# When did English start using native names for places? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 4, 2009, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258 "2009-03-04T11:28:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/61 "2009-03-05T16:53:27Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > But “Koran” is much closer to Urdu and Hindi 😕 No. Urdu is written with (a variant of) Arabic script, and it uses the same letters to spell the name of the Muslim scripture “Qur’an” that Arabic does. Whether or not the **pronunciation** of the word in **spoken** Urdu sounds more like “Koran” or “Qur’an” to the ears of English-speakers is irrelevant to how we should write the **written** transliteration from one script to another. > [@acsenray](#): > > Who says it has to be an accurate transliteration of any particular language? The fact is that it **is** a transliteration of a particular language, namely, of a particular word in written Arabic. I guess it doesn’t **have** to be accurate, but ISTM there’s no real reason to deliberately prefer a **less** accurate transliteration. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/62 "2009-03-05T16:59:47Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Notice I prefaced that with “if.” That’s my guess as to why “Koran” became the popular spelling in English in the first place. [Etymonline](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=koran&searchmode=none) takes ‘Koran’ in English back to a date coinciding with the very earliest days of British colonial involvement in India, and the Old French connection given for ‘Alcoran’ would suggest transmission within Europe and the Mediterranean - not all that surprising when you remember just how much contact there was with the Muslim world, for example in present-day Spain. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/63 "2009-03-05T17:12:11Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > 😕 No. Urdu is written with (a variant of) Arabic script, and it uses the same letters to spell the name of the Muslim scripture “Qur’an” that Arabic does. > > Whether or not the **pronunciation** of the word in **spoken** Urdu sounds more like “Koran” or “Qur’an” to the ears of English-speakers is irrelevant to how we should write the **written** transliteration from one script to another. This doesn’t make sense to me. Urdu uses a script based on the Arabic script in the same way that, say, Spanish or French or English or German uses a script based on the Roman script. The letters have values _in Urdu_ and when you are transliterating from Urdu, you transliterate based on how they are pronounced in Urdu, not how they are pronounced in Arabic. > [@](#): > > The fact is that it **is** a transliteration of a particular language, namely, of a particular word in written Arabic. I guess it doesn’t **have** to be accurate, but ISTM there’s no real reason to deliberately prefer a **less** accurate transliteration. There might be several reasons: 1. “Koran” is historically the English spelling and reflects the historical English pronunciation 2. “Koran” is easier to pronounce by English speakers than “Qu’ran.” 3. “Koran” is based on a pronunciation in another language that English speakers had extensive contact with. I would assert that there is no reaosn to _change_ the English spelling based on a transliteration from Arabic, especially if it’s a transliteration that doesn’t particularly help English speakers pronounce the word. > [@GorillaMan](#): > > [Etymonline](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=koran&searchmode=none) takes ‘Koran’ in English back to a date coinciding with the very earliest days of British colonial involvement in India This would seem to support my speculation. English speakers acquired the word “Koran” from India, where the pronunciation is more accurately reflected by this spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/64 "2009-03-05T17:17:25Z")
And remember that Hindi-Urdu is also written in the Devanagari alphabet. And transliterating the word from that script, gives you “Koran” as well. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/65 "2009-03-05T17:27:19Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > The letters have values in Urdu and when you are transliterating from Urdu, you transliterate based on how they are pronounced in Urdu, not how they are pronounced in Arabic. I think I see the problem here: you’re assuming that the chief function of a transliteration is to serve as a **pronunciation key** in the **spoken** form of the target language. I don’t agree. Fundamentally, written transliteration is about converting one **script** into another, not reproducing a set of spoken sounds. As I noted above, since many different languages use the same roman script, it makes more sense in **written** text to use a standard transliteration from a non-roman script into roman, irrespective of what the spoken form of the target language sounds like. Pronunciation keys are useful, but there’s no reason they can’t be provided separately in contexts specific to a particular language; for instance, one might write in English “…reading the Qur’an (pronounced Kor-ahn)”. And as a matter of fact, “Koran” is not really all that useful as a pronunciation key for English speakers. If you’ve never heard the word before, it’s not clear whether “Koran” is meant to be pronounced to rhyme (more or less) with the first two syllables of “Toronto”, or instead to be accented on the first syllable, more or less rhyming with words like “boron” or “florin”. If you really wanted a written version of the word that would reliably indicate its pronunciation in English, you’d have to devise something like the “Kor-ahn” I used above. