Ed Dawkins on Allahu Akhbar

[TubbaBlubba]

That's very different from expecting people to change the pronunciation in daily speech. If I say "Genghis Khan" to a friend they know what I mean. If I say "Chinghis" they'll give me a weird look, and while they'll probably figure it out it only makes communication more difficult. The purpose of language is communication of ideas, the medium in which it's expressed is really unimportant.

Where have I expressed such an expectation? I have merely said that there are many good reasons consistent with wide-ranging practices to use a better representation of the name. Those who find my arguments compelling are free to adapt it, and will probably like me find that nobody struggles to understand "Chinggis".

Again, I don't understand the objection "most people won't be convinced by your words alone". That has no bearing on whether the arguments are valid. That it is possible to shift usage is easily seen by looking at how e.g. Arabic names have shifted to being rendered more accurately, as notoriously tricky as romanizing Arabic is. Therefore the arguments cannot be prima facie irrelevant.

 

[ddt]

"Munich" derives from the Old or Middle High German "Munichen" ("by the Monks"). The -en is a descriptive ending, so it is typical for it to drop off. Hence, Munich is not an incoherent illogical bastardization of "München", it shares a common ancestor. It's a High German word adapted into English in a conventional manner.

I think you may be mistaken in the "conventional manner" in this case. I think it was copied from French. That's the best rule of thumb for English exonyms for German toponyms in any case. A couple of examples:

German|French|English
Aachen|Aix-la-Chapelle|Aix-la-Chapelle
Aargau|Argovie|Argovia
Basel|Basle|Basle
Braunschweig|Brunswick|Brunswick
Donau|Danube|Danube
Kleve|Clèves|Cleves
Köln|Cologne|Cologne
Konstanz|Constance|Constance
Luxemburg|Luxembourg|Luxembourg
Mainz|Mayence|Mayence
Nürnberg|Nuremberg|Nuremberg
Pfalz|Palatinat|Palatinate
Regensburg|Ratisbon|Ratisbon
Speyer|Spire|Spire
Steiermark|Styrie|Styria
Trier|Trèves|Treves
Wien|Vienne|Vienna

Works pretty well.

ETA: some of these English exonyms have fallen out of favour by now, and the localities are now referred to by their German names. That only reinforces the point.

 

[Elagabalus]

I think you may be mistaken in the "conventional manner" in this case. I think it was copied from French. That's the best rule of thumb for English exonyms for German toponyms in any case. A couple of examples:

German|French|English
Aachen|Aix-la-Chapelle|Aix-la-Chapelle
Aargau|Argovie|Argovia
Basel|Basle|Basle
Braunschweig|Brunswick|Brunswick
Donau|Danube|Danube
Kleve|Clèves|Cleves
Köln|Cologne|Cologne
Konstanz|Constance|Constance
Luxemburg|Luxembourg|Luxembourg
Mainz|Mayence|Mayence
Nürnberg|Nuremberg|Nuremberg
Pfalz|Palatinat|Palatinate
Regensburg|Ratisbon|Ratisbon
Speyer|Spire|Spire
Steiermark|Styrie|Styria
Trier|Trèves|Treves
Wien|Vienne|Vienna

Works pretty well.

ETA: some of these English exonyms have fallen out of favour by now, and the localities are now referred to by their German names. That only reinforces the point.

Tisk. tisk.

German|French|English
Aachen|Aix-la-Chapelle|Aachen
Aargau|Argovie|Argovia
Basel| Bâle |Basle
Braunschweig|Brunswick|Braunschweig
Donau|Danube|Danube
Kleve|Clèves|Cleves
Köln|Cologne|Cologne
Konstanz|Constance|Constance
Luxemburg|Luxembourg|Luxembourg
Mainz|Mayence|Mainz
Nürnberg|Nuremberg|Nuremberg
Pfalz|Palatinat|Pfalz
Regensburg|Ratisbon|Regensburg
Speyer|Spire|Speyer
Steiermark|Styrie|Styria
Trier|Trèves|Trier
Wien|Vienne|Vienna

And don't forget Padua and Genoa sound more mellifluous in English than they do in Italian (Padova and Genova).*





* only because we stole them from Spanish.

