I was being ironic while typing "respect"!

This is a highly political choice.

You know what, you're right. These godless Commies and fascist juntas must be shown what's what. We should say plainly, Peking, quit and free Tibet and hold free elections, and Burma, free Aung San Suu Kyi and respect her rightful election or be both of you despised forever!
(attempted trans into E-o, sentu vin mem libera taksi gxin:
Efektive, vi gxustas. Cxi tiuj sendiaj komunistoj kaj fasxistaj acxreguloj devas sciigxi la veron. Ni devas diri al ili honeste, Pekino, foriru de Tibet, kaj arangxu liberajn elektojn, kaj Burmio, liberu Aung San Suu Kyi kaj respektu sxian gxustan elektigxon aux estu ambaux de vi malestimitaj eterne!)

All I'm saying is that use or non-use of these different names for countries can have political overtones. I don't really care what someone uses for their personal speech - if they want to talk about Suomio, Mjanmaro, Madjario, Nipono, Misro, Congŭoo, Hanguko, etc - I really don't care either way. All I'm saying is that it isn't right, in my opinion, to tell a given country what they should call themselves, or to encourage them to be offended by something they don't find offensive. If someone wants to talk about Bejĝingo instead of Pekino - that's fine.

In any case, there isn't a process that I know of by which a country could petition the "Esperanto world" to change what they call them. The Academy of Esperanto does not come up with new vocabulary and mandate its use. Rather, it is up to individual Esperanto speakers to decide whether to use a certain name or not. If I remember correctly, the Academy doesn't even officialize country names anymore. They just maintain a list of "usual" country names, so it really is dependant on the choices of individual speakers - majority rules. The Academy states on its website, in the section marked "Recommendations for names of countries":

Pro respekto al la tradicio, kaj en pacema spirito, ni deklaros, ke landnomo estas taŭga, se ĉiuj aŭ la granda plimulto senkonteste uzas la saman formon.

[Because of respect for tradition, and in a peaceful spirit, we declare that a country name is suitable if everyone or the vast majority uncontestedly uses the same form]

En okazo de konflikto inter du aŭ pluraj formoj por unu sama landnomo aŭ ankaŭ inter la uzo de kategorio aŭ alia por unu sama radiko, la Akademio rekomendas preferi la plej internacian landnomon kaj tiel obei al la 15-a Regulo de la Fundamento.

[In the case of conflict between two or more forms for one country name, or also between the use of one category or another for the same country name, the Academy recommends use of the most international form, to comply with the 15th rule of the Fundamento]

I personally make my usage decision based on what the local Esperanto speakers call themselves, or if there are no local speakers, basing my usage on the most international form, so that I'm likely to be understood (because that's the point, right?).

Thank-you all

I think everyone has answered my questions. I believe I understand the situation and I do fully support the degree of freedom of usage for this and related issues as described by the reponses.

Some members of the organization I work for are involved in the return of the names of their Native communities to the original forms. The topic came up at work around the same time I was studying the language names in Esperanto. With that on my brain, I was interested in whether this was a subject of discussion in Esperanto circles.

Thanks again, and I’ve learned a lot.

Reading this thread and being new to Esperanto, I was actually curious about the process by which place names are assigned. How did that work in the past when names were originally assigned, and how has that changed over time? Where's the best place to authoritatively find the accepted Esperanto name for places around the world?

Thanks for the help.

mvk20:Where's the best place to authoritatively find the accepted Esperanto name for places around the world?

One of good sources is Jarlibro de Universala Esperanto-Asocio (the Yearbook of the Universal Esperanto Association).

Another is the Esperanto Wikipedia. If you do not know the name in Esperanto, just go to the English article and follow the interwiki link to the respective article in Esperanto.

Thanks for the info! Does anyone know the answer to the other question: How did all of these names come about (what process was used to generate them)?

I believe that in most cases, the "most international" form of the name was taken and modified to conform with usual Esperanto spelling and pronunciation.

For example, even though Finnland is called "Suomi" in Finnish, most countries call it something beginning with "finn-". It was therefore called "Finnlando" since that is more internationally recognized than "Suomio". Nowadays some people are interested in using an Esperanto variation of whatever a country calls themselves, instead of the historical Esperanto name, so sometimes you will see more than one name for a given country (Finnlando/Suomio, Hindio/Barato, etc)

This is a simplified clarification. Some countries ended historically in -ujo; this -ujo ending has been replaced by many modern speakers with -io, but both forms are considered correct (Francujo/Francio, Germanujo/Germanio, etc). Some (most) countries never ended in -ujo (Usono, Aŭstralio, etc). These were the countries that historically were not seen as having an old and well-developed history and culture - that is, according to the viewpoint of Zamenhof's time. There has therefore been some controversy about whether to call Korea Koreujo/Koreio, or to call it Koreo. Some people feel that there are political overtones to the choice, since by calling it "Koreo" you are (according to them) implying that it does not have the same sort of long-standing history as Japanujo/Japanio, or Ĉinujo/Ĉinio.

