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by Mawgan on March 11th, 2007

Mawgan

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Why should place names be different in other languages? For instance, why is the Italian city of Roma called 'Rome' in English?

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  • by Brian I on March 11th, 2007

    Brian I

    Often it's because, over the years the real names have become Anglicised due to our not understanding the other language's pronunciation. That must be why we say Paris, as it is spelt, but in French it is Paree. English speakers are notoriously lazy and abbreviate words, so Roma (2 syllables) becomes Rome (1 syllable).

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  • by singwell-is off researching a lot on March 11th, 2007

    singwell-is off researching a lot

    English gets many of its overseas forms of place names from the French, because of the influence of French upon the language and history of England ( the Norman Invasion 1066 AD), so place names such as Rome follow the French spelling, rather than the proper Italian one. The same for other Italian cities, and, indeed, many European ones.

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  • by MvL on July 23rd, 2010

    MvL

    They should NOT be different. We should standardize them and they should be the same everywhere (the same as in the country of origin). The same should apply to the names of the languages, and of the peoples. I would also extend this to religious and historical figures, like Moses, Jesus, Socrates, Plato, etc. - all NOT their original pronunciations. Of course it's not always easy - some sounds and vocalizations don't quite translate between languages (like rolling R's, or the gutturals from Hebrew or Dutch or Yiddish), but, as closely as possible, we should try to standardize them across languages. After all, a name is a name, not a word that should be translated. If your name is Charles, it should not be translated as Carlos or Karl depending on where you go.

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