It’s a very long and pointless post about how I came to the conclusion that the Japanese language is really the exception rather than the rule when it comes to naming foreign places. Along the way, meet Chinese cuisine and my arrogance regarding the English language.
As I was trying to get to sleep last night by cracking open one of the language books I bought from the book sale, I started thinking about how terms are adopted by different languages from different languages. And it got me to wondering–just how feasible is “cultural sensitivity” when it comes to foreign terms?
I remember when we were learning the names of countries in Japanese class. A lot of them were simply English loanwords, but the teacher surprised everyone when she told us “Italy” was not itarii but itaria. (Actually, upon double-checking my dictionary, it seems itarii is acceptable as well, but it’s associcated with a kanji compound…) She mentioned how the Japanese language attempts to mimic the name given to the area by the natives rather than coming up with an entirely new name for it, as we often do in English. And then, on the other hand, you have Chinese, which takes the English name for countries and renders them in Chinese characters which probably sound a lot closer in Mandarin than they do in Cantonese. *shrugs* So Japanese speakers say rooma instead of “Rome,” and the “s” in “Paris” stays silent, so you get pari. (For the record, Rome in Cantonese is “loma.” I have no idea what Paris is.)
That might be fine for Japanese, but then I started thinking of Chinese food, one area where my vocabulary is luckily quite adequate. I’m never sure how I should pronounce things like “chop suey.” Do I pronounce it as it’s written in English? As it’s called in Cantonese? If the point of the anglicization is to keep the name similar to the Cantonese original, then why say “chop suey” if I can say “雜碎”? (Wasn’t “chop suey” a dish concocted by the first wave of Chinese immigrants to North America? Explains the Cantonese etymology, anyway. Oh, in case you ever wondered, I’d translate “chop suey” as “miscellaneous bits and pieces.” Nice ring to it, huh?)
I wonder if we’re not just giving ourselves airs when we refer to Florence as “Firenze” (when we don’t speak any other Italian) or Munich as “MA~1/4nchen” (when we don’t speak any other German), butchering any language that’s not English. For me, at least, that seems to bring into question the attempt in the English language to remain culturally sensitive and politically correct. When I talk to my friends about Germany, I’m not going to say “MA~1/4nchen” instead of Munich. That seems rather pretentious to me, in a “Oh, look, I’m more cultured than you are because I know what Munich is called by the Germans!” way. I don’t know if I’d be offended or happy if someone tried to pronounce “chop suey” in the Cantonese fashion. Most likely I’d give them a funny look as I tried to decipher what they just said. Yes, there are terms that have no easy translation–I’m fairly certain you’d rather see “chop suey” on a menu than “miscellaneous bits and pieces.”
And then I started thinking about placenames in China. Sometimes I wish the Chinese government had left the old names alone—given a choice between “Canton” and “Guangdong,” I’m confident most native Anglophones would choose the former. Which is more important, mutual understanding or political correctness? (Let’s conveniently forget for the moment that “Canton” is really a butcherization of the Chinese pronunciation.)
As I understand it, Japan was quite isolated until the Meiji period, so I suppose there wouldn’t have been a need for names of faraway countries. When it became apparent that those names would be needed, loanwords were probably the simplest and easiest way to produce a vocabulary list. The farther back a relationship goes, the more likely a unique name was assigned. At least two country names are written with kanji rather than katakana: China (chuugoku) and Korea (kankoku). (Although to be truly above board, it should be noted that the written names for these three countries are pretty much the same in China, Japan, and [I’m guessing] Korea. It would actually surprise me if Korea didn’t follow the convention.)
Okay, so what was the point of all this? I guess I hope that Florence continues to be called “Florence” for the time being (at least in English; after all, I have no desire to see the entire world anglicized) , and that in our rush to political correctness and cross-cultural sensitivity we don’t turn our language upside down. What kind of changes would that lead to? Would it one day be incorrect to refer to splitting the bill as “Dutch treat”?