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/66 "2009-03-05T17:42:09Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think I see the problem here: you’re assuming that the chief function of a transliteration is to serve as a **pronunciation key** in the **spoken** form of the target language. I’m assuming nothing of the kind. What I am saying is that you don’t transliterate merely from script to script but from language to language. Your distinction between the “written form” of a language and the “spoken form” of a language is not a reasonable one here. When Urdu speakers are writing, they’re not writing in “Arabic script”; they’re writing in a script based on the Arabic script, but the characters mean something in Urdu. You don’t reference back to Arabic in order to transliterate. > [@](#): > > As I noted above, since many different languages use the same roman script, it makes more sense in **written** text to use a standard transliteration from a non-roman script into roman, irrespective of what the spoken form of the target language sounds like. I see absolutely no reason to do this. There is no reason why it can’t be “Coran” in French and “Koran” in English, etc. English is English. French is French. > [@](#): > > Pronunciation keys are useful, but there’s no reason they can’t be provided separately in contexts specific to a particular language; for instance, one might write in English “…reading the Qur’an (pronounced Kor-ahn)”. > > And as a matter of fact, “Koran” is not really all that useful as a pronunciation key for English speakers. If you’ve never heard the word before, it’s not clear whether “Koran” is meant to be pronounced to rhyme (more or less) with the first two syllables of “Toronto”, or instead to be accented on the first syllable, more or less rhyming with words like “boron” or “florin”. English speakers don’t need pronunciation keys to read English words. The word “Koran” is an English word now. It’s not a transliteration of a word from another language. And if I may reiterate my earlier point, when deciding what the proper spelling of a word, accurate transliteration is not the preeminent consideration. Transliteration is a academic tool for academic purposes. It has little to do with what the general public needs or cares about. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/67 "2009-03-05T18:19:23Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > English speakers don’t need pronunciation keys to read English words. The word “Koran” is an English word now. Okay then, so when the new standard spelling “Qur’an” becomes widely familiar, that will be the new form of the English word, and English speakers won’t need help pronouncing it. So why are we worrying over whether “Koran” would be a better choice? ISTM that you’re falling between two stools here, or settling for the worst of both worlds, or whatever. On the one hand, you don’t want to require the spelling of a transliterated word to represent a standard conversion from one script into another. On the other hand, you don’t want to require the spelling to unambiguously indicate how the word’s supposed to be pronounced, because if it’s achieved acceptance as an English word then we already know how to pronounce it. Seems like kind of a waste to go to the trouble of producing a written form of a foreign word that provides **neither** a consistent guide to the original written form, **nor** an unambiguous guide to pronunciation. Sure, what people have always (well, almost always) done in the past is precisely the sort of seat-of-the-pants _ad hoc_ transliteration that you’re defending here: they make the best guess they can at a way to write the word in their target language that more or less represents how it sounds. And nobody’s going to stop doing that, as we see from the constant development of new English terms not originally written in roman script, like “curry vindaloo” and “bok choy”. But it’s not surprising that institutions concerned with standard forms of usage (library organizations, media organizations, publishers, etc.) want something a little more systematic. And “official” standard forms tend to influence popular usage. So I think “Qur’an” and “Muslim” and “Beijing” are here to stay, even if their elder counterparts “Koran” and “Moslem” and “Peking” do sound more like what the original English-speaking transliterators heard when they were first writing them down. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/68 "2009-03-05T18:25:11Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Generally, English changes the names of cities when the cities or countries officially make a change. > . It’s been _Deutschland_ for a couple hundred years, why does it say “Germany” on all English maps? I am in agreement with \*\*Martini Enfield \*\*here. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/69 "2009-03-05T18:34:51Z")
I think it started the same time people stopped using an English version of their name. Oh sure I still run into a few Miguels that insist on being called Mike, but usually now most people are happy with their real names. I was the only one in my family with an “American” name, the rest had Slavic names and they used English equivalents. I recall when I was a kid we had Formosa instead of Taiwan. I remember the “Made in Formosa” stickers on things. Of course there are the problems with translations like “Baltic Sea” which in some countries is called “East Sea” and “West Sea” depending on one’s location. Or Austria’s name which in German is Österreich, which translates to East Realm (Republic). So do we use the translation literally or just the German name? I know the Ivory Coast got tired of all the translations and asked everyone in every language use the French spelling Côte d’Ivore. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/70 "2009-03-05T18:38:11Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Oh sure, pronunciation can often be significantly different from spelling, as anybody knows who has tried to deal with English names like “Featherstonehaugh” (which is apparently pronounced “foo”, or “fernio” or something completely counterintuitive like that :)). Most commonly, _fanshaw_. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/71 "2009-03-05T18:55:44Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I’m assuming nothing of the kind. What I am saying is that you don’t transliterate merely from script to script but from language to language. No, sorry, but that’s translation. Transliteration is about scripts, about alphabets, and nothing more. Qur’an and Koran, in English, are pronounced identically, and this seems to be the point you’re missing. That speakers of different languages using a common script may prefer different transliterations as more clear and logical to them is a different matter - my copy of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto says ‘Tschaikowsky’ in big letters on the front, but that’s because it was published in Germany, not because of a different pronunciation, and neither is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/72 "2009-03-05T19:20:47Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > No, sorry, but that’s translation. Actually, that’s not translation. Translation is about the finding an equivalent term or group of terms that convey the same _meaning_. It has nothing to do with pronunciation. > [@](#): > > Transliteration is about scripts, about alphabets, and nothing more. Unless my understanding of these things is completely off here, you’re absolutely, flat wrong about this. Transliteration involves a series of choices, sometimes conflicting choices, and script, pronunciation, and spelling all play a part. Unless you’re using an artificial structure like the I.P.A., there is no system of transliteration that is entirely unambiguous. > [@](#): > > That speakers of different languages using a common script may prefer different transliterations as more clear and logical to them is a different matter - my copy of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto says ‘Tschaikowsky’ in big letters on the front, but that’s because it was published in Germany, not because of a different pronunciation, and neither is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. You’ve just completely obviated your argument that transliteration is purely about converting from one script to another. