Hello all folks here. Days ago seaching in americanradiohistory.com for info for my FM tube tuner, particularly in what reactance tube is referred, in one magazine I found the following intetesting article. What's your opinons or comments several years later.
Attachments
Countries where people are quite busy with form better write foreign names as in the language of that country. Courtesy/etiquette.
AFAIK no other culture tries to change peoples names, country names and city names to a form that is mostly acceptable to themselves.
Beijing (Peking), Cezayir (Algeria), Masr (Egypt), Lubnan (Lebanon), Urdun (Jordania) etc.
Don't you agree, Oswald? 🙂
AFAIK no other culture tries to change peoples names, country names and city names to a form that is mostly acceptable to themselves.
Beijing (Peking), Cezayir (Algeria), Masr (Egypt), Lubnan (Lebanon), Urdun (Jordania) etc.
Don't you agree, Oswald? 🙂
Last edited:
Particularly in Spanish, names are translated, a fact I strongly dislike. I live in "Almirante Guillermo Brown" city when the guy was William.
We even do that with towns in our billingual country Belgium (that is "België" in dutch and "Belgique" in french). The south is french (dialects) speaking, the north dutch (dialects). Brussels like you know is Brussel in flemish (belgian dutch) and Bruxelles in french, and all major places have names in both languages, and often also an english derivation from it... Even the small village where i live, that has less than a 1000 inhabitants has a (flemish) dutch name (Wodeke) and a (picardian) french name (Wodecq)...
Tell me about it 🙂 I worked in Belgium regularly and then in the French speaking part. I was in companies in Liège where type plates of machines were even replaced for French ones. Now Belgium has a status aparte with 3 official languages (trilingual) so one adapts to the language of the speaker as all 3 languages are accepted. So in Verviers one mentions one has to go to Lüttich. When this is done consequently all places have 3 names. Something different from changing all names to ones own language.
Especially changing names like Ampère to amp is not OK IMO. Or Siemens to mho. Names of inventors should stay untampered. Imagine people calling Newton Neuetonne....
Off topic: I really like the Walon way of counting in Walon French as it is easier than in official French. Nonante is easier than "quatre-vingt-dix". Tonto!
Especially changing names like Ampère to amp is not OK IMO. Or Siemens to mho. Names of inventors should stay untampered. Imagine people calling Newton Neuetonne....
Off topic: I really like the Walon way of counting in Walon French as it is easier than in official French. Nonante is easier than "quatre-vingt-dix". Tonto!
Last edited:
Gents, while I agree this is an interesting topic, please keep it just that. We know what happens when we veer off course and let our opinions and emotions get in the way of a good thread.
Thank you.
German is a miniority language, that is only spoken in the far east of the Liege province, not general known. And actually there are more variations as "flemish today is a collection of dialects that orginate from 3 different low-germanic languages (old flemish, brabantian Dietsch and limburgian/Ripuarian) and french is also divided in strong "langues d'oil" dialects (Picard, Wallon, Lorraine and Bruxellois). Liege is Wallon speaking but where i live they talk very different (Picard), and in the south near Luxembourgh also (there it's Lorraine). Belgium is a very complex country on languages where the latin/low germanic/high germanic language borders go straight trough the countrey, not following the state borders.
Thankfully that is/was mostly by own choice and anyone has a right to speak an own language or dialect. In the past I have been to areas where people had to change their family names, change religion or pretend to have done so, learn a new lingua franca etc. After this I think the least of freedom is that at least a name should be as one was given by birth unless one has an issue oneself with that name and to be able to speak the language one is comfortable with.
Last edited:
Lost in translation isn't just a movie. It's a fact of (human) life. Even within a nation with 1 language, there are local variations that can confuse the outsiders (some cases are intentional). Until we can come up with a way to communicate mind to mind, we will just have to deal with this obstacle.
Ok. Cal, if you came again to this thread, please make my a favor: I uploaded the texts in wrong sequence. If you (or any other mod) still can reorder them properly.
Many thanks.
Many thanks.
