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0 pointsmyrmidon7mo ago0 comments

> Praha

This is a pet peeve of mine, but there is an english name for that city and it's Prague.

There is no point in using the local spelling because it adds no clarity, is less obvious to pronounce for any reader and the locals are not really gonna thank you for doing this either. Just seems like a form of light cultural white-knighting to me.

You are not even consistent because Warsaw is not how locals spell that.

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mc327mo ago

It's a peeve of mine as well moreso when they don't carry it out for English placenames that get transliterated into a local language but some of these folks will carry the localized version -like they won't insist on "New York" instead of Nova Iorque in PR or BR. But even above, they are inconsistent with Warsaw carrying the English spelling.

NoMoreNicksLeft7mo ago

Exonyms are colonialism.

otabdeveloper47mo ago

Eh, no?

The most prominent exonyms are of cities like Paris, London, Moscow or Beijing.

I.e., places culturally and historically significant enough that older historical pronunciations have become ossified in foreign languages.

English having a "Prague" spelling means the name of the city was important enough to have entered the English language back in the day when English was still borrowing heavily from French.

NoMoreNicksLeft7mo ago

Um. Beijing's not the exonym. Like, maybe this reveals that I'm ancient at this point, but I remember it being Peking at least the first few years of school.

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mc327mo ago

NoMoreNicksLeft7mo ago

Exonyms are colonialism.

otabdeveloper47mo ago

Eh, no?

The most prominent exonyms are of cities like Paris, London, Moscow or Beijing.

I.e., places culturally and historically significant enough that older historical pronunciations have become ossified in foreign languages.

English having a "Prague" spelling means the name of the city was important enough to have entered the English language back in the day when English was still borrowing heavily from French.

NoMoreNicksLeft7mo ago

Um. Beijing's not the exonym. Like, maybe this reveals that I'm ancient at this point, but I remember it being Peking at least the first few years of school.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse