The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-09
oRIENTAL NAMES.

OAAehtdl proper names are prODerV1al
stumbling blocks to the reader. the
writer and the speaker. Not only is
there always a question of pronuncia-
ton, but often even of spelling, for the
same name not infrequently turns UP in
more than one form, and there are
readers and writers who hastily as
sumo that one must be right and the
others wrong, and such conscientious
persons are troubled in their minds.
To cite familiar examples of this dupli-
cation of names, there are Mohammed
and Mahomet; pacha, pashaw and ba-
shaw; emir and ameer, Souvaroff and
Suwarrow, Pekin and Picking, Jeddo
and Yeddo. Coming to more instances
of more recent prominence, we have
Niu-Chwang and New Chwang, and a.
long list of Chinese names that have
photographic variations.
Similar liberties have been taken with
Turkish, Hindoo and African names.
and in short with the nomenclature of
every country that is newly opened to
settlement. Evidence of this is to be
found in the bewildering variety of
European attempts to -transliterate the.
names used by North American Indians.
Usage generally eliminates all but one
form in given locality, but the same
name under different form may be
found elsewhere In time, Chinese.
African and Philippine names will be
subjected to similar process, but
q a 1Ty1oi
are inevitable.
The reasons for these variations are
natural and obvious enough, and as an
cient as written language. In the first
place, unless the natives have attained
to a considerable degree of civilization.
their speech is apt to be indistinct and
formless. Their pronunciation varies. 4
The traveller or explorer who first IN
vades their country writes down the
names as they sound to him, but there
is no guarantee that they will sound
the same to the next investigator, or
that the second sample of natives will
speak exactly as the first did. To
transliterate sounds from one Ian
guage into another is a peculiarly elu-
sive and slippery problem, as may be
judged from the English who made
Florence out of the Italian Firenza
and Leghorn out of Livorno.
The greatest cause of confusion. how
ever, is the fact that different sounds
are assigned to letters representing
vowels, as in the continental lam
guages. A word that Frenchmen.
Italians, Spaniards and Germans NAV
spell ''emir,' the English spell "ameer.".
though the pronunciation is the same
in all languages, whatever the SPELL
ing. Similar variations are appearing
in Chinese names. ''Mahomet" and
Mohammed are alternates that illus-
trate the difficulty Christians had in
embalming the sound of the Moslem
prophets name. Obviously the accent
should be the same for both words
There is confusion in Russian names
| too, because some writers undertake
merely to substitute the English equiv
alents for the letters of the Russian al
| phabet, while others attempt to smell
the Russian words phonetically as thew
would sound to English ears. More
trouble of the same sort might be made
| if writer's were to adopt the form
''Paree" for Paris.
But it is useless to multiply exam
pies. Enough has been said to show
why variations in spelling are inevita-
bic, and as established and reputable
usage is an arbitrary judge of all
things in language, it is frequently i'm
possible to say that any one form is
right and all others are wrong. Time
will have to be allowed to settle the
question.