Is it Mumbai, Bombay or ??????
Dec 1st, 2008 | By Bock | Category: political correctnessOn a lighter note, what’s all this Mumbai stuff?
Why can’t we say Bombay if we want to? Why can’t we call it whatever we feel like? Why do English speakers suddenly have to change the word they always used and adopt the Marathi version of the name instead?
Sorry now, but I just don’t get this.
Of course the Indians can call it whatever they want, in however many of their languages. That’s their right and their entitlement. English-speaking Indians can call it Mumbai or Mambai or whatever variation of the name they choose, and nobody will try to stop them, but I grew up saying Bombay, and I’m not going to change now.
It was the same with Beijing. Why did we have to change from Peking? After all, the way we say Beijing is no closer to the correct pronunciation than Peking was, so what’s the fucking problem? And it isn’t a spelling problem either, is it?
The Chinese don’t write B-E-I-J-I-N-G. No. They write ??, which is a slightly different spelling to Beijing, you might have noticed.
They even tried to stop us saying Burma, and use Myanmar instead, until someone pointed out that the genocidal crooks who run that country made up the name. Phew. Close one.
Now, what I wonder is this: why do the PC brigade only do this with Asian place-names? After all, nobody is going to tell you not to say Moscow. Is not how we say name. Correct name is Moskva!
That won’t happen.
Nobody will tell you to pronounce Paris as Paree or Rome as Roma. No Dutchman will force you to say den Haag. The Finns don’t give a shit if you say Helsinki instead of Helsingfors. The Poles won’t kill you for failing to say Warszawa, nor the Czechs Praha. Did you ever go to Kobenhavn? No. You didn’t, and you never will. And you won’t go to Lisboa or Beograd either.
No. It just seems to be Mumbai and Beijing, so in future I’m going to call them ????? and ??.
That should sort it out.
Funnily enough, they didn’t change the name of the film industry to Mollywood.
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Update 10th December 2008
Some people have made the point that it isn’t just a question of pronunciation. Therefore, maybe I could ask you if any of these placenames feature in your daily discourse, and if not, why not? They are, after all, the names preferred by the locals, so maybe we should show some respect and start using them, just like we do with Mumbai, Chennai and Beijing.
What do you make of these?
Al-Jazair
Suomi
Tarabulus
Al Qahirah
Dimashq
Nippon
Muqdisho
Athina
Hrvatska
Shqiprisa
Eesti
Oh, and of course, I presume everyone now says Mother Teresa of Kolkata.
Yes? No?
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PS. This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned that sort of thing:
i once mentioned the word ‘bombay’ during a pub coversation with some arty intellectual types. the table went silent. they looked at the floor and shuffled. i got my coat.
Do you feel the same way about the Marathon-Snickers name change debacle?
Artyeva — Arty intellectual types? Let me just get my gun.
Eoin — That issue is too controversial. Let’s stick with world politics, Indian nationalism and the legacy of colonial domination.
Dingle!
I must remember that in Queenstown the next time I’m there.
I believe the kanji actually spells Northern Capitol. Similarly the kanji for Tokyo is Eastern Capitol.
Kingstown
Rath Luirc and an Uaimh?
Derry
Here’s a good one:
Tsaritsyn (“tsar’s son”) became Stalingrad in 1925, and Volgograd since 1961.
How do you feel about the English calling us Eire then?
Didn’t we used to spell Romania as Rumania? And I recall a survey of Irish kids who were unaware of a country called Italy, instead only knowing one called Italia 90.
Chennai is closer to what Indians call what we used to call Madras. If we’re going to stick with placenames given by the Bristish Empire shouldn’t the Brits then still call O’Connell Street Sackville Street? Oh ok, I mean George’s Street?
Huron –
Bunreacht ne hÉireann, Article 4.
The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland.
Eolaà— As I understand it, Hindi speakers still call the city Bambai. The Mumbai name is used in Marathi and Gujarati. But leaving that aside, it isn’t the origin of the name I’m concerned with, but the fact that we’re expected to stop calling it what we used to call it. Why would we do that?
If the Italians complain, will we start saying Firenze instead of Florence? What about Köln instead of Cologne? München, anybody?
Garden — I’ll try to put this as politely as I can.
Fuck off you idiot.
Londonderry,that always gets the witless freaked….
Bock – We’re expected to stop calling it what we used to call it because they changed its name – they didn’t say we were pronouncing it wrong. It’s the same reason we are expected to call Lennigrad St Petersburg.
I think we’re mixing up anglicisations and translations of placenames with the practice of renaming. It’s why I gave the Chennai/Madras example – a renaming that happened at the time as Bombay/Mumbai.
Their entitled to change their name for the place, but I don’t know why we’d have to change our name for it as well. After all, names for places have many variants in many different languages.
I go into my local newsagent and the owners, a fine upstanding Vietnamese chap – goes by the name of Bruce.
Now. I’m willing to lay odds that when he was born in Vietnam 30 odd years ago his parents didn’t take one look and decide “we call him Bruce”, or the Vietnamese equivalent of that. He must have a real name, one his brothers and sisters know him as. Why Change it.?
I asked him what his real name was one day but he acted like I was a policeman or something. Got very shy, worried, whatever. I didn’t push it.
I can pronounce Yn as well as the next man. He has no trouble with Snookertony, I didn’t have to change it to Boing for his sake.
I’m not trying to be offensive, it’s just something I wondered about.
