Re: "New York"

[Jim Gillogly <cbmvax!uunet!RAND.ORG!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!jim>]

> Chris Handley <CHandley%GANDALF.OTAGO.AC.NZ@CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU> writes:
> Jim writes
> >
> >I was annoyed back when China decided that English-speakers were
> >henceforth to write the name of their capital as Beijing instead of
> >...
> >language.  If even London can get transformed to Londres, why not
> >everything?
> >
> Nonsense! This is a carry over from the Imperial view that English
> speakers had of the world in the 19th Century - if someone does not
> understand, just talk louder. Germans do not know where Munich is,

Nonsense yourself!  Nothing to do with how important I and other
anglophones (or esperantophones or lojbanophones) think English (or
Esperanto or lojban) is, but rather an assertion that the speakers of a
language have the right to decide what *they* call things.  Naturally I
wouldn't expect a German to know what I meant when I said Munich in
English (if I were speaking German I'd use the German name), *but* neither
would I expect a Frenchman to try to wrap his tongue or syntax around
London instead of Londres.  Nothing imperialistic there...

> recognise Pittsbr@. It goes further - is my former country South
> Africa or Azania, is my present country New Zealand or Aotearoa?

Good question -- let's decide!

Tch:uss...

        Jim Gillogly