I have never (personally) seen a suggestion to call it Madjario

I have: by the late Eduard Vladimír TVAROŽEK [tvaroĵek], a Slovakian Esperantist poet, translator and author, a Honorary Member of UEA (it was before I joined Esperanto). Nevertheless, nobody seems to have followed his suggestion, although I would have liked it and I would join it if it gained wider use (but I am not gonna use a name that nobody else (most importantly, not even the members of the nation themselves) uses).

I like Suomio better than Finnlando, but what put me off was my former boss, who, being a Finn himself, systematically always used Finnlando, finno, la finna lingvo.

languagegeek:There are many examples of places where the English word has changed to reflect local usage.

The story I know is that those places have actually modified their name, not that the world languages have changed all of a sudden because their transliterations were so far poor. I might know the wrong story though!

When it comes to Chinese names, many of them are the way they are in some western languages because of the first, approximative transliterations. When I was in school, Chairman Mao's full name was "Mao Tse Tung"; nowadays his name here is taught as "Mao Zedong". In this case it's a revision of the translation and not a name change.

Of course when it comes to personal names English has its faults too. You have the Columbus Day, but the Explorer's real name was Colombo. I don't think you'd like it if we were talking about Giorgio Vascintono.

Is the capital of China Pekino or Pejĉingo?

Pekino.

If you look in a newer English atlas, you’ll see that the "Sea of Japan" is now often written "Sea of Japan (East Sea)", due to strong pressure from the South Korean government (essentially picketing embassies).

Well there might be a point. I read somewhere that Korea is spelled like that, and not Corea, because Japanese scholars tried to make it come after Japan in alphabetical order.

Of course, if Esperanto were to ever get a kind of official status, I can virtually guarantee that many places will want their place name words changed.

English has a de facto official status in a lot of countries and applications, but I do not see this uproar. Maybe because, as you say, they wouldn't really know whom to complain to. There is no Language Academy for English and this is IMHO one of its drawbacks.

Local place names are a great way to show that Esperanto truly belongs to everyone!

On one hand, yes, on the other hand I see it as a historical marker of the period in which it was planned. It was much stranger for me to see that Lojban has some sort of inequality as well. There is a gismu (~= root word) "merko" meaning "pertaining to american culture or nationality", but there is no gismu for a lot of other nations or cultures, some of which even predating the existence of the United States. The lojban name for Italy, for instance, is "bakygu'e" (a compound, meaning, if I remember correctly, "the land of bulls") but it can even go as far as "gugdrxitalia" according to some (an even more complex compound). Which may be fine but I think it would make for very long words in art history books.

mateno:I like Suomio better than Finnlando, but what put me off was my former boss, who, being a Finn himself, systematically always used Finnlando, finno, la finna lingvo.

I have only met one finnish esperanto speaker actively using "Suomio", but he also was quite unhappy with the bilingual status of Finland and I think he saw the usage of "Finnlando" as an unneeded perpetuation of the Swedish version for the country name. I have also met a couple others who were opposing it (among which, incidentally, a native swedish speaker finn), but I cannot remember their reasons off hand.

The English spelling of Chinese cities has changed because we now follow the Pinyin system of transliteration - which is the official transliteration system of the Chinese government.

Prior to pinyin, the Wade-Giles system was used. Peking is the Wade-Giles name. Taiwan still uses the Wade-Giles system of transliteration. This is why you can often (though not always) tell if someone is from Taiwan or Mainland China, based on the way they spell their name in English.

Even if English did have an academy, I don't really think that various countries would be lobbying very hard to have their names changed. Even with Korea - I did hear something about that controversy - but as was already mentioned, it was Korea versus Corea. They weren't suggesting that we call them Hanguk (or Choson, according to the North).

And with regard to Hungary in particular - some of the greatest luminaries of Esperanto came from Hungary. If they were interested in changing it, they could easily have done so on the past! But evidently there hasn't been overmuch interest. And as some people already mentioned, I think it's important to follow the lead of native speakers. If they don't care, it seems disrespectful to push a change on them, one that they don't even want.

Many reflect local vs colonial practice.

Madras (preferred by the English) > Chennai
Canton (via French) > Guangdong
Burma > Myanmar.

Even when it’s a question of script transliterations, in English and Esperanto, there is a significant difference between "Burmo" and "Mjanmao", or "Pekino" and "Pejĉingo". To an English speaker who didn’t know any better, Peking and Beijing might as well be different cities! We now say "Beijing" out of respect for the Mandarin speaking people and the Chinese government’s policy. "Myanmar" is in my world atlas out of respect for this country’s government. Nation states have the power to change English as they see fit.

Anyway, without getting lost in specifics, I guess what I was thinking originally is that if Esperanto expands into more official domains, certain peoples of the world would probably want to have a look at Esperanto placenames; I can predict that this will be the case for several places in North America, as it is happening in English today. My curiosity was about who decides what’s in an Esperanto Atlas. It would be nice if the language’s governing body had a procedure in place for peoples of the world to file their place name requests.

