Comments on: Exonym – what you probably call ‘Roma’

By: James John Malcolm (AkaXakA)

James John Malcolm (AkaXakA) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:59:55 +0000

So a photo taken by an English speaker in Germany may be labelled: Germany, Munich. Whereas taken by a native German speaker may be labelled: Deutschland, München.

Even better, it’d just be labelled “München”, as most of us live in a world where there aren’t (important) towns with the same name everywhere.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:03:58 +0000

You’re right that it would be interesting and beneficial to culture to return to the Exonyms. However, sometimes the ‘local’ name may be in conflict between locals.

And teaching visitors and interested people the endonym will help make the name more common outside the region. I try to use the endonym whenever I travel, but I also know for a little while I completely butcher the pronunciation.

By: Daniel Morrison

Daniel Morrison — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:53:17 +0000

I’ve always thought it was stupid that we change the names of things (though we’ve done it for millennia). Nice to know they have terms for this.

As we become a more connected world, it seems like we’d be better off using endonyms whenever possible, but I guess databases of matches is a good start.