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IX. Namen im Sprachkontakt

156. Names in Language Contact: Exonyms

1. 2. 3. The Term Examples Selected Bibliography

1.

The Term

The term exonym is an outside name, used by those who live outside the area named. For instance, Gdask is now the name of the Polish city on the Baltic, but it is generally known outside of Poland as Danzig, since mapmakers apparently believe that the exonym is more recognizable than is the national name. The matter of exonyms is extremely important in some areas of the world, such as Quebec, Holland, large areas of Africa that were formerly colonized, states in the former Soviet Russia, the East Indies, and other places where people and language contact have devolved into language confrontation. For some intimation of the problem, see Dorian (1972), Canada (1977), and Gade (1990). The term exonym was used first by Aurousseau (1957) and was adopted by the United Nations committee on geopraphical names in 1971. The term, however, did not find a place in onomastic literature until the Canadians began extensive use of it in the 1977 collection of papers dealing primarily with names in Quebec which included both French and English names, but generally French names used locally and English names used outside the communities involved.

amples; e. g., al-K ahira (Arabic), Le Caire (French), Cairo (English). (4) Names that have been changed for political purposes, as the instance of Cape Canaveral being changed to Cape K ennedy; Tsaritsyn (from Russ. tsar czar), Stalingrad, Volgograd; in Prague the Czech name of one of the main streets switched from Fochova (from the name of a French General) to Schwerinova (from a German General) to Stalinova (from a Russian Generalissimo). The point is that for the local population, the newest layer of such renaming usually is, at least for some time, an exonym. (5) Nicknames can be exonyms, but they cause problems, such as their durability, reason for being, and connotations. E. g., L. A. (pronounced [ely]) for Los Angeles; for some time, the full form of the name has been an exonym for many local inhabitants. (6) Differences in pronunciation can be so radical as to cause a name to become essentially another. For instance, French Paris [par] became [paris] in English, and [par:s] in German; the Italian form Parigi, Russ. Pari, an Czech. Pa are exonyms in spelling as well. Because of their political nature, exonyms have become important in the study of geographical names, and the term itself has a practical application. Much needs to be said and written about exonymic patterns in names in different areas of the world. The patterns in the United States, for example, have hardly been noticed, except for Harder (1991).

2.

Examples

3.

Selected Bibliography

The term exonym has not been defined or used precisely and technically. Like many new coinages, it has a fuzzy connotation and can cover several kinds of things named, e. g.: (1) A place that has one name used by the people who live in or near it and another name used by outsiders, Sixth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas in New York City being an example. (2) Names that are different because of language differences, as in the cases of Mt. McK inley and Denali; or Praha (Czech), Prag (German), and Prague (English); also Baile atha Cliath (Irish) and Dublin (English). (3 ) Names changed by conquerors, the colonial names of Asia and Africa being excellent ex-

Aurousseau, Marcel (1957): The Rendering of Geographical Names. London. Canada (1979): Third United Nations Conference on Standardization of Geographical Names, United Nations, Athens, 1977. Ottawa. Dorian, Nancy (1972): Les noms de lieux et le contact des langues. Quebec. Gade, Daniel (1990): Exonyms as geographical names: the example of Portuguese. In: Onomastica Canadiana 72, 1124. Harder, Kelsey B. (1991): Local Names and Exonyms. In: Geolinguistics 17, 7785.

Kelsey B. Harder, SUNY-Potsdam, New York (U.S.A.)