# 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:** 12\ **Page:** 6
**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 9, 2009, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/101 "2009-03-09T03:59:30Z")
> [@missred](#): > > When y’all are finished with place names and the Qu’ran, will you please settle the spelling of this man’s name for me? [Muammar Gaddafi - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_al-Qaddafi) 😛 [QUOTE=wiki] Gaddafi himself prefers in his personal website to use the spelling Muammar Al Gathafi [/QUOTE] That ought to be good enough for anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/102 "2009-03-09T05:24:57Z")
I pronounce Chile “Chi-Lay.” I disillusioned someone one time when I pointed out that Leicester in England was actually pronounced “Lester.” His face visibly fell. I have no idea how he thought it was pronounced, but he’d pointed to the name written in some educational catalogue and said he’d always thought that sounded like a pretty cool place, and I said: “What, Lester??” That’s when his face fell. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/103 "2009-03-09T08:04:41Z")
References to the Islamic scriptures in English long predate contact with Urdu speakers. The earliest quote in the OED is from 1366 in the form _Alkaron_, and is said to have entered English from French. I would guess the French got it from contact with Moorish Spain. Having entered the English language, the word bounced around in form and spelling quite a bit: _alkaroun_, 1386; _alchoran_ and _alcharon_, both 1532 (in the same text); _core_, 1625; _currawn_, 1665. _Koran_ first appears in 1735, _qoran_ in 1787. _Koran_ may have been the dominant form in the relatively recent past, but I doubt there was ever a time when it was the sole form of the word in use. It is possible, of course, that contact with Urdu speakers in the eighteenth and ninenteenth centuries partly accounts for the predominance of K-forms of the word from that time. The K-Q transition is not unique to the word “Koran”. From the mid-20th century on, ‘Q’ is used with increasing consistency in the scholarly transliteration of the relevant Arabic (and Hebrew) letter, and this has had an effect on English loan-words from Arabic and Hebrew. For longer established words this has lead to the previously dominant form, e.g. _Koran_, being replaced with a Q-form. For newer words, only the Q-form is familiar; how many people would identify _Katar_ as the name of a Gulf emirate? ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/104 "2009-03-09T15:07:17Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I pronounce Chile “Chi-Lay.” > > I disillusioned someone one time when I pointed out that Leicester in England was actually pronounced “Lester.” His face visibly fell. I have no idea how he thought it was pronounced, but he’d pointed to the name written in some educational catalogue and said he’d always thought that sounded like a pretty cool place, and I said: “What, Lester??” That’s when his face fell. I think (based on watching BBC news) that Brits pronounce it “Chil-A,” which is fine if that is the natural pronunciation there. I was focusing my scorn on Americans in my region for whom the natural pronunciation is “Chilly” calling it “Chee-Lay” in order to be more authentic or something. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/105 "2009-03-09T19:42:09Z")
> [@MichaelQReilly](#): > > I think (based on watching BBC news) that Brits pronounce it “Chil-A,” which is fine if that is the natural pronunciation there. I was focusing my scorn on Americans in my region for whom the natural pronunciation is “Chilly” calling it “Chee-Lay” in order to be more authentic or something. Brits would assert that it’s ‘Chilly’, and you’re simply picking up on the greater tendency to swallow final syllables, as with Birming-ham, AL vs. Birming’m, UK. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/106 "2009-03-09T23:03:09Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Brits would assert that it’s ‘Chilly’, and you’re simply picking up on the greater tendency to swallow final syllables, as with Birming-ham, AL vs. Birming’m, UK. OK, so that means that anyone in the UK _or_ the US calling it “Chee-Lay” is a pretentious twit. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/107 "2009-03-09T23:28:21Z")
> [@MichaelQReilly](#): > > OK, so that means that anyone in the UK _or_ the US calling it “Chee-Lay” is a pretentious twit. 😃 Spot on 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/108 "2009-03-10T01:20:38Z")
So then how would you say it? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/109 "2009-03-10T02:08:07Z")
> [@missred](#): > > > [@Bam Boo Gut](#): > > > > “Because of the difficulties of transliterating written and regionally-pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi’s name can be transliterated in many different ways. An article published in the London Evening Standard in 2004 lists a total of 37 spellings; a 1986 column by The Straight Dope quotes a list of 32 spellings known at the Library of Congress.[41] Muammar al-Gaddafi, used in this article, is the spelling used by Time magazine and the BBC. The Associated Press, CNN, and Fox News use the spelling Moammar Gadhafi, Al-Jazeera uses Muammar al-Qadhafi (Al-Jazeera English uses Muammar Gaddafi[42]) the Edinburgh Middle East Report uses Mu’ammar Qaddafi and the U.S. Department of State uses Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi. In 1986, Gaddafi reportedly responded to a Minnesota school’s letter in English using the spelling Moammar El-Gadhafi.[43] The Xinhua News Agency uses Muammar Khaddafi in its English reports.” > > I was surprise to find that Wiki had mentioned it too, but I recall reading the column in one of the Straight Dope books many years ago and wondered if anyone had more to add where Cecil left off. If you want the transliteration in the same standard ALA-LC system used for “Qur’an” and “Muslim”, it’s “Mu`ammar al-Qadhdhafi”. The letters in Arabic script, with their vowel/diacritical markings, are: meem with damma, `ayin with fatha, meem with shadda, raa’ definite article “al”: alif, laam qaaf with fatha, dhaal with shadda, alif, faa’, yaa’ ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2009, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/110 "2009-03-10T02:29:09Z")
> [@MichaelQReilly](#): > > OK, so that means that anyone in the UK _or_ the US calling it “Chee-Lay” is a pretentious twit. 😃 Or lives where spoken Spanish is as common as English. This includes a couple of my former neighborhoods. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/111 "2009-03-10T03:34:29Z")
I hear what you’re saying Rotewurm, but are you really asking why Nip (ponese) and Jap (anese) are offensive terms for the Japanese? …But yet to my English ear Nip(ponese) is more offensive than Jap(anese). It’s cultural. We dropped the Bomb on one, and lost the Auto Wars to another… in my particular case I also lost a Grandpa in Saipan and me and many of my family belonged to the UAW. However, I as the fourth generation, studied Japanese and have referred to neither in angry terms. Feel pretty bad about that Nuclear thing we unleashed on the world. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258/112 "2009-03-10T05:01:25Z")
> [@MichaelQReilly](#): > > OK, so that means that anyone in the UK _or_ the US calling it “Chee-Lay” is a pretentious twit. 😃 > [@GorillaMan](#): > > Spot on 🙂 Fortunately, I’m in Thailand. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-english-start-using-native-names-for-places/488258.md?page=5)