, such as in the case of composite names. “New Zealand” is easy to translate, so you get la Nouvelle-Zélande, Nueva Zeland, Neuseeland, and so forth. Conversely, most languages don’t have a word for “Hampshire,” so New Hampshire stays New Hampshire.
That’s one issue, although you don’t see people making that mistake much except in reference to Pennsylvania Dutch. I was referring to the fact that using the correct term in English is usually associated with “Deutschland über alles,” then black suits and goosestepping.
Kind of like Holland? Synedoche is the term for this type of thing.
As a sidenote, the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, liked to annoy the mainland authority by always referring to the capital of China as Peking instead of Beijing. Peking is the traditional Anglicization, while Beijing is the Pinyin romanization preferred by the mainland government. His explanation was that it is perfectly acceptable to use Anglicaized words such as Rome, Germany, and Spain, instead of their native form, when speaking in English, and there’s no reason that it should be any different in Chinese. This has been interpreted by many as a big FU to the Commie.
There is an enormous snob factor involved here. Your typical organic-agave-swilling Trader Joe’s shopper believes that the more foreign-sounding a pronunciation, the more sophisticated and credible the speaker. This kind of thinking has brought us people who pronounce “Copenhagen” as “Copenhoggen” even though it’s not even a Dutch word. It’s also responsible for the reintroduction of accent marks on certain American place names such as San Jose.
Disclosure: I love Trader Joe’s and shop there every week.
Both Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods cater to hippies who want organic wheatgrass crackers. The difference is that TJ’s is also for college students who go there to get $0.50 cans of beer, because they save Pabst for special occasions.
I think anglicizing foreign names is the height of chauvinism.
If someone said “Hello, my name is Juan Martinez”, would you say “Nope, sorry, here in Amurrica, we’s gonna call you John-Boy Martin!”
I play soccer with a lot of fur-ners, and we try hard to pronounce their names the way they do – we don’t call Jhao “John” or “J-Ho”. “Michel” isn’t “Michael” or “Mikey”.
I mean, who first heard an Italian say “Venezia” and said “Naah, too much work, you’ll be Venice.”? Or decided that München, Deutschland was just too hard to say? (And didn’t even try “Munchin’, Dootch-land”…)
But then, I shop at Trader Joe’s…
…where they have some great microbrews – they just happen to have them at microprices.
Life’s too short to drink rotgut beer, you ain’t-learned-enough-yet-so-you-better-stay-in-College Students!
For most of the cases you mention, digs, we can blame the French. Seriously, pronunciations of German and such came to us filtered through the French language.
The English borrowed “Venice” (and “Rome” and “Florence” and much more besides) from the French, without making any change.
And the French didn’t hear “Venezia” and thing “too much trouble; we’ll adapt”. French and Italian are both romance languages; the original names of these places evolved differently as distinct French and Italian languages emerged from a common root.
The Thais certainly never call it Siam, or Sa-yahm as it’s pronounced by them. They use Thailand, or Prathet Thai. Siam was officially renamed Thailand in June 1939, then renamed Siam again right after World War II, then back to Thailand in 1949, which it has stayed ever since.
As for Myanmar versus Burma, the local news agencies in Thailand, Thai- and English-language alike, all continue to use Burma in defiance of the military junta there, who are the ones who changed it to Myanmar.
Fuque Those Françaises! That’s what we get for cavorting with a country that’s sexy, but of dubious virtues…
So – you’re saying there was a town in Italy that became “Firenza”, but those Frenchies somehow “evolved” to calling it “Florence”. And we said, “So what do you call this quaint village? Okay, but what do the French call it? Because we need to go with whatever they do.” Yeah, I’m sure there was Latin naming conventions involved, but my point remains:
Why not call a city or a country by the name that the inhabitants use? Shouldn’t they get first dibs on naming it?
~~~~ I just realized why I feel so strongly about this subject: ~~~~
This feels like arguing with my mom, who loves to refer to races by whatever nickname she grew up with: “He was just the nicest colored boy, or whatever they want to be called now, y’know, an afro… neee-gro…”
Why should SHE be outed as a racist (hey, if the hood fits…) and the rest of us get to call other people whatever we want? And their cities, and their countries…
Hey, rest of the world: how do you feel about Yankees walking around saying “Sure is wicked cool to be chillin’ here in Myoooonick, Germany! Whatchoo say to that, Adolf? Want a sip o’ my Pabst?”
This isn’t of course unique to English-speaking countries. Every country adapts the names of other ones to their own language. The US is the Estados Unidos or Etats-Unies or Vereinigte Staaten elsewhere.
Spanish tends to translate names even more than English does. For example, an English map of Mexico will show the names of Nuevo Leon, Baja California Norte, and Baja California Sur in Spanish. However, a Spanish map of the US will usually show Dakota del Norte, Nueva York, Virginia Occidental, and so forth, rather than leaving the names in English.