 

[theprestige]

... except for the tiny little fact that Mumbai is the official name of the city:

And I'll be sure to use the Official Orthography whenever I'm preparing official documents for the Indian government.

Outside of that, how much do you really care if someone refers to Mumbai in some variant of Hindi?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

some variant of Hindi?

What variants of Hindi? Hindi is one of two main variants of Hindustani (the other is Urdu), basically the lingua franca of the northern half of Greater India. It's a heavily Persian-influenced Sanskrit derivative.

There are many other Indo-Aryan languages (essentially Sanskrit derivatives) among them Gujarati, Marathi, Sindhi, Punjabi, Bengali, etc. They are not "variants of Hindi" any more than English is a "variant of Dutch".

 

[TubbaBlubba]

I think you may be mistaken in the "conventional manner" in this case. I think it was copied from French. That's the best rule of thumb for English exonyms for German toponyms in any case. A couple of examples:

German|French|English
Aachen|Aix-la-Chapelle|Aix-la-Chapelle
Aargau|Argovie|Argovia
Basel|Basle|Basle
Braunschweig|Brunswick|Brunswick
Donau|Danube|Danube
Kleve|Clèves|Cleves
Köln|Cologne|Cologne
Konstanz|Constance|Constance
Luxemburg|Luxembourg|Luxembourg
Mainz|Mayence|Mayence
Nürnberg|Nuremberg|Nuremberg
Pfalz|Palatinat|Palatinate
Regensburg|Ratisbon|Ratisbon
Speyer|Spire|Spire
Steiermark|Styrie|Styria
Trier|Trèves|Treves
Wien|Vienne|Vienna

Works pretty well.

ETA: some of these English exonyms have fallen out of favour by now, and the localities are now referred to by their German names. That only reinforces the point.

Right, fair, but the point being that "Munich" isn't a bastardization of München, it's a sensible representation of an older name.

 

[zooterkin]

Right, fair, but the point being that "Munich" isn't a bastardization of München, it's a sensible representation of an older name.

Well, that's not a claim I ever made.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Well, that's not a claim I ever made.

Right, but it is the grounds on which I reject your equivalence. Unless you have another substantive ground for the comparison that proves... whatever you're trying to prove, I guess?

 

[Roboramma]

Suppose we accept this assertion as true. What is its substantive content? What does it matter that "usage defines language? So wvat, if according to some standard we can slap the label "English-language name" on a particular word?

Well, for me personally I actually found myself considering the issue of how to pronounce that historical figure's name when having day to day conversations with friends. For a little while I found myself very interested in the history of the Mongols and of Genghis Khan in particular, and was having conversations* about that history with friends. I came to the conclusion that it was more useful to use "Genghis" because I was more easily understood and the conversations flowed more naturally (if I say "Chinghis" and you say "Genghis" there's a sort of weird feeling to the conversation).

On the other hand in different contexts I can see using a different pronunciation.

*With non-chinese friends

 

[Roboramma]

Where have I expressed such an expectation? I have merely said that there are many good reasons consistent with wide-ranging practices to use a better representation of the name. Those who find my arguments compelling are free to adapt it, and will probably like me find that nobody struggles to understand "Chinggis".

But some might find your usage pretentious or grating.

Again, I don't understand the objection "most people won't be convinced by your words alone". That has no bearing on whether the arguments are valid.

I'm honestly not seeing that I made that objection...

I think you are saying that "Genghis" is objectively worse as a transliteration, but that misses the fact that it's already been adopted. The context of the speakers of the language is a part of the context in which we determine how to pronounce words.

My only argument here is that pronunciation is completely unimportant except as much as it impacts on communication.

That it is possible to shift usage is easily seen by looking at how e.g. Arabic names have shifted to being rendered more accurately, as notoriously tricky as romanizing Arabic is. Therefore the arguments cannot be prima facie irrelevant.

Sure, and if that change happens from a shift first in scholarly literature then in educational materials and from there moves to society at large that sounds like a good thing. But I wouldn't see any reason to criticise someone's choice of spelling in a tweet.

 

[sphenisc]

Dash it all! If bloody Johnny Foreigner doesn't want his name mispronounced he should damn well learn to spell properly!

