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Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

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Re: Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

#21

Post by Beretta_Vexee »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #8
Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably mean endonymy and exonymy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym Different groups can have different names for the same thing. For example, country names change depending on the language.

So "both" means a) the endonym and b) the exonym of the country in which the user is currently located? Makes sense, I guess. Edit: However, as far as I can tell, there IS no endonym in this case, so it should be exonyms all round?

It's a bit complicated to talk about an endonym for the Gulf of Mexico. There's no endogenous group in the Gulf of Mexico, because nobody lives there.

So yes, there are only exonyms.

Re: Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

#22

Post by mathieuh »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #8
Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably mean endonymy and exonymy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym Different groups can have different names for the same thing. For example, country names change depending on the language.

So "both" means a) the endonym and b) the exonym of the country in which the user is currently located? Makes sense, I guess. Edit: However, as far as I can tell, there IS no endonym in this case, so it should be exonyms all round?

The endonym and exonym in English were the same previously (Gulf of Mexico). The endonym is now is changing to Gulf of America while the exonym is remaining Gulf of Mexico.

I'm not aware of any other places where there is the case in English but looking at places in India it seems the exonym just appears on a different line above the endonym.

So I would expect to see

Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of America

over the body of water when this is updated.

Re: Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

#23

Post by docdeek »

It’s nothing special. If I visit Google Maps (France) then the channel of water between France and the UK is labelled ‘Manche’. If I visit Google Maps (US) the same body of water is labeled ‘English Channel’. The real notable event is the official change of name by the US government, not the follow on regionalization of maps.

Re: Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

#24

Post by hbossy »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #4

> when “name changes vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. Can someone clarify this bit? What does "both" refer to: the local name and ?

Local, traditional name and the official name requested by the country embassy. For example at one point Birma changed it's name to Mjanma. It looks like this https://postimg.cc/zHYKb3DF

Re: Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

#25

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

jdougan wrote: post #19
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's intended as the former, even though it ironically aligns quite nicely with the latter.

I think it should have been: "Gulf of the Americas"

Even "Gulf of America" wouldn't be SO bad if people like me (non-US English speaker) can wean ourselves off the habit of referring to the US as "America". I'm going to start doing my bit.

Re: Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

#28

Post by nicbou »

pmb wrote: post #18

Countries can tell companies what the maps of their countries should look like and what things should be called. For example, Google shows different info about the Kashmir region depending on whether you are in Pakistan or India or external to both, because of how the Indian and Pakistani governments define the borders and names of the region. If the US government changes a thing's name, then Google will change that…

When I worked at HERE Maps this was a pretty standard thing to do. Countries have official named in multiple languages. Borders are seen differently by different governments. A map is anything but static.

Re: Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

#29

Post by mrweasel »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #4

> when “name changes vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. Can someone clarify this bit? What does "both" refer to: the local name and ?

That seems a little like a typo, or a broken sentence, because it make no sense. (Google) Maps users will see their official local name, i.e. Mexican users will still see "Gulf of Mexico" (but in Spanish), but apparently anyone not using Google Maps will see both names... How can Google know that?

Based on local news, what they will actually do is have Maps display Gulf of Mexico for Mexican users, and Gulf of America for US users. Everyone else gets both.

Re: Google Maps in the US Will Change to Gulf of America and Mount McKinley

#30

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

hbossy wrote: post #24
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #4

> when “name changes vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. Can someone clarify this bit? What does "both" refer to: the local name and ?

Local, traditional name and the official name requested by the country embassy. For example at one point Birma changed it's name to Mjanma. It looks like this https://postimg.cc/zHYKb3DF

I think that, because it's an international body of water, there IS no "official" name.
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