Munich or München?

[MaisseArsouye]

Mr Jean Dupont is french. Do you call him Mr John Bridge when he goes to England ???? Of course you don't. What about Damien Colline ( Damon Hill ) and Jack Newtown ( Jacques Villeneuve ) ?

It's exactly the same about cities. München, Paris, London, Barcelona, Lisboa, Firenze, Athinaï, Den Haag, Mumbai,... let's respect people living there and let's use the real name of their city. The only exception would be for cities where several languages are spoken : Bruxelles/Brussel, Luxembourg/Luxemburg,...

 

[BassDude726]

Well if cities are the same as names, why don't you pronounce a few Chinese cities for us, or spell some Korean cities in Hangul characters?

 

[Stefan Haertel]

I have no problem with people calling München Munich, Nürnberg Nuremberg etc.
Where's the problem with it?

 

[BassDude726]

Likewise, I have no problem with Spanish-speakers calling New York "Nueva York"... conversely, since El Paso is an American city with a Mexican name, how should someone from Spain who speaks the Castillian dialect pronounce it?

 

[JtheJackal]

I call it the way I learn it, and if they change it like what happened to Bombay to Mumbai or Peking to Beijing then Ill learn the new translation, but no need to start calling it in its own language. Itll just get confusing.

 

[nonconformist]

(with the two little dot doodads)

It's called an Uhmlahaut(sp?)

 

[The Last Conformist]

It's "Umlaut".

As for personal names, we do traditionally use anglicized versions of some of them, mainly names of kings and popes, but also for some cultural personalities (eg, Petrarch for Petrarca), and of course we usually use latinized versions of ancient Greek names (Alexander for Alexandros, Plato for Platon, and so on).

As for the respect aspect, I can only speak for myself, but I think it's rather the opposite. Having a special English name for a city acknowledges its importance. And while I don't much care if an anglophone embarasses himself by mispronuncing Göteborg instead of simply saying Gothenburg, he shouldn't think he's making me a favour. I don't actually like having my language mangled when there's no need.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I call it the way I learn it, and if they change it like what happened to Bombay to Mumbai or Peking to Beijing then Ill learn the new translation, but no need to start calling it in its own language. Itll just get confusing.

Beijing is not pronounced "Beijing" by chinese people. It's pronounced Bpaydtin'. Your logic is strongly limited. If you really want to do so, then you should learn all other writings in all other languages since writing a chinese word in one way or another will strongly influence your way to say it.

In Russian, Moscow is written MOCKBA, so I've heard some guy calling it "Mokbah" and then he told me he respected more the foreign languages than I did.The thing he didn't catch was that MOCKBA is cyrillic... In the roman alphabet, it would be "Moskva".

We simply CANNOT pronounce the name of foreign cities in the way they are called in their domestic language, so why pretending to do so ? Actually, I don't see where it's offensive for me that Italians call my city "Parigi" ! Parigi sounds cool !

And about people's name, it's exactly like small cities name. If there's no official translation, you stick to the original name...

 

[Marla_Singer]

As for the respect aspect, I can only speak for myself, but I think it's rather the opposite. Having a special English name for a city acknowledges its importance. And while I don't much care if an anglophone embarasses himself by mispronuncing Göteborg instead of simply saying Gothenburg, he shouldn't think he's making me a favour. I don't actually like having my language mangled when there's no need.

I fully agree.

 

[nonconformist]

Sometime it's easier to have just one common name:
e.g
William
Wilhel (easy so far)
Guillaume

or
John
Jean
Johann.

 

[BassDude726]

As for the respect aspect, I can only speak for myself, but I think it's rather the opposite. Having a special English name for a city acknowledges its importance. And while I don't much care if an anglophone embarasses himself by mispronuncing Göteborg instead of simply saying Gothenburg, he shouldn't think he's making me a favour. I don't actually like having my language mangled when there's no need.

That's what I said in post #18

 

[Marla_Singer]

That's what I said in post #18

You should read what I've written in post #6 !

 

[SeleucusNicator]

Mr Jean Dupont is french. Do you call him Mr John Bridge when he goes to England ????

I'd call him Jene Dupont, but pronounced as if it were an American word. Again, it avoids unnecessary mutilation of the other language.

 

[BassDude726]

Dupont is French for bridge? Wait... does that have something to do with the word "pontoon"? Wow... I'm learning linguistics here!

 

[nonconformist]

People find it really difficult to spell my first name-even though it is English. It's when they come to my double-barrelled middle name they need to worry.

 

[SeleucusNicator]

Dupont is French for bridge? Wait... does that have something to do with the word "pontoon"? Wow... I'm learning linguistics here!

"pontus" is Latin for bridge. Comes from an Etruscan word for "road", I believe. I'm guessing dupont would mean something to the effect of "of the bridge" or "from the bridge."

 

[nonconformist]

Dupont is French for bridge? Wait... does that have something to do with the word "pontoon"? Wow... I'm learning linguistics here!

Dupont actually translates literally as "From the bridge" or "some bridge"

 

[BassDude726]

Duh... I knew that. I took latin for 3 years. Anyone has my permission to put that previous post in the "Stupidest thing you've ever heard" thread.

 

[amadeus]

Absolutely!

In the same way, the English name for Rhodesia is, and always will be, Rhodesia. No PC fascists will persuade me to call it Zimbabwe. Don't care if the Africans call it Zimbabwe - that's their right; my right is to call it Rhodesia.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I think there's a slight difference when a country takes the trouble to official change its name (like Rhodesia->Zimbabwe), or the name of a city (like Constantinople->Istanbul back in the 20s). Zimbabweans are likely to object to having their country refered to as "Rhodesia" - Germans are unlikely to dislike seeing "Munich" for München in English texts. If you're going to be PC, you might just as well check out the opinion of the supposed beneficiaries first.