Yours etc.

Cholmondeley Mainwaring Featherstonhaugh,
16 Grosvenor Place,
London.

 

[ddt]

They are not "variants of Hindi" any more than English is a "variant of Dutch".

Wait. I thought English was a variant of Frisian? I think I read that in the Oera Linda Book.

 

[ddt]

Right, fair, but the point being that "Munich" isn't a bastardization of München, it's a sensible representation of an older name.

No, but you see sort-of the inverse happening here. Keeping the same spelling (as in French, in this case) leads to a different pronunciation.

 

[ddt]

And I'll be sure to use the Official Orthography whenever I'm preparing official documents for the Indian government.

Outside of that, how much do you really care if someone refers to Mumbai in some variant of Hindi?

While you personally may not care, apparently the BBC, and CNN, and the NYT, etc. etc. do care to use the preferred names in their articles. Funny that.

 

[zooterkin]

Right, but it is the grounds on which I reject your equivalence. Unless you have another substantive ground for the comparison that proves... whatever you're trying to prove, I guess?

I'm not trying to prove anything. I think we've established that Genghis Khan is the common English name for the founder of the Mongol Empire. I first thought your objection was that it wasn't an accurate transliteration, but you don't seem to mind Munich, or James, so your objection seems to be purely the way the English name was arrived at. On those grounds, you've got a lot of other English names and words to object to.

 

[zooterkin]

Dash it all! If bloody Johnny Foreigner doesn't want his name mispronounced he should damn well learn to spell properly!

Yours etc.

Cholmondeley Mainwaring Featherstonhaugh,
16 Grosvenor Place,
London.

Of course, Johnny Foreigner would never do anything like that. Well, except, for example, the French for 'London' is 'Londres", and the Japanese for Britain is 'Igirisu'.

 

[ddt]

Of course, Johnny Foreigner would never do anything like that. Well, except, for example, the French for 'London' is 'Londres", and the Japanese for Britain is 'Igirisu'.

You forgot that the French for England is "Angleterre" and for Great Britain is "La perfide Albion".

 

[TubbaBlubba]

I'm not trying to prove anything. I think we've established that Genghis Khan is the common English name for the founder of the Mongol Empire. I first thought your objection was that it wasn't an accurate transliteration, but you don't seem to mind Munich, or James, so your objection seems to be purely the way the English name was arrived at. On those grounds, you've got a lot of other English names and words to object to.

I have given you numerous grounds - one of the more pertinent ones, a commonly made point in academia, is that we ought to show respect for the Mongolian nature of Mongolian history and not engage in cultural erasure. That's hardly an issue with Biblical names or German cities. Again, grouping "Genghis" with any number of other Mongol/Turko-Mongol warlords reveals that in all other cases accurate romanization is aimed for. Nobody got their knickers in a twist about "Tamerlane" being shifted to "Timur".

 

[Roboramma]

I we ought to show respect for the Mongolian nature of Mongolian history and not engage in cultural erasure.

What does the spelling or pronunciation of a name have to do with cultural erasure?

 

[zooterkin]

I have given you numerous grounds - one of the more pertinent ones, a commonly made point in academia, is that we ought to show respect for the Mongolian nature of Mongolian history and not engage in cultural erasure.

That was not your original argument; not sure what cultural erasure is going on, though. It does appear you want to erase a couple of centuries of English usage. This isn't about what should be; I'll happily concede there are better romanisations, but Genghis Khan is still what he's called in English.

That's hardly an issue with Biblical names or German cities.

Surely that's also showing lack of respect? Why should a 13th century warlord merit more respect than a current city in Germany, or a disciple of Christ?

Again, grouping "Genghis" with any number of other Mongol/Turko-Mongol warlords reveals that in all other cases accurate romanization is aimed for.

Genghis got his name in English assigned early because his fame reached England, and it remained in circulation for the ensuing centuries; the later ones did less of note, so it was left to scholars much later to give them an English name.

Nobody got their knickers in a twist about "Tamerlane" being shifted to "Timur".

You mean Tamburlaine? Most people who are aware of him only know the play by Marlowe. His name is not common currency, unlike Genghis Khan.