Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Respecting native tongue

It's often annoyed me that we refer to many countries around the world by their English labels rather than their native language.

Going on student exchange to Germany as a teenager, I remember thinking that it was one thing to know and respect that the correct name for the country was Deutschland, but hard to accept that the German name for Australia was Australien. Austria as I knew it was Osterriech, and Switzerland was Suisse, Svizra, Svizzera or Schweiz, depending on who you listened to. However, I soon realised that it was the prevalence of English colonialism, and subsequent cartography, that stamped incorrect names on globes all around the world.

Why can't we respect native tongues (especially indigenous peoples) and refer to countries as they refer to themselves? I assume that due to the varied languages within some countries such as Australia or the USA, there is no one unified label for these countries, but in most cases we could at least give it a shot.

Here's a list to get us started:

Aotearoa = Maori for New Zealand
As-Sūmāl = Arabic for Somalia
Belgique = French for Belgium
Bhārat / भारत = Hindi for India
Cymru = Welsh for Wales
Deutschland = German for Germany
España = Spanish and Galician for Spain
Suomi = Finnish for Finland
Al-Imārāt Al-Arabiyyah Al-Muttahidah / الإمارات العربيّة المتّحدة = Arabic for United Arab Emirates
Al-ʿIrāq / العراق = Arabic for Iraq
Ísland = Icelandic for Iceland
Italia = Italian for Italy
Kalaallit Nunaat = Greenlandic for Greenland
Kâmpŭchea = Cambodian for Cambodia
Kūki 'Āirani = Cook Islands Māori for Cook Islands
Nederland = Dutch for the Netherlands
Nippon / 日本 = Japanese for Japan
Norge or Noreg = Norwegian for Norway
Nouvelle-Calédonie = French for New Caledonia
Österreich = German for Austria
Poblacht na hÉireann = Irish for Republic of Ireland
Polska = Polish for Poland
Prathēt Thai / ประเทศไทย = Thai for Thailand
Srbija / Србија = Serbian for Serbia
Suisse = French for Switzerland
Sverige = Swedish for Sweden
Timor-Leste = Portuguese for East Timor
Tūnis / تونس = Arabic for Tunisia
Xiānggǎng / 香港 = Mandarin for Hong Kong
Yisra'el / ישראל = Hebrew for Israel
Zhōngguó / 中国 = Mandarin for China

0 comments:

Post a Comment