Mumbai, Not Bombay; Kolkata, Not Calcutta

[Guest guest]

Aug. 5, 2006: "Istanbul was Constantinople," went the Kennedy-Simon

song for which the Four Lads were awarded a gold record in 1953,

reminding audiences, "now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. ... "

Traditionalists in that beautiful city on the Bosporus could not

really object to the change of name, made by the Turkish government in

1930, because the city's original name of Byzantium was changed to

Constantinople in the year 330 in honor of the emperor Constantine.

 

Name changing is catching on. Russia changed St. Petersburg to

Petrograd to Leningrad and back to St. Petersburg again after Lenin

was discredited; Volgograd regained its name after a period as

Stalingrad (but some may be thinking of Putingrad). Burma's military

rulers — determined to break with the colonial past — renamed their

country Myanmar, a 12th-century name, in 1989. In the same way, the

western African nation of Upper Volta rejected its colonial name to

assert itself in 1984 as Burkina Faso, which is a composite of local

languages and is roughly translated as "the land of incorruptible men."

 

The practice of name changing to reflect local roots — and the varying

speeds of worldwide media adoption of new national and local monikers

— was brought home recently by the dispatch about a terrorist attack

datelined "Mumbai, India," in The New York Times. It reported, "A

string of powerful bombs ripped through a vital spine of Mumbai's

commuter train system ... killing nearly 200 people, bringing India's

financial capital to a standstill. ... " Two paragraphs later, the

article helped its readers locate the scene with "more than six

million people ride the trains in Mumbai, formerly Bombay. ... "

 

The Washington Post, in its coverage, referred repeatedly to the

familiar Bombay. So did most U.S. newspapers and electronic media: "At

the Associated Press we say Bombay," its librarian, David Goodfriend,

informs me, "and all of our datelines from the city say Bombay. But

usually about nine or 10 graphs in, we'll say that the city is also

called Mumbai."

 

In 2004, The Times decided to go along with the decision made nearly a

decade before by local and national Indian authorities. The paper's

updated style manual decreed: "Mumbai, formerly Bombay. Gracefully

remind readers of the former name of the Indian city when necessary."

Craig Whitney, The Times' standards editor, says: "In 2004, we decided

to call it what it was calling itself. If you've tried to fly to

Bombay on any airline over the past six years, you would find yourself

looking up fares and schedules to Mumbai. Clearly, we waited long

enough to see if it was sticking." Whitney adds: "In general, after a

decent interval we call places what they call themselves — Ho Chi Minh

City instead of Saigon, Myanmar instead of Burma, Frankfurt instead of

Frankfort, etc., though on those first two (and perhaps on Mumbai as

well) there are people who object for political reasons."

 

Now let's hear from Mark Rockmore, a top toponomist, or place-name

expert, who keeps the official U.S. foreign-names database for the

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. (You never heard of the

N.G.-I.A.? Have I blown a whole agency's cover? Will the next "On

Language" be written from jail?) "Bombay was an Anglicization of the

Portuguese name for the city, but on our maps now the official use is

Mumbai, commonly with Bombay in parenthesis."

 

India leads the name-changing and respelling campaign. That colorful

Madras shirt you're wearing will soon be a Chennai shirt, because

that's the new name of the city, drawn from the Tamil language. And if

you're a tourist planning a visit to the famed Black Hole of Calcutta,

you need to know that the name of India's former capital city is now

spelled Kolkata, a closer approximation of the Bengali name. "If I had

to hazard a guess," says the man from N.G.-I.A., "I'd say that within

a year or so, Bangalore will likely change its name to the local

Bengaluru, from the Kannada language. This is all an effort to shed

the colonial British names and reassert local, indigenous names."

 

The potential for commercial fallout exists. Will Bollywood become

Mumblywood? Will the global acceptance of Mumbai — from the Marathi

name of the goddess Mumbadevi — by media standard-bearers affect the

Bombay Company, a U.S. outfit that sells furniture? Or to Bombay

Sapphire gin? Spokesmen for both companies refuse to speak for the

record, but I take it that neither company is thinking of a name

change, because they don't want to confuse customers. The name of a

place may be subject to transformation by its residents, but a brand

is a brand.

 

Americans can identify with Indians, Burmese and other anti-colonial

namers. "The biggest renaming issue in the U.S. right now is to do

with Mount McKinley in Alaska," says Mark Monmonier, professor of

geography at Syracuse University. North America's tallest peak was

known to locals by its Athabaskan name, Denali, but a gold prospector

who liked Rep. William McKinley's stand on silver claimed to have

discovered the mountain and named it after the presidential candidate;

after his assassination, the memorial name stuck.

 

In Alaska, the state officially calls the mountain Denali; the United

States applies that name to the surrounding national park, but still

designates the mountain McKinley. That's because Rep. Ralph Regula of

Ohio is from the district that McKinley represented, and every two

years introduces a bill to reaffirm that name. "It never goes to a

vote but is always on the table," Professor Monmonier notes. "And the

U.S. Board on Geographic Names has a policy that if a name is up

before Congress, it won't rule on a name change." President McKinley,

from his celestial front porch, is smiling while Alaskans fume.

 

Names have political power. I say one way to put the heat on Iran

today is to threaten to change the name of the Persian Gulf to the

Arabian Gulf.

 

SOURCE: ON LANGUAGE By WILLIAM SAFIRE. Mumbai, Not Bombay. Safire is a

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of the New York Times, based in

Washington, D.C.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/magazine/06wwln_safire.html

[Guest guest]

"Mumblywood?" Never!

 

I love bollywood. sigh.

 

pr

 

 

 

 

, "Devi Bhakta" <devi_bhakta

wrote:

>

> Aug. 5, 2006: "Istanbul was Constantinople," went the Kennedy-Simon

> song for which the Four Lads were awarded a gold record in 1953,

> reminding audiences, "now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. ... "

> Traditionalists in that beautiful city on the Bosporus could not

> really object to the change of name, made by the Turkish government in

> 1930, because the city's original name of Byzantium was changed to

> Constantinople in the year 330 in honor of the emperor Constantine.

>

> Name changing is catching on. Russia changed St. Petersburg to

> Petrograd to Leningrad and back to St. Petersburg again after Lenin

> was discredited; Volgograd regained its name after a period as

> Stalingrad (but some may be thinking of Putingrad). Burma's military

> rulers — determined to break with the colonial past — renamed their

> country Myanmar, a 12th-century name, in 1989. In the same way, the

> western African nation of Upper Volta rejected its colonial name to

> assert itself in 1984 as Burkina Faso, which is a composite of local

> languages and is roughly translated as "the land of incorruptible men."

>

> The practice of name changing to reflect local roots — and the varying

> speeds of worldwide media adoption of new national and local monikers

> — was brought home recently by the dispatch about a terrorