From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe,soc.culture.romanian
Subject: Re: Third World Status ?
Date: 29 Aug 92 20:13:55 GMT
Organization: Enea Data AB

Mihai Dorobantu (mihai@nada.kth.se) writes:
>In Roumanian one spells Anglia and not England etc. and I doubt that the
>the English protest to that ( what about the country's true name: The
>United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northen Ireland ).
>
>On the other hand, you may try to disprove Maggs' "cretinesque theory"  (!?)
>with some counter-examples. I tried to find some, but the only things
>that came up to me  were Burkina-Faso and Srilanka.... There are third world
>countries that do not insist on native spelling of their name. This shows
>that there is no equivalence between third world and native spelling.
>Just one example of non-third world country that insists on native spelling
>can demolish Maggs' theory. Until that example shows up, I think that
>"cretinesque theory" is not the most elegant way of discussing matters.

I have already written off this "theory" as an uninformed opinion,
but it seems that I have to reiterate.

1) Burkina Faso and Sri Lanka are not "native spellings", they are
   native names. Burkina Faso in no way translates to Upper Volta,
   but something else which I don't remember. Since "Upper Volta"
   was a name imposed on them from colonists, I see no reason to
   continue to use this name. English could however choose to trans-
   late "Burkina Faso" to whatever it means.

2) As for counter-examples there are at least two, namely the UK
   and The Netherlands.

   If you are using "Anglia" in Roumanian to denote England alone,
   no one minds. But if you're using "Anglia" when referring to the
   UK be sure that Scots, Welshmen and Northern Irish will cast
   sinister glances on you. And most Englishmen will also correct
   you. Maybe they will not insist on whatever "UK" translates to
   in Roumanian, but at least they would ask you to use something
   like "Brittania". (In Swedish we say "England" when we're sloppy
   and "Storbrittanien" (Great Britain) where we are more exact. The
   translation of "UK" is rarely used, mainly for stylistic changes.)

   If you are using "Holland", or any form thereof, to denote The
   Netherlands you are likely to receive friendly comments about
   on what is the preferred name.

Also, if you say "America" referring to the US, you are also
likely to get angry comments, this time not from the people of
the US themselves though, but from Canadians.

A similar case is "Spanish", a name which should be used with care
in at least some parts of Spain, where you rather should say
Castillian (as opposed to Catalan, Galician etc.)

After hopefully having beaten this horse dead more than once, I like
to point that the chief reason that third world countries may seem
to be over-represented in this category is that many of them are
recently established and still recovering from colonial oppression.

And, finally, for the people objecting to my preference for the
spelling "Roumania": I initially choose this spelling since it
looked more British to me (compare colour/color). If anyone can
prove that "Roumania" is incorrect spelling in British English
(which is the one I'm taught in school), I will abandon that
spelling. Until then...

Oops, one more thing: using the native spelling could in some
cases be a good idea. At least in one certain case it would
remove an ambiguity which some people are having problems with.
That is, we could use "Makedonija" for the newly independent 
republic and "Makedhonia" for the Greek province. (And "Makedonia"
when talking about Alex's land and "Macedonia" when talking 
about the Roman province or the 19th century geographical region 
as a whole.)
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
F|rst till kvarn f}r f|rst vankiva