As for history, let’s say, in my own writing, I use Aniŝnabeakio for “Chippewa territory”. As it is my own work, I guess I can use whatever word I want to better express my political views (probably with a footnote or other explanation to accompany the word). At the same time, when discussing 18th century history, I may prefer "La Lando de Ĉipevoj" or some such.

And again, I’m not focusing on nation states, which have the international clout to request name changes. I’m more thinking about sub-national entities, like Kimrio. It might be an interesting project for national Esperanto organizations to provide to the Academy an index of that countries placenames to put in some geographic database. Sounds like fun...

Thanks

And anyway, what a great bit of PR for Esperanto. I can see the newspaper article:

"Esperanto, the international language, formally adopted ‘Simpĥvo’ as the name of the community known as ‘North Thompson, British Columbia’. The move brought increased interest in the language among the Secwepemc people..."

Esperanto can certainly evolve as many ethnic languages do and there can definitely be cases in which the current words are no longer fit to define or specify an object or a land. On the other hand I am wary of getting lost in reforms and in constant changes. As a compromise I think that two or more words can coexist peacefully and day-to-day usage can help determine, in the long run, which one has more support. Sometimes I introduce neologisms into Esperanto, mostly out of the other languages I can speak, for fun, or when in need of something very specific. I only use them in very informal occasions and with no real attempt to rewrite the language, but of course if they get picked up I won't be offended.

I guess you can surely go around and talk about Ŝkiperio, and quite possibly a few people will understand. Just be prepared to switch back to Albanio as a plan B when you encounter puzzled looks.

mnlg:On the other hand I am wary of getting lost in reforms and in constant changes. As a compromise I think that two or more words can coexist peacefully and day-to-day usage can help determine, in the long run, which one has more support.

Thank-you. I think that about sums up my opinion as well. As I mentioned earlier, this is a difficult question for me for English. Part of me says “There’s nothing wrong with the current word, it’s served us well”, the other half says “One should replace it with the traditional word”. I remember reading something written by the linguist William Poser in reference to ethnonyms in British Columbia. To summarize:

In the world as a whole, it is perhaps not realistic to expect people to remember words like Sm’algyax or Nuxalk, when Tsimshian and Bella Coola are much better known. Yet, for those living in the traditional territories of these first nations, it behoves us to use these native words wherever possible, out of respect for the original inhabitants of that land.

Thus "Eskimo" may be near universal, and I would not expect an Esperanto speaker outside of Canada to know that "Inuito" might be more appropriate. If "Inuito" becomes more common through ‘organic’ means, then so be it.

Thanks to everyone for posting!

By the way, for your t-shirt
“You’re in America, Ukwehuwehnéha Satwʌnu·táhkw!”
“You’re in America, Speak Oneida!” (Speak in a Native Way)

languagegeek:"Myanmar" is in my world atlas out of respect for this country’s government. Nation states have the power to change English as they see fit.

This is a highly political choice. Myanmar vs Burma has political significance far beyond the choice of Beijing vs Peking. Myanmar is a name chosen by the military junta that now rules the country. Pro-democractic opposition groups prefer the name Burma, and world governments use one or the other depending on their political opinions about the military dictatorship there. The governments of the US, Ireland, Australia, and Great Britain all still call the country Burma as an expression of their opinion on the situation. In other words - you can change your country's English name to your heart's content, but that doesn't mean that English speaking countries are going to respect it.

Being culturally sensitive in Esperanto is great, but at the same time it is sometimes easier not to get involved in countries' internal disputes. Use of an older form is one way not to take sides, but Esperanto being the democratic language that it is, each speaker can make his or her own decision about which name to use for a place.

Regarding the Secwepemc - not to sound catty or anything (truly), but I am not really concerned about them learning Esperanto. I think their time would be better spent learning their indigenous language, which is dying out. It would seem more productive to encourage local Esperanto speakers to take an interest in the language of the Secwepemc, since Esperantists are presumably interested in linguistic diversity.

erinja:

languagegeek:"Myanmar" is in my world atlas out of respect for this country’s government. Nation states have the power to change English as they see fit.

I was being ironic while typing "respect"!

erinja:This is a highly political choice.

And these are choices which have to be considered if Esperanto is to ever expand its domains. What would happen if the government of Myanmar decided to approach the Esperanto world asking for Mjanmao or somesuch. I'm not saying they're going to do this, nor that anyone should listen to them, but what would happen? Do we have the right to say "Nope, we're going to call your country what we want". This is what goes on with W3C and Unicode and the like. All governments will meddle with whatever they see having symbolic or practical value. Also, if Esperanto is to stay clear of political matters...

Bah. I feel dirty considering the side of dictatorship.



And again, I was just expressing my surprise and happiness to see Welsh written as Kimra, and hoping that more of this was going on. I've iterated that my interest is not with nation states.