I have a nice map (National Geographic Political World) hanging in my office. I noticed that Côte d’Ivoire is named using the French spelling. Allemagne is labelled Germany. Grèce is labelled Greece. Inde is labelled India. Norvège is labelled Norway. Why would the map makers use the non-English spelling in only this one case?
Because for some reason, Ivory Coast insisted on the french spelling of its name being the one (like in Ukraine/ the Ukraine, Burma/Myanmar, etc…) used officially in english speaking countries.
I assume it’s due to the fact that the english name is a direct translation of the french name, rather than an altered form of it or an entirely different name. Still doesn’t make much sense to me.
This was dealt with in an earlier GQ thread, now well buried. In sum, la Republique de la Cote d’Ivoire has made that name the official name of the country, just as the Nation Formerly Known as Upper Volta is now Burkina Faso. The fact that it is the French name for the country once known in English as Ivory Coast is immaterial – it’s their choice for a national name.
Where a longstanding English name for a foreign country is in place, it’s customary to supersede their official national name with the English term; where the country was created within living memory, that rule does not apply. So we have Norway instead of Norge, Germany instead of Deutschland, Spain instead of España, and Iceland instead of Island (an extremely wise idea, this last!). But we have Burkina Faso, Malawi, Myanmar – and Cote d’Ivoire.
Thanks Polycarp. Enlightening and quick. BTW, I did search GQ and found several references, but nothing that addressed this. Sorry if I overlooked an obvious thread.
I’ll post this here since this is a relatively new thread and came up fast.
Yes, most of us here know that the country prefers (insists even) to go by “Cote d’Ivoire”
HOWEVER, in all the recent news articles about the unrest in the country, every major English language news source has used “Ivory Coast” to describe it.
At least that has been the case with the AP, Reuters, NY Times, AFP, and the BBC.
Yep. I think the only reason they demanded the change was so they could move up a few letters in the opening ceremony of The Olympics. 
I hadn’t really noticed this, but you’re right. It seems to be a slight backlash against the idea that a government can decide that the name from only one language can be used. It’s even the case in the ultra-PC Guardian and Observer style guide: P | | The Guardian]Guardian style guide:
The New York Times calls the nationals of the country in question
“Ivoirians”.
The CIA World Factbook (presumably carried by all agents when infiltrating unfamiliar countries) uses “Cote d’Ivoire” and “Ivoirian.”
The OED says “Ivorian”.
So what happened with Cambodia? When I was in high school all the maps said “Cambodia (Kampuchea)”. Now, a glance-method survey says the one paper map at hand just says “Cambodia”. Did they give up on Kampuchea? Whose name was that anyway? I mean, usually if a country wants to change their name they just do it (Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo) leading to that great graphic in America, the Book where they equate the number of lies in a nation’s name to the number of internal atrocities committed by that government.
The naming convention seems subject to the fickleness of PC fashion. Deustchland, Espana, etc. don’t have a crowd of liberals making a fuss about the different names. Myanmar, Cote D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso seem to possess some kind of lobby here that makes sure to tell us how insensitive we are to use the Western, Euro-centric names. But don’t worry. Just like Kampuchea/Cambodia, we’ll go back to the old name as soon as the next actor-endorsed cause springs up.
So is Kampuchea the “old name”? Is that what I should be calling that place?
Sure, Côte d’Ivoire sounds nice but the German name, die Elfenbeinküste, is the most fun name of any country.
“Kampuchea” was a name selected by the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. Once they were ousted, the country went back to using Cambodia.
I’ve noted that some publications have gone back to using “Burma,” as opposed to “Myanmar,” which was substituted by the current repressive regime.
The CIA World Factbook gives ‘Cambodia’ as the current English name for that country, but the local short form as ‘Kampuchea’. Kampuchea is, therefore, the local (Khmer?) name for the country, but the name change from Cambodia to Kampuchea in English was requested by Pol Pot. The name change was made in the US government on August 18, 1978. It was changed back to Cambodia by the US on January 2, 1985. (ref)
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They’re the names of the UN members according to whom? Big lists are no match for an explanation of where they come from.
[QUOTE=Hypno-Toad]
The naming convention seems subject to the fickleness of PC fashion.
[QUOTE]
Yes, that’s it. PC fashion. Nothing whatever to do with going from a colony to an independent nation and using your own langauge to describe where you live. :rolleyes:
Sure. Asserting French as the sole language for a west African country unambiguously destroys all possible colonial connotations.
Actually, and subject to correction, I believe Ivory Coast (or rather Cote d’Ivoire) is one of those countries where a fair proportion of the indigenous population is in fact bilingual in French and which has no single or predominant national language, and so considers French to be its “national language” as a widely understood compromise. India, hardly a country clinging to its colonial heritage, did this with English for many years; xash can comment on the recent situation when he chances to review this thread, because my facts are out of date – but English was back in the 50s and 60s the sole acceptable compromise between the Bengalis, the Hindi-speakers, the Rajasthani, the Telegu, the Tamils, and a plethora of smaller groups. In several of the nations formed in 1960 from the former French West Africa, French took on exactly this role, and I believe CdI has continued it in that role to the present.
That was precisely my point, in response to Crandolph’s suggestion that any name change is simply an assertion of national identity that we should all warmly embrace.