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Abe’s New Word Order

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Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#51

Post by 205guy »

twic wrote: post #24
roenxi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. I suppose this sort of thing instantly confuses me - why aren't we already calling the city München if that is what the Germans are doing?

Exonymy. Here's a lightweight survey of it in Europe: https://www.citymetric.com/horizons/which-european-cities-ha... One fun fact in there: there's a town in Bulgaria called Plovdiv, but the Italians call it Philipoppoli - and they've been calling it that since long, long before it was called Plovdiv!

Lightweight indeed. That article seemed so promising, and then it was just arbitrarily limited by its data (as the author admits but doesn't do anything to fix).

That topic has so much missed potential. He admits he left off Venice, but what about Aachen/Aix-la-Chapelle, a historical town if there ever was one. Most of his examples are just different languages changing spelling to fit their conventions (eg Italian names ending in -o). But it totally overlooks pronunciation (Paris is totally different in French and English). It would be much more interesting to understand why cities sound different in different languages, for example London in English and Londres in French--why did they add they add the r sound to that word?

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#52

Post by roel_v »

oarsinsync wrote: post #38
spats1990 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I know this is the norm for France and I vaguely believe it's normal in Europe more broadly. Is it! OK, then I more or less retract that dumb speculation /implication about the olympics (except that it makes more sense given that this capitalisation system is also used in Europe, I had never seen it outside the Olympics). Thank you.

The French are the only Europeans I know that do this. I wish more did. (I'm not French)

In Belgium it happens sometimes. In fact my bank statements are adressed like that.

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#53

Post by myrandomcomment »

So having spent the last 10+ years doing work in Japan I can say I am all in favor of having a standard here. There are times that I am handed a business card with the English names reversed (last, first) and since I have not memorized every Japanese name it can be confusing. Luckily I can read enough Kanji that I can look at the Kanji name that will always be last, first and figure out most of the time the match to the English name.

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#54

Post by gurkendoktor »

roenxi wrote: post #11
gumby wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. In Malaysia "Datuk" is used as a combined honorific with a name when speaking otherwise completely idiomatic English rather than being translated into "Sir So-and-so" It's not really differe…

> Well it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. I suppose this sort of thing instantly confuses me - why aren't we already calling the city München if that is what the Germans are doing?

> why aren't we already calling the city München if that is what the Germans are doing?

You mean, what the Deutsche are doing :) Why stop at the city level?

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#55

Post by chao- »

Freak_NL wrote: post #26
spats1990 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's a pretty random tossup between someone introducing themselves in family name first order or family name last order, even when speaking Japanese. Same in Korea, except in Korean it's fairly rare to use "you" as a mode of address and everybody has a title or family term of some kind so you can often get away with outright forgetting/never learning somebody's actual given name. But if I fill out a form or somethin…

> […] canonical hangul version of foreigners' names […] Like a list of names with their Hangul version? The problem is that you can't know how someone's name is pronounced for sure. In Japanese I provide the katakana reading for my name myself, because the chance of meeting a native Japanese speaker who can correctly derive the reading of my Dutch name in katakana is remote. Fortunately, in Japan it is already custom…

>In Japanese I provide the katakana reading for my name myself

I did the same thing while living in Japan, but mostly because a rigorous, per-syllable transliteration led to a name too long to fit on most official forms, causing an occasional bureaucratic scramble.

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#56

Post by majewsky »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #54
roenxi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. I suppose this sort of thing instantly confuses me - why aren't we already calling the city München if that is what the Germans are doing?

> why aren't we already calling the city München if that is what the Germans are doing? You mean, what the Deutsche are doing :) Why stop at the city level?

While we're on it, I demand that people stop saying Dresden. Over here, we call it more like Dräsdn, or somethings Dresdne.

(I just now notice that a sincere implementation of this effort would require adding some diacritics to the German writing system to accomodate the Saxonian dialect.)

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#57

Post by posterboy »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #31
twic wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exonymy. Here's a lightweight survey of it in Europe: https://www.citymetric.com/horizons/which-european-cities-ha... One fun fact in there: there's a town in Bulgaria called Plovdiv, but the Italians call it Philipoppoli - and they've been calling it that since long, long before it was called Plovdiv!

> but the Italians call it Philipoppoli Judging by Italian wikipedia, Filippopoli, which makes much more etymological sense. I wonder what the Italians think of this: > The city has historically developed on seven syenite hills, some of which are 250 metres (820 feet) high. Because of these hills, Plovdiv is often referred to in Bulgaria as "The City of the Seven Hills".

Eh? Siebenbergen is in Czech I thought, or Tschechien as we call it.

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#58

Post by thaumasiotes »

posterboy wrote: post #57
thaumasiotes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the Italians call it Philipoppoli Judging by Italian wikipedia, Filippopoli, which makes much more etymological sense. I wonder what the Italians think of this: > The city has historically developed on seven syenite hills, some of which are 250 metres (820 feet) high. Because of these hills, Plovdiv is often referred to in Bulgaria as "The City of the Seven Hills".

Eh? Siebenbergen is in Czech I thought, or Tschechien as we call it.

There might be another one, but I was thinking of the more famous city built on seven hills, Rome.

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#59

Post by posterboy »

205guy wrote: post #51
twic wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exonymy. Here's a lightweight survey of it in Europe: https://www.citymetric.com/horizons/which-european-cities-ha... One fun fact in there: there's a town in Bulgaria called Plovdiv, but the Italians call it Philipoppoli - and they've been calling it that since long, long before it was called Plovdiv!

Lightweight indeed. That article seemed so promising, and then it was just arbitrarily limited by its data (as the author admits but doesn't do anything to fix). That topic has so much missed potential. He admits he left off Venice, but what about Aachen/Aix-la-Chapelle, a historical town if there ever was one. Most of his examples are just different languages changing spelling to fit their conventions (eg Italian na…

I didn't know Londres.

I heard about Durres, Albania, for the first time today, too.

I had wondered about a connection between door, Germanic \dorz, Latin forum* and port, porta, portal before (Latin f frequently corresponds to English d, e.g. inferior, En under).

Suppose -dres for Londres once meant port, which is always a good guess for any bigger city's name. I can't confirm it though.

Durres derives from Dorian Greek Durrhakhion, but Greek has thura for "door"; so if I'm correct, they would have loaned the form with d. Ironically, Albanian dere "door" has a homophone "bitter; difficult, tiresome" (from a different root if akin to Greek due "misery") and one traditional explanation of Albanias means difficult coast (although there was a historical kingdom Albania far off from the coast).

By the way: It's Londer in Albanian, too, and Londres in many Romance languages.

tl;dr: nobody really knows, and the first address for French etymology doesn't explain Londres either

Re: Abe’s New Word Order

#60

Post by RenRav »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #30
spats1990 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's a pretty random tossup between someone introducing themselves in family name first order or family name last order, even when speaking Japanese. Same in Korea, except in Korean it's fairly rare to use "you" as a mode of address and everybody has a title or family term of some kind so you can often get away with outright forgetting/never learning somebody's actual given name. But if I fill out a form or somethin…

> the Olympic system, as far as I remember, capitalises family names. I know this is the norm for France and I vaguely believe it's normal in Europe more broadly. And I have to admit, capitalizing the surname makes it clear which name it is, regardless of ordering issues.

Reminds me of military uniforms displaying last names all caps.
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