Wik raised an interesting point in an edit summary re: [[Gdansk]]:
there never has been any English name for this city, so the local name is used, which since 1945 is Gdansk
On one level, I think he's right, but I think he's drawing the wrong conclusion. Bear with me here...
Does Michael Jackson have a Russian name? I don't think so; he's an American pop artist. He's not "Mikhail Jakovitch" or any such thing. Even if some Russians decided to translate his name into their language, that wouldn't mean it was his real name.
Gdansk doesn't "have an English name". It has an official Polish name, and it has also had a German name.
On the other hand, English speakers and map-makers and geography teachers have /applied/ English names to countless places. We used to call the capital of mainland China "Pekin" or "Peking", but around 10 or 20 years ago there was a big re-shuffle and we adopted a closer transliteration: "Beijing".
The capital of the USSR (and still capital of Russia) is Moskva (or Moscow, I forget which). We're an English-language encyclopedia, we have to call places /something/. Moscow doesn't have an English name per se; it's a Russian city with a Russian name. But English-speaking people have been referring to it with the /English word/ 'Moscow'.
Now, whether its Oder River or Odra River, Gdansk or Danzig, we English speakers /give/ English names to everything. We have to, if we are to speak of them at all.
This doesn't mean we are changing its name or endorsing some version of its name. One of the first thing any English speaker does when learning a foreign language is to find out the native names for the countries which speak that language. No one in Japan calls it "Japan"; it's Nihon or Nippon, without any hint of a "J" sound. French call it "Japon", but that doesn't mean Japan has a French name. It just means that French speakers use the word /Japon/ to refer to it. Its real name is not disturbed or altered by what foreigners call it.
I hope this provides a basis for ending the year-long battle over Gdansk and Odra/Oder.
Ed Poor, aka Unsolved Equation
Ed Poor wrote
Gdansk doesn't "have an English name". It has an
official Polish name, and it has also had a German name.
Can't agree with that. It was always called Dantzig in the past. From the Lech Walesa/Solidarity period onwards it was called Gdansk very prominently. That's what we call it now.
Charles
Yes, but to a stamp collecter it will always be Danzig.
Fred
From: "Charles Matthews" charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 17:26:36 -0000 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] English names
Ed Poor wrote
Gdansk doesn't "have an English name". It has an
official Polish name, and it has also had a German name.
Can't agree with that. It was always called Dantzig in the past. From the Lech Walesa/Solidarity period onwards it was called Gdansk very prominently. That's what we call it now.
Charles
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
And to a member of the Solidarity movement it will always be Gdansk.
From: "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@ctelco.net To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 12:33 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] English names
Yes, but to a stamp collecter it will always be Danzig.
Fred
From: "Charles Matthews" charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 17:26:36 -0000 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] English names
Ed Poor wrote
Gdansk doesn't "have an English name". It has an
official Polish name, and it has also had a German name.
Can't agree with that. It was always called Dantzig in the past. From
the
Lech Walesa/Solidarity period onwards it was called Gdansk very
prominently.
That's what we call it now.
Charles
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Charles Matthews wrote:
Ed Poor wrote
Gdansk doesn't "have an English name". It has an
official Polish name, and it has also had a German name.
Can't agree with that. It was always called Dantzig in the past. From the Lech Walesa/Solidarity period onwards it was called Gdansk very prominently. That's what we call it now.
Yes, but using Gdansk exclusively is sometimes a bit confusing in historical context, especially when dealing with Germans (such as Arthur Schopenhauer) who were from what they (and English-speakers at the time) called "Danzig", since it is often referred to as Danzig in contemporary historical works as well (modern biographies of Schopenhauer, for example). I think we should just say something like "German philosopher from from Danzig (present-day Gdansk, Poland)", possibly with alternate wording.
-Mark
"Charles Matthews" charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com writes:
Trivia question: what do Woody Allen and Kaliningrad have in common?
Formerly called Königsberg. What do I win?
On Wednesday 21 January 2004 17:33, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
The capital of the USSR (and still capital of Russia) is Moskva (or Moscow, I forget which). We're an English-language encyclopedia, we have to call places /something/. Moscow doesn't have an English name per se; it's a Russian city with a Russian name. But English-speaking people have been referring to it with the /English word/ 'Moscow'.
The way I see it, Moscow and Japan have their English names, which are not same as their original names.