I believe that both Koreo and Koreujo/Koreio are considered correct - most people seem to use Koreujo/Koreio. This is probably more information than you were really asking for but I think it is an interesting historical sidenote.

erinja:I believe that in most cases, the "most international" form of the name was taken and modified to conform with usual Esperanto spelling and pronunciation.

For example, even though Finnland is called "Suomi" in Finnish, most countries call it something beginning with "finn-". It was therefore called "Finnlando" since that is more internationally recognized than "Suomio". Nowadays some people are interested in using an Esperanto variation of whatever a country calls themselves, instead of the historical Esperanto name, so sometimes you will see more than one name for a given country (Finnlando/Suomio, Hindio/Barato, etc)

This is a simplified clarification. Some countries ended historically in -ujo; this -ujo ending has been replaced by many modern speakers with -io, but both forms are considered correct (Francujo/Francio, Germanujo/Germanio, etc). Some (most) countries never ended in -ujo (Usono, Aŭstralio, etc). These were the countries that historically were not seen as having an old and well-developed history and culture - that is, according to the viewpoint of Zamenhof's time. There has therefore been some controversy about whether to call Korea Koreujo/Koreio, or to call it Koreo. Some people feel that there are political overtones to the choice, since by calling it "Koreo" you are (according to them) implying that it does not have the same sort of long-standing history as Japanujo/Japanio, or Ĉinujo/Ĉinio.

I believe that both Koreo and Koreujo/Koreio are considered correct - most people seem to use Koreujo/Koreio. This is probably more information than you were really asking for but I think it is an interesting historical sidenote.

No, that's definitely not too much info; that's exactly the type of info I was looking for. That helps me understand why some of the countries have different forms, and different endings than each other.

A follow up: It seems like the -ujo ending is falling out of favor, is that correct? If so, around when did that start to happen, and was there any reason for it?

Thanks again!/Dankon denove!

-ujo is falling out of favor. I think it is because the root meaning of -ujo is a container for something. So, for example, a "monujo" is a wallet (a container for money). A "benzinujo" is a can or recepticle for gas/petrol. A "fridujo" is a container that is 'frida' (very cold) (a refrigerator). A "ŝtrumpetujo" is a container for socks.

Compare this with Francujo (a container for French people?), Germanujo (likewise, for Germans)? Francujo does *not* mean a container for French people. The -uj- meaning was used to indicate countries from the very beginning of Esperanto, and you an certainly tell from context if the speaker is talking about a country. But when you're used to using -uj- to talk about containers, it seems weird to apply it to people. A secondary point that has nothing to do with countries is that there is another use of -uj- that has fallen even more out of use than the -ujo country names, that practically no-one uses anymore. That is, -ujo appended to the name of a fruit, to indicate a fruit tree. Therefore, "pomujo" would be an apple tree, "oranĝujo" an orange tree, etc. The problem there is that according to the root meaning of -uj-, you would expect a "pomujo" to be something like an apple barrel or an apple basket, an "oranĝujo" to be something similar, but for oranges. Nowadays, everyone I have ever met says "pomarbo" and "oranĝarbo", etc, to indicate fruit trees.

A secondary reason for changing -ujo to -io is that the -io form looks more international. "Francio" is more recognizable as meaning "France" than "Francujo", and so forth for the other -ujo countries.

There are good reasons for keeping -ujo around in spite of these reasons, however, especially when teaching the language. If you use the -io endings, the student is unable to tell the difference between "Japanio" (root: japan/) and "Aŭstralio" (root: aŭstrali/). The difference is that a Japanese person is therefore a 'japano' and an Australian person is an 'aŭstraliano' (not an "aŭstralo", because remember, the root is aŭstrali/). There are several country names that end in -io in their original Esperanto form, that were never converted from -ujo, and whose people are therefore named with -ano, rather than the simple -o ending. This is the best argument I have seen for keeping -ujo around. For an experienced speaker, you'd presumably know which countries were which but a beginner has no way of knowing without the help of a dictionary (or the -ujo ending).

lingvohelpanto_sk:

mvk20:Where's the best place to authoritatively find the accepted Esperanto name for places around the world?

One of good sources is Jarlibro de Universala Esperanto-Asocio (the Yearbook of the Universal Esperanto Association).

Another is the Esperanto Wikipedia. If you do not know the name in Esperanto, just go to the English article and follow the interwiki link to the respective article in Esperanto.

There are two countries where the Jarlibro appears to have difficulty:
Georgia: "Kartvelio (Georgio, Gruzio)"
India: "Hinda Unio (Barato)"
Other possible difficulties are Moldava "Moldavio" - how to distinguish from Moldavia. Romania?
Belarus "Bjelorusio" - did country drop the "j" after fall of the Soviet Union?