Some examples from my language: Verne Gyula (Jules Verne, and we spell each written letter!), May Károly (Karl May), Kolumbusz Kristóf (Cristoforo Colombo, but the English themselves translate him as Columbus), Olaszország (Italy), Csendes-óceán (Pacific ocean) Németország (Germany), Nizza (Nice), Párizs (Paris), Lipcse (Leipzig), Lisszabon (Lisboa, Lisbon), and many many other...
Horrible and a burden when communicating it seems. I would not have distilled Deutschland out of Németország and I live there 🙂 Having country names translated is however understandable but peoples names?
Last edited:
Why is tedesco or German better than német for Deutsch? Translating peoples' names is not a common practice any longer, as it was in the past. Jules Verne is so well known and favoured amongst the youth, that he remains Verne Gyula for us.
You think that's rough? Lets look at someone who we all (?) know, Gaius Julius Caesar. In English speaking world, his last name is pronounced sea-sar. I've heard that the Latin pronunciation is kai-sar as in kaiser roll (culinary). It's like two different names.
Which version? I've been told by a friend from Switzerland that unless the person is from southern Germany, he/she can't even communicate with Swiss German due to accents and dialect difference.
I met a German girl in England who was going to school in France
Said we met in Mississippi at an Alpha Kappa dance
It wasn't me...
George Thoroughgood
Said we met in Mississippi at an Alpha Kappa dance
It wasn't me...
George Thoroughgood
Most european first names are of greek, jewish and roman origin due to the Christian religion that took over in this part of the world and we lost not only the original meaning of those names in their native language long time ago, but also the original form.
Besides in the beginning there was only one name which was also a surname attached to something like " the son of...X" and that stayed with most of us for a long long time. We only kept the meaning for the Surname when we got out of Roman slavery period and the people started to have clear proffessional occupations which usually was a local name understood by anyone for a while until most of the surnames lost their meaning too during the 19th century when both newly reborn slavery and casts were abolished almost everywhere in Europe, most surnames being an indicative to the main ocupation of the people.In the county where I was born many people still have ROBU as surname which in romanian means Slave as until the mid 19th century here most people were litterally slaves . I doubt anyone would be pleased today to be called as such if the name's meaning would still be important.We only kept the form that means next to nothing today...
In the old days there was a universally spread habit to change one's name if he did someting out of the ordinary or something really important happened in his life.That was lost too a long time ago in Europe except for monks who had their names changed when entering religious life ...
Honestly...most of the actual names are just a meaningless formality by which we are recognized in our relationship with parents, others or state authorities.
Besides in the beginning there was only one name which was also a surname attached to something like " the son of...X" and that stayed with most of us for a long long time. We only kept the meaning for the Surname when we got out of Roman slavery period and the people started to have clear proffessional occupations which usually was a local name understood by anyone for a while until most of the surnames lost their meaning too during the 19th century when both newly reborn slavery and casts were abolished almost everywhere in Europe, most surnames being an indicative to the main ocupation of the people.In the county where I was born many people still have ROBU as surname which in romanian means Slave as until the mid 19th century here most people were litterally slaves . I doubt anyone would be pleased today to be called as such if the name's meaning would still be important.We only kept the form that means next to nothing today...
In the old days there was a universally spread habit to change one's name if he did someting out of the ordinary or something really important happened in his life.That was lost too a long time ago in Europe except for monks who had their names changed when entering religious life ...
Honestly...most of the actual names are just a meaningless formality by which we are recognized in our relationship with parents, others or state authorities.
Speaking of people names, my advice to future parents is to be just a little bit creative when selecting children names. My parents did not get this message, so I have a surname that is very common on my country, paired with the second most common name. There are at least many hundreds if not thousands of people that have my exact same name and surname. I once had been called by the police station: they were searching an homonym. When I pay a bill, I specify my social security number or other informations to be sure that they register the payment correctly. After the widespread internet adoption, I started to receive weird emails on my gmail inbox: bank statements, car insurance policies, fly tickets, even medical records from hospitals. They are all directed to peoples that have my same name and surname and asked to send a document "to my gmail address". I work on the IT business so I was the first one to register the plain gmail address.