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/73 "2009-03-05T19:37:01Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > But, as has already been pointed out, it’s simply incorrect to say it ‘is’ called Bombay, it has been officially changed, and continuing to refer to the present-day city as such is not all that different to insisting that the big city on the Bosphorus ‘is called Constantinople’. Official by what authority? At least in America, there are no linguistic authorities. Or should we expect Americans to be subject to the dictates of foreign powers? Yes, it might be courteous to use the name suggested by local users, but they have no authority to impose it. And the courtesy should be reciprocal. The primary point of language is communication. If I want to communicate to another Los Angeleno something about the city Bombay using term “Mumbai”, I risk confusion and delay. It’s rude for a third party to insist I communicate in a less effective way. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/74 "2009-03-05T19:42:17Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Actually, that’s not translation. Translation is about the finding an equivalent term or group of terms that convey the same _meaning_. Which is exactly what you described when you talked about going ‘from language to language’. > [@](#): > > Unless my understanding of these things is completely off here, you’re absolutely, flat wrong about this. Transliteration involves a series of choices, sometimes conflicting choices, and script, pronunciation, and spelling all play a part. Unless you’re using an artificial structure like the I.P.A., there is no system of transliteration that is entirely unambiguous. Did I say it didn’t involve choices, or that pronunciation and spelling aren’t a part? It is, however, fundamentally about changing a word from one script to another, not about changing the word. > [@](#): > > You’ve just completely obviated your argument that transliteration is purely about converting from one script to another. No, I haven’t. Converting Ч, the first Cyrillic letter of ‘Tchaikovsky’, into Roman script involves more than one Roman letter, to give the ‘Tch’ sound it represents. Sometimes it’s been transliterated as ‘Ch’. I never said that there was a one-to-one correspondence between one script and another, but the function is to accurately convey the original using a different set of symbols. (In Czech, for example, there’s a single symbol which can be used, as in ‘Čajkovského’.) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/75 "2009-03-05T19:46:45Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Official by what authority? At least in America, there are no linguistic authorities. Or should we expect Americans to be subject to the dictates of foreign powers? Yes, it might be courteous to use the name suggested by local users, but they have no authority to impose it. I didn’t say ‘official according to American law’, nor that anything is being imposed :rolleyes: According to the government of Maharashtra, the name of the city is Mumbai. How much more official do you want? It’s not about courtesy, just accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/76 "2009-03-05T19:48:32Z")
Missed the edit window: > [@GorillaMan](#): > > In Czech, for example, there’s a single symbol which can be used, as in ‘Čajkovského’… …, due to a slightly different script being employed. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/77 "2009-03-05T19:52:05Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Which is exactly what you described when you talked about going ‘from language to language’. Of course it isn’t what I described. What I said was that a script is transliterated with reference to the language you’re working with. If you’re transliterating a term in Urdu, you look to how _Urdu_ uses the script it’s written in. You don’t look to the way _Arabic_ uses the script. If you’re transliterating Japanese Kanji, you look to how the characters are used in Japanese, not how they were originally used in Chinese. If you’re transliterating from English to, say, Devanagari, you look to what the letters represent in English, not what they originally represented in Latin. > [@](#): > > I never said that there was a one-to-one correspondence between one script and another, but the function is to accurately convey the original using a different set of symbols. And when you’re transliterating Urdu, the “original” is _Urdu_, not Arabic. ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/78 "2009-03-05T19:55:10Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Most commonly, _fanshaw_. If I remember correctly from my ancient edition of the Guinness Book of Records, there are something like 14 or 18 different “correct” pronunciations of Featherstonehaugh. The commonest is quoted above. Others are “Featherstonehaw”, “Freestonhugh”, and “Fesstonhay”. I can’t imagine the rest. Lesson: use native names wherever possible. Less confusion. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/79 "2009-03-05T20:01:44Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Of course it isn’t what I described. What I said was that a script is transliterated with reference to the language you’re working with. If you’re transliterating a term in Urdu, you look to how _Urdu_ uses the script it’s written in. You don’t look to the way _Arabic_ uses the script. Yes, of course, but nobody was talking about transliterating from Urdu until you threw in a bizarre WAG about how English speakers encountered the name of the Islamic holy book. (You’re also now assuming that they did so from written text, of course, rather than acquiring the word verbally…) ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/80 "2009-03-05T20:02:04Z")
Did not mean the last sentence seriously. I still use the old names fot those cities (Calcutta, Bombay, etc) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258.md?page=5)