Exonym and Endonym - Controversies and Complications

Controversies and Complications

In the late 20th century the use of exonyms often became controversial. Groups often prefer that outsiders avoid exonyms where they have come to be used in a pejorative way: for example, Romani people prefer that term to exonyms such as Gypsy (from Egypt), and the French term bohémien, bohème (from Bohemia). People may also avoid exonyms due to historical sensitivities, as in the case of German names for Polish and Czech places which used to be ethnically or politically German (e.g. Danzig/Gdańsk and Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary), and Russian names for locations once under Russian control (e.g. Kiev/Kyiv).

In recent years, geographers have sought to reduce the use of exonyms to avoid this kind of problem. For example, it is now common for Spanish speakers to refer to the Turkish capital as Ankara rather than use the Spanish exonym Angora. According to the United Nations Statistics Division, "Time has, however, shown that initial ambitious attempts to rapidly decrease the number of exonyms were over-optimistic and not possible to realise in the intended way. The reason would appear to be that many exonyms have become common words in a language and can be seen as part of the language’s cultural heritage."

In some situations the use of exonyms can be preferred. For instance, for multilingual cities such as Brussels, which is known for its linguistic tensions between Dutch- and French-speakers, a neutral name may be preferred so as to not offend anyone. Thus an exonym such as Brussels in English or Bryssel in Danish could be used instead of favoring either one of the local names (Brussel in Dutch/Flemish and Bruxelles in French).

Other difficulties with endonyms have to do with pronunciation, spelling and word category. The endonym may include sounds and spellings which are highly unfamiliar to speakers of other languages, making appropriate usage difficult if not impossible for an outsider. Over the years, the endonym may have undergone phonetic changes, either in the original language or the borrowing language, thus changing an endonym into an exonym, as in the case of Paris, where the s was formerly pronounced in French. Another example is the endonym for the German city of Cologne, where the Latin original of Colonia has evolved into Köln in German, while the Italian and Spanish exonym Colonia closely reflects the Latin original. In some cases no standardized spelling is available either because the language itself is unwritten (even unanalyzed) or because there are competing non-standard spellings. Use of a misspelled endonym is perhaps more problematic than the respectful use of an existing exonym. Finally, an endonym may be a plural noun and may not naturally extend itself to adjectival usage in another language, like English, which has a propensity to use the adjectives for describing culture and language. The attempt to use the endonym thus has a bizarre-sounding result.

The name for a language and a people are often different terms, of course, which is a complication for an outsider.

Sometimes the government of a country tries to endorse the use of an endonym instead of traditional exonyms outside the country:

• In 1935 Reza Shah requested that foreign nations use the name Iran rather than Persia in official correspondence. The name of the country had internally been Iran since the time of the Sassanid Empire (224–651), whereas the name Persia is descended from Greek Persis (Περσίς), referring to a single province.
• In 1949 the government of Siam (the word is believed to be derived from the Sanskrit for "black" or "dark") changed the name to Thailand, although the former name's adjective in English (Siamese) was retained as the name for the fish, cat and twins.
• In 1972 the government of Ceylon (the word is the anglicized form of Portuguese Ceilão) changed the name to Sri Lanka, although the name Ceylon was retained as the brand name for tea.
• In 1985 the government of Côte d'Ivoire requested that the country's French name be used in all languages instead of exonyms such as Ivory Coast, so that Côte d'Ivoire is now the official English name of that country in the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee (see Name of Côte d'Ivoire).
• In 1989 the government of Burma requested that the English name of the country be Myanmar, with Myanma as the adjective of the country and Bamar as the name of the inhabitants (see Names of Burma).
• The Ukrainian government maintains that the capital of Ukraine should be spelled Kyiv in English because the traditional English exonym Kiev was derived from the Russian name Kiyev (Киев) (see Kiev: History of Kiev's name in English).
• The Belarusian government argues that the endonym Belarus should be used in all languages and has been rather successful in English, where the former exonym Byelorussia, still used with reference to the Soviet Republic, has virtually died out, whereas in other languages exonyms like Danish Hviderusland, Dutch Wit-Rusland, Estonian Valgevene, Faroese Hvítarussland, Finnish Valko-Venäjä, German Weißrussland, Greek Lefkorosía (Λευκορωσία), Icelandic Hvíta-Rússland, Swedish Vitryssland, Turkish Beyaz Rusya (all literally 'White Russia'), or French Biélorussie, Italian Bielorussia, and Spanish Bielorrusia are still much more common than Belarus (see History of the name Belarus).
• In 2006 the South Korean national government officially changed the Chinese name of its capital, Seoul, from the exonym Hancheng (漢城/汉城) to Shou'er (首爾/首尔). This use has now been made official within the People's Republic of China.

Following the declaration in 1979 of Hanyu Pinyin spelling as the standard romanisation of Chinese, many Chinese endonyms have successfully replaced English exonyms, especially city and most province names in mainland China, e.g. Beijing (北京 Běijīng), Guangdong (广东 Guǎngdōng) (province), Qingdao (青岛 Qīngdǎo), although older English exonyms are sometimes used in certain contexts – e.g. Peking (duck, opera, etc.), Canton, etc. The official romanized name of New Taipei (新北 Xīnběi), which is the largest city of the Republic of China, includes a totally English word New added to Taipei, when the city was promoted from former Taipei County in 2010.