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Just remember this: nobody should refer to TAM in Spanish as EHM. El Hombre Molesto just don't sound right.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

G26ster wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:
Thus:

[*]To an English-speaking American speaking in English to anyone else, "Germany" is "Germany", and not "Deutschland";
[*]To an English-speaking American speaking in German to another German-speaker, "Germany" is "Deutschland";

Interesting TAM. OK, let's forget about respect, accents, pronunciation, and all that. Changing the language and the name, and based on your list above, I gather that even though the man's given and family name is Jose Verde:

• To an English-speaking American speaking in English to anyone else, "Joe Green" is "Joe Green", and not "Jose Verde";
• To an English-speaking American speaking in Spanish to another Spanish-speaker, "Joe Green" is "Jose Verde"

I think not. I think Jose Verde is Jose Verde regardless of the language spoken. So, I'm still confused as to why the world does not change "peoples" name to suit the local language, but feel they must change "nations/cities" names to suit the local language. Perhaps I've got this all wrong, but I think that was the OP's original point.

Oh, and where's that Peiking Duck I ordered? I'm not buying this Beijing stuff.

You missed the part where I said that the Exonym/Entonym thingie applies to place names, not people names, which the OP was asking about.

In my previous post, I said that I agree that a person's name is exactly what they say it is, and I would never disrespect José Verde by calling him Joe Green, unless he said to me, "Friend, my friends call me Joe Green". And, consider this, in Spanish, José Verdes IS Joe Green. So, is a Spanish-speaker being disrespectful to José by addressing him as José?

My wife says the same. She is Argentinean by birth, so her version of Spanish is a bit different from what many of you may be accustomed to. There are a few differences in words here or there (e.g. vos instead of tu), but one key difference is the pronunciation of the "double L" sound. To most Spanish speakers I've met in my life, the double L is a 'ya' sound (as in tortilla). But to my wife, the double L is a 'sh' sound. So yes, we eat tor-tee-shas instead of tor-tee-yas in our house. But when speaking a person's name, they default to the person's pronunciation rather than to hers. So Guillermo is gee-air-mo, rather than gee-sher-mo, unless that particular Guillermo is Argentinean as well.

WildBill wrote:

Vol Texan wrote:Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but...

...of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

You had me convinced until your last sentence.
Loco Guillermo

Nothing wrong with a little tribute to Dennis Miller, huh?

Dadtodabone wrote:

Vol Texan wrote:And don't get me started on the Appalachian mountains that I grew up in. There is no long "A" sound in the middle of it!. The underlined 'a' has the same sound as the a in "at"., not the 'a' in "ate".

Apple lat chee ah .
Lol, my poor chilluns went from the FRG to the Tri-Cities TN/VA to Texas in 12 year period. Add in a Nana from Philadelphia and a Polish/Mex Pops on one side, and a Minnesota squarehead grandad whose bride was a Georgia peach now known as "Mother R", and its a wonder anyone can understand what they are saying.
As my favorite sports talker from Johnson City, TN would say at sign off,
Pre she ate cha!

Ha! I grew up in the Tri-Cities. Bristol was my home, and I went to college in Johnson City! "Y'all come back now, ya hear?"

G26ster wrote:

Abraham wrote: So, why is it necessary for other foreign places and names to be converted?

I think Abraham's question/point is being missed. It's not a question of HOW we got to this point, rather a question of WHY we cannot respect another country's language to call it what THEY call/pronounce it. In what we call Germany for example, they call it Deutchland. It doesn't matter if others call it Germany or not, and it's NOT a question of pronunciation. It's a question of failure to respect another country's language/culture to call it what THEY call it in the present day, in THEIR language. Why can't we? Is it too difficult? Too inconvenient? In Italy, THEY call it Italia, why can't everyone else just call it Italia? We made the switch with Chinese provinces and cities, and we don't change the pronunciation of foreign given and family names, so why can't we do the same for counties? Just MHO, which is worth what you paid for it.

I do tend to agree with you at some level.

• Missouri should end with an 'uh' sound, because the people there say it that way. But most of the US says it so that it rhymes with "happy".
• Nevada and Colorado both have a middle syllable that sound the same - to the locals - and that sound is the same 'a' sound as in "hat", not the 'o' sound in "hot".
• Staunton, VA is pronounced "Stant-in", not "Stont-in".
• And don't get me started on the Appalachian mountains that I grew up in. There is no long "A" sound in the middle of it!. The underlined 'a' has the same sound as the a in "at"., not the 'a' in "ate".

Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but...

I am no linguist, but I think it has to do with the evolution of language. Many languages evolved over time from similar ancestor languages. Just like the word for water is Acaua in Italian, Agua, in Spanish, and Agua in Portuguese, it can be determined that all three derived from the same ancestral language family: Latin. However, Wasser in German, Vand in Danish, Voda in Russian, Woda in Polish, and Voda in Czech all evolved from the Indo-European language family. Note that even within this family, there are branches, such as the Germanic branch and the Slavic branch - but all came from the same family.

So...names can have similar evolution. Joseph is NOT a colonial interpretation of another word, rather it is an evolution of the Hebrew name Yossef. As time went on, and words are passed from one people to another (see the telephone game as an example), there are different evolutions: Guisseppe in Italian, Yusif in Azerbaijani, and Jozef in Dutch. Our evolution of this word as Joseph is just one of many interpretations over time.

Now...Bombay suddenly became Mumbai...that's silly. Of course, it's a way of a new generation or culture shunning a previous culture, or honoring a new one, but I still call it Bombay with my Indian friends (and they, for the most part, do the same). Same as how Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City, and Constantinopolis became Istanbul.

...of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.