Maybe his name really is Bruce.
It’s true that placenames have variants in different languages but a renaming is not the same as variant of a previous name. Petrograd is a variant of St Petersburg, but it’s not a variant of Lenningrad.
My point is that “our name” for somebody else’s city or country does not exist in a vacuum independent of their name, if it truly exists at all. Our name is only ever a variant of their name, making allowances for alphabet and pronunciation differences – so when a people officially change a placename we should either call it by the new name or by a variant of the new name – however much we hate to say goodbye to Siam, Persia, or Cassius Clay.
But here, I promise I won’t go around in circles with ya, for I need to have a pint with you one of these days.
As I understand it, the Indians in Bombay are far from unanimous about this name change. If I walked into my local Indian shop looking for a bag of Mumbai Mix, they’d laugh at me.
Well, all right. They laugh at me anyway, but you know what I mean.
It would be extraordinary if the government of one country could tell the rest of the world what words to use in their day-to-day business, in their multiplicity of languages.
Does everyone have to say Mumbai? In Japanese, Swahili, Basque, Hungarian, Xhosa, do all have to say Mumbai? I think that would be crazy.
Pint? OK.
@ stephen re “Londonderry,that always gets the witless freaked….”
but it is important to some people, I swing both ways to make it easy for them…
Bock, I saw/heard a report on the televisual box today and the reporter who seemed to my hears local enough to the location referred on more than one occasion to Mumbay! So perhaps a local compromise has already been worked up but just not gotten to the language heads at the BBC and RTe.
Oh heck, I’ll come back for more.
You don’t need a people to be unanimous to effect an official name change.
A renaming does not make the former name taboo nor invalidate all its contextual references, historical and cultural e.g. Bombay Mix, Persian rug, or the Middlesex County Cricket Club.
No, everyone doesn’t have to say Mumbai in their own language, especially if your alphabet doesn’t have the necessary sounds – but they should be at least saying a variant of Mumbai. That’s all Bombay was after all – it’s not like the Xhosa just randomly invented a placename for Bombay unrelated to what Indians there called it.
It’s not so much that any government is telling the rest of the world what to not say, as it is that they are telling the rest of the world what their chosen name is. To refuse to acknowledge that and insist on carrying on with Siam and Persia would be kind of rude, no?
Why would we refuse to acknowledge a name change?
You mean somebody is suggesting a change of name for Siam and Persia? Next thing, you’ll be telling me they want to rename Mesopotamia, Abyssinia and Rhodesia.
Hehe, Rhodesia, that’d piss Mugabe off. Fucker. Marxist me hole.
Rhodesia was named after Cecil Rhodes, of the Rhodes scholarship fame (Bill Clinton had one I believe). Rhodes was a money hungry fuck who made his fortune on the exploitation of workers in the south african diamond mines. A very British colonist.
Personaly, if we lived in Cromwelland I’d change the name too.
Talking of Siam the capitol is Bangkok but all the Siamese when speaking Thai will refer to it as Krungtaep but in English call it Bangkok – confusing?
C’est La Craic: I am aware of all that. But Rhodes is a dead prick, I can’t piss him off, Mugabe is alive and could do with being made to eat humble pie. He let his people down badly considering the hope they invested in him.
-thriftcriminal
Too true, but after all he’s a politician, so no surprise there.
Interesting to note that Mugabe was brought up in a ‘christian village’ run by jesuits. As a child, one of his early mentors was irish Jesuit, father O’Hea. Perhaps that’s where he went wrong.
Well, Indians didn’t name their film industry Bollywood, it was rather the western media. Also its not true that you are seeing these changes only in Asia. Australia recently decided to use the aboriginal names as well. Ayers rock is Uluru. So I guess, whereever Brits caused a havoc, the name changes will follow there.
Wow Buck.Why so sensitive.It was only meant as a joke.God I would really hate to see your reaction if someone really disagreed with you.
By the way, your reaction to “St** C**y” is the reason why we are the butt of alot of stand up comedians in this country.Grow up Kid.
If you want to heap more shit on your home town, do it on someone else’s time and someone else’s space. I’m not here to help you propagate that sort of crap.
We have enough people throwing stupid comments at us without you helping them. You’ll find I’m a lot less tolerant of people trolling the site than you might be used to.
Show a bit of self respect.
OK point taken but just bear in mind that people have a go at Limerick because they see the reactions of people like you to a simple name consisting of two words with four letters in each word.
They see the reaction and come back with more.
So who do you think is causing the more damage, me who is having a laugh at the percieved image that people have of our city or people like you who throw a temper tantrum.Any way I wont reply to you so insult all you like.!!
BTW love your site,I like the humour.A big hello to all at Limerick Blogger!Sorry to Hazel just trying to show a point.My every move is beign watch by people from there!!!
It’s not a temper tantrum. You don’t seem to understand one important fact: this is a privately-owned site, and I decide what direction it takes. That includes reacting strongly against attempts to shift any particular post off course, or to hijack a discussion. It also includes absolutely forbidding the use of a slur against my home town, even if intended in a joking way. It hurts my town, my family and me. I won’t have it. The end.
I will repeat this for the umpteenth time: there’s no right to freedom of speech here. This is a publication just like any other, and I have the final decision on what goes into it and what stays out.
I will not allow this site to be used by someone else, even for a second, in a way I don’t like. Anyone who wants freedom of speech can start their own web site and I wish them good luck in building up a readership. It isn’t easy.