missypie

I've always been puzzled as to why we in the US call so many European cities by names other than their real names. Do they do that in the UK, too, or just in the US? Do Europeans have different names for US cities, or are we the only ones who do that?

richardab

I believe that to an Italian I live in STATI UNITI.

P_M

This is definitely not just an American thing, it's about languages. I studied Spanish for sereral years, and yes some names do vary with the language. For example, in the Spanish language, London is Londres, England is La Inglaterra, and New York is Nueva York. These are just a few of countless examples I could give. But you get the idea, some city and country names do change with language.

lincasanova

torino, i believe.

how about "osterreich?
(austria). this "translation" mania does not only happen in English.
In Spanish they also say "austria".

P_M

RATS, I meant "several" not sereral.

julia_t

Without really sitting down to think about, I know the Italians have cities called Roma, Venezia, Milano, to name just three. In the UK and US we call those same cities Rome, Venice, Milan.

We also tend to say Pariss for Paris and the French say Paree.

There are many more examples, all over Europe, I'm sure I'll think of loads more as soon as I've posted this!

logos999

Kalifornien
Kanada
Pennsylvanien
München !!! not Munich
San Franzisko
......

traveller1959

missypie,

this is an old European tradition.

First, many European cities have changed their names, and in some countries the old names are still in use. E.g., the city of Nice once belonged not to France but to Italy and was named "Nizza". So we Germans still call this town Nizza. The city of Gdansk in Poland was once a German city named Danzig. The Germans still say "Danzig". In this case, it is hard to say what the "real" name of the city is. The "original" name is Danzig, the "current" name Gdansk came when the city was conquered in the war. An interesting case is Leningrad/Sankt Petersburg. The communists changed the original name to Leningrad and after erosion of the communist system the population voted for the original name Sankt Petersburg.

Second, in other languages the grammatical endings are often adjusted to one's own language. E.g. the Italians say "Roma", the English "Rome" and the Germans "Rom". It is basically the same word.

Third, names are sometimes changed because they are difficult to pronounce. E.g. "München" is very hard to say (and even to spell) for English-speaking people, so they "Munich".

CotswoldScouser

Of course Europeans have words in their own languages for foreign cities.

But where Europeans differ profoundly from many Americans is that they don't think it's more "correct" to abandon their language.

The French talk, in French, about Londres, Douvres, Edimbourg and - at any rate the two or three Frenchmen who've ever bothered travelling out of their own country - Cornouaille and the Pays des Galles (Wales). They never say "J'ira en Wales demain".

The silly American habit of using pretentious nonsense like Brugge (for the city called Bruges in English) or Torino (for Turin) is unheard of in any European language - or in British.

So,for the benefit of doubt these, and no others, are the correct English words for some major European cities:

Copenhagen
Cologne
Bruges
The Hague
Munich
Prague
Lisbon
Geneva
Milan
Turin
Rome
Venice
Florence
Naples
Leghorn if you really want to show off
Sienna if you want to follow traditional spelling
Athens, in spite of the Greeks' attempts to call it Athinai.

Do we tell the Greeks how to speak their language? Does anyone ever tell them not to call my city Londino? Quite

Joe18

In addition to St. Petersburg and Leningrad and now St. Petersburg again, the city was also known as Petrograd for a number of years in the early 20th century. At the outbreak of WW I, the government decided St. Petersburg sounded too German and Russified the name. During WW I, the English royal family also changed their name from Saxe Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. When the German kaiser heard the news, he supposedly asked for a production of the Merry Wives of Saxe Coburg-Gotha.

logos999

Kopenhagen
Köln
Brügge
Den Haag
München
Prag
Lissabon
Genf
Mailand
Turin
Rom
Venedig
Florenz
Neapel

marti1

TORINO- IN ITALIAN.
Names of cities, continents or people
should not change, according to old school-literaries and grammars; regarding the country you're from.
This changing of names has become a common practice , but it is incorrect.
if your name is Mary- it will be Mary
in China, Mary in Spain, in Alaska.
Maria would be someone else not your self.right!
let's keep Italia-not Italy
Have a great day!

CheBird

Well, I'm American and I've always called "Turin" Torino because our relatives still live there and that's obviously what they call it. So according to CotswoldScouser, I must be a silly pretentious American!

logos999

> China
Do you mean "Zhongguo"? Never heared of a country called "China" before ;-) An where or what is "Spain"?

rkkwan

From what I understand, it's the Italian organizer that's pushing the name "Torino" onto the media and press. It's not NBC who decides it's cute to do it.

kleeblatt

Right.
My friend's name is Theresa. The Swiss called her Trizza. It sounded rather odd so she changed it to Theres. But then they always spelled her name wrong. So she changed it again to Theresa, pronounced with short "e"s. But in the meantime, the Swiss finally got the hang of saying Theresa, English style. Now she's totally confused.

So there goes the Mary theory.

RufusTFirefly

Nuevo York (sometimes Nueva York).

Miguk is the USA in Korean.
Ilbon is Japan
Chung-guk is China.

CotswoldS--I don't understand what's pretentious about some Americans using the Dutch term Brugge as opposed to the British term--or the actual name of a city like Torino.

I've seen and heard both Bruges and Brugge used--doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. American English has developed somewhat differently from British English, and the USA is quite large, so there are many regional differences within the country as well--just as there are in some little countries.

Intrepid1

"gay Pariggi"??????

logos999

I think, it's not so nice when you're using a name for a place, that is neither in your own language, nor the language of the people actually living there. ie. many people here use Italian names for places with 99.9% German speaking population.
Why do they do it? I don't know...

Sue_xx_yy

logos999

There are any number of places which are named in languages other than that of the majority of the population.

Saskatchewan, for example. Or Ottawa. Or Mississippi or Missouri. Or Nova Scotia (come to think of it, who speaks Latin anymore?)

English itself is hardly an ethnically pure language. It started off as a Germanic language, but as anyone who's ever studied languages will quickly observe, it has far more similarity now to Romance languages like Italian and French and in particular, Spanish. For that matter, many languages - not just English - have evolved with time, and modern day speakers would have a hard time understanding their ancestors of a few centuries back. To you, this is 'not so nice' - to me, it is Life.

Meanwhile, those who want to change names are going to have to be patient with the rest of us. For example, I confess it took me until this year to discover that "Bombay" is now often referred to as "Mumbai". (I still don't know how to pronounce it - one of the hazards of altering spelling to suit political subtext, rather than assisting the speaker to make him/herself understood). I can't speak to whether such a change is pretentious (nod to Cotswold Scouser) but as far as I know, it wasn't Americans who instituted the change.