# Why do we pronounce foreign landmarks differently? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 27, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313 "2013-08-27T16:27:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/21 "2013-08-27T22:22:02Z")
Unless you speak the language perfectly, without an accent, you will not be able to say the names “properly”, no matter how hard you try. Personally, as a foreigner, I’d much rather you pronounce the words correctly in your language than mispronounce them in mine. (Incidentally, the Hebrew term for the United States translates as “Lands of the Alliance”, which is pretty cool). ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/22 "2013-08-28T01:31:30Z")
Just out of curiosity, I will mention that the French name for London (the one in England) is Londres (pronounced, roughly, Londruh) while the French name for the London in Ontario is London. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/23 "2013-08-28T01:34:40Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Just out of curiosity, I will mention that the French name for London (the one in England) is Londres (pronounced, roughly, Londruh) while the French name for the London in Ontario is London. Is that true in both France and Quebec? ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/24 "2013-08-28T01:45:12Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > Or if not media-based, the media have to at least be willing to go along. Examples of recent changes: > > from Peking to Beijing > from the Ukraine to Ukraine > from Calcutta to Kolkata > from Bombay to Mumbai > > Anyone have examples of changes that were attempted but failed? I’ve never heard Kolkata. I’d say that one failed (is this just me?) How much of an effort was there to get people to say Soviet instead of Russian? Arnold got mad about it in Red Heat ---
**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:** [August 28, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/25 "2013-08-28T03:09:50Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > I’ve never heard Kolkata. I’d say that one failed (is this just me?) The English-language press in Thailand uses Kolkata. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/26 "2013-08-28T03:57:19Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > Anyone have examples of changes that were attempted but failed? During the Olympics, it seemed that even English-language media mostly used Torino instead of Turin. And orthography changes over the decades: Frankfort/Frankfurt, Tokio/Tokyo, the aforementioned big changes to Indian and Chinese romanization. There certainly are disputes over the proper name: Czech Republic vs. Czechia, East Sea vs. Sea of Japan, Persian vs. Arabian Gulf, Myanmar vs. Burma. But that’s a different question. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/27 "2013-08-28T04:18:00Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > There certainly are disputes over the proper name: Czech Republic vs. Czechia. Does anyone actually call it “Czechia” in English? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that, and I’ve lived next door to it for 5 years, so had plenty of occasion to refer to it and hear it referred to. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/28 "2013-08-28T04:22:19Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > The nice (or horrifying) thing about English is that either ordering is perfectly fine, though the post-noun modifier has a more poetic feel. The meaning is different though (“the United States” is a single unit of meaning; “the states united” is not) and that word-for-word translation makes it sound as if the translation TO French was not perfectly literal, when what happens is that the word order required to conserve the meaning is different. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/29 "2013-08-28T04:28:36Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > “Germany” is not meant to be cognate with “Deutschland” – it is taken from “Germania” which is what the Romans called part of the area. “Deutschland” is taken from what the people call themselves. Today the Italian word for Germany is still _Germania_, but they call its inhabitants _Tedeschi_, itself from the same root as _deutsch_ and “Dutch”. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/30 "2013-08-28T04:42:49Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Does anyone actually call it “Czechia” in English? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that, and I’ve lived next door to it for 5 years, so had plenty of occasion to refer to it and hear it referred to. Yeah, you do see it on occasion, but it’s pretty rare. By now I think those who would prefer the pithier Czechia have lost that battle. The Czechs themselves have been moving from Česká Republika to Česko (which is more in line with Slovensko, Maďarsko, Polsko, etc.) and there’s even been some talk (some years ago) about making that the official name of the country, and Česko is now also officially accepted. But I don’t see Czechia make much headway (and I don’t think it really should tbh). ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/31 "2013-08-28T06:58:36Z")
It was a long time before I realised that these had changed: > [@Keeve](#): > > from Peking to Beijing > from Bombay to Mumbai and a whole bunch of African countries have changed their names over the last forty years, too, and took a long time to propagate. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/32 "2013-08-28T07:04:07Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Is that true in both France and Quebec? London Ontario being unknown in France, it doesn’t have a French name. So, people who would stumble on this city would call it “London” in all likelihood. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/33 "2013-08-28T13:43:11Z")
