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The UK government is changing the full name ('State Title') only, not the short name ('Country Name'). The UK gov follows the standards set by the Permanent Com
by robga 4y ago
The UK government is changing the full name ('State Title') only, not the short name ('Country Name'). The UK gov follows the standards set by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use. This body includes the BBC, Royal Geographical Society, etc. So I suppose the BBC will continue to use Turkey.
"Turkey; Republic of Turkey changed to Turkey; Republic of Türkiye"
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/country-names/country-name-changes-in-hmg-use-1919-to-2020 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/country-names/cou...
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/the-permanent-committee-on-geographical-names https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/the-permanent-committee...
There is the precedent of Burma/Myanmar, "Country name remains Burma reflecting common British English usage". Similarly for Cabo Verde, "Cape Verde had circulated a request for this form to be used, though UK has retained the common English usage for the country name".
However, it did recently change Swaziland to Eswatini and I know which one I'd vote for as being common usage.
The ISO codes are not always adopted verbatim. e.g. The UK gov list does not include Taiwan. ISO plays both sides, giving it a country code but calling it a province of China. On the other hand the UK does include Kosovo which is not an ISO country but is recognised as one by approx 50% of nations including the UK.
Other countries have similar national naming committees to the UK's PCGN, you can see a list here https://unstats.un.org/unsd/ungegn/nna/nna-committees/ https://unstats.un.org/unsd/ungegn/nna/nna-committees/
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> There is the precedent of Burma/Myanmar, "Country name remains Burma reflecting common British English usage". Myanmar has the much bigger problem that it has no adjectival form, requiring even the most politically correct people to use "Burmese". (Technically, that's not true - the official adjectival form, according to Myanmar, should be "Myanma". Good luck getting English speakers to understand that.)
- dragonwriter 4y ago> Technically, that's not true - the official adjectival form, according to Myanmar, should be "Myanma". Good luck getting English speakers to understand that. How is that any harder than Afghanistan => Afghan.
- schoen 4y agoI can think of two ways: First, many English-speakers are familiar with -stan, which is used in seven different country names, plus some region names. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-stan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-stan For most of these, you can get an ethnonym or demonym by removing -stan or -istan. Second, the -ar in particular has a lot of trouble with non-rhotic English accents, where "Myanmar" might already be pronounced the same as "Myanma"!
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> Second, the -ar in particular has a lot of trouble with non-rhotic English accents, where "Myanmar" might already be pronounced the same as "Myanma"! It's supposed to be. Both names, "Burma" and "Myanmar", are formed under the assumption that your English pronunciation is non-rhotic. The same is true of the common Korean surname "Park", which does not contain any R-like sound. British spellings of foreign words really cause tremendous damage to the pronunciations used by rhotic speakers.
- TillE 4y ago> British spellings of foreign words really cause tremendous damage to the pronunciations used by rhotic speakers. It's such a strange thing to use an 'r' to modify the sound of the preceding vowel, and it's not even as if it's 100% consistent, because all English is a mess. This expectation also leads to comical situations like the typical British pronunciation of "pasta". I guess the Italians should have spelled it parsta.
- Smaug123 4y agoGot a source for your "typical British pronunciation" of "pasta" being non-Italian? I read your comment as asserting that typical Brits pronounce it as "par-sta" with a non-rhotic 'r', but I don't think I've ever heard anyone except the Australian John Torode pronounce it that way.
- 4y ago
- orlp 4y agoNot sure why people didn't just agree on -i. Qatar -> Qatari, Zanzibar -> Zanzibari, to me Myanmar -> Myanmari makes perfect sense to me.
- adhesive_wombat 4y agoThe -i ending comes from Arabic which makes it seem a bit out of place in Myanmar (not to mention the obvious religious tension). -ese, -ian, -an and -n all come from Latin via routes of varying directness, which is why they feel somewhat "neutral" in English (e.g. Congolese and Japanese both seem cromulent and not intrinsically African or Asian).
- kenneth 4y agoHow did we arrive at Guamanian as the adjective for of Guam?
- joshxyz 4y agomyanmarese maybe? or myanmarian? haha
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> (e.g. Congolese and Japanese both seem cromulent and not intrinsically African or Asian) I have faced questions from Chinese people about why only Asians receive an -ese suffix in English.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago"Chinese" in English comes from Portuguese ("chinês"), who were some of the earliest Europeans there. -ês and -ese both come from the same Latin origin. I hazard that words like Cantonese, etc., came either via the same route, or by back-formation to match the existing wider term "Chinese". Interestingly, "Japanner" used to be another word for a Japanese person.
- yencabulator 4y agoSwissi? Austriai? Norwayi?
- biztos 4y agoI have heard the people of Myanmar referred to as “Myanese” many times, in English, in Thailand. Enough that I might guess it’ll establish itself, like Czech people being “from Czech” did in much of Europe (in English).
- kenneth 4y agoCzech people are usually referred in English as being from Czechia (if you don't wanna use the unwieldy Czech Republic)
- biztos 4y agoYeah, that’s what one might expect, given than “Czechia” is pretty close to some historical words for the area. But it has not been my experience at all that Czechia was the “usual” word, at least among English speakers in Europe. Nor do I personally find it any less unwieldy than “Czech Republic” but that’s my bias. Assuming you also speak from experience, is there any easy way to verify this? I don’t mean the official name, I mean what people actually say in English when referring to the country a Czech comes from.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoI have no experience of what English speakers say in Europe. My only option to refer to the country is "the Czech Republic", but the one Czech guy I've met did ask that people refer to the country as "Czech".
- jonathankoren 4y agoReminds me of Ivory Coast insisting that everyone call it Côte d'Ivoire, or even the "Republic of Côte d'Ivoire". Sure, fine, whatever. Everyone deserves to be called by their preferred name. I find it weird though, because every country has a respectful exonym, so a direct translation doesn't seem wrong, and mixing languages seems even weirder. I don't know why personal names don't typically get translated, but country names do, so this is not a hill worth dying on. It's just odd to me, especially since they are sticking with the colonial name instead of changing to some indigenous name.
- bombcar 4y agoPersonal names will sometimes be translated - depending on when the person moved or decided to present as. I know of Indian colleagues who go by an English-sounding name that is at least somewhat close to their actual name. Others have anglicized a spelling that is phonetically close. The main difference is that you can ask them what they prefer as they’re right there. It’s harder to ask an entire country.
- roxymusic1973 4y ago> Personal names will sometimes be translated - depending on when the person moved or decided to present as. E.g. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_II_del_Reino_Unido https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_II_del_Reino_Unido