> [@Lukeinva](#): > > And, the Germans call France “Frankenreich” (have no idea why :p). I prefer what [Groundskeeper Willie calls 'em!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUjGf2Grrus) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/34 "2013-08-28T13:54:30Z")
Sometimes syllables are difficult to pronounce for speakers of other languages. An extreme example of this is Mandarin, which has a far smaller set of valid syllables than English. There are many English place names that a native chinese person would struggle to pronounce, and even if they could say them, there would be no way to write the name down using existing chinese characters. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/35 "2013-08-28T21:07:57Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > Or if not media-based, the media have to at least be willing to go along. Examples of recent changes: > > from Peking to Beijing > from the Ukraine to Ukraine > from Calcutta to Kolkata > from Bombay to Mumbai Also from The Congo to Congo. I can’t think of any such changes recently that have “failed”. I appreciate the fact that Western exonyms can be perceived as having a colonialist cast, and it certainly makes sense to move the spelling and pronunciation of these names closer to the name used by residents. However, when English isn’t the principal language of the country in question it becomes–IMHO–a matter of fostering cultural sensitivity versus telling people how to speak their own language. The grammar of any language that uses articles includes the matter of whether the article should be used or not in specific phrases and constructions, and these “rules” are decided, as it were, by the history and development of the language. It’s just like grammatical gender or case marking in the languages that have those features. All of this naturally extends, or should extend, to geographical names. To my ears hearing just Congo or just Ukraine sounds just as “strange” as hearing just “Bronx” where we’d normally expect a “The”. It’s like tripping over a last step that isn’t there. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/36 "2013-08-28T21:09:46Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > from the Ukraine to Ukraine > [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Also from The Congo to Congo. Just a quick status check: is he still _A_ Whitney Brown? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/37 "2013-08-28T21:45:42Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Just out of curiosity, I will mention that the French name for London (the one in England) is Londres (pronounced, roughly, Londruh) while the French name for the London in Ontario is London. In German the United States is called _die Vereinigten Staaten_ which literally means “the United States”, but it’s declined as a plural and verbs are conjugated in the plural. In the news, therefore, I often hear or read about what the US _are_ doing or what _their_ official position on some international question; it sounds a bit odd to me because it suggests that the policy or action was approved individually by every one of the fifty states. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/38 "2013-08-28T22:32:01Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > During the Olympics, it seemed that even English-language media mostly used Torino instead of Turin. If I’m not mistaken “Turin” came into English via French, which wasn’t unusual at a time when France was presumably the first stop for anyone visiting the Continent from the British Isles. There are a few notable French exonyms still used in English for places outside of France, like Cologne; others, like Aix-la-Chapelle seem to be fading into obsolescence; and still others that most present-day English speakers never knew to exist, like Treves for Trier. ---
**Author:** ![Doughbag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Doughbag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doughbag)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/39 "2013-08-28T23:38:30Z")
It’s the same as zucchini or courgette both are names for the same vegatable. The English use courgette, the USA uses zucchini – both use English as a language. It’s down to culture, how and from where the name was introduced into the language. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313/40 "2013-08-29T01:35:02Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > from Peking to Beijing > from the Ukraine to Ukraine > from Calcutta to Kolkata > from Bombay to Mumbai The change from ‘The Ukraine’ to ‘Ukraine’ is not really an attempt at being more true to the original Ukrainian, since that language does not actually have articles and would not be able to differentiate between Ukraine and The Ukraine. While it’s a change that’s been brought about at the behest of Ukrainian emigres, it’s not something they would actually be able to explain to native speakers of Ukrainian. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-pronounce-foreign-landmarks-differently/667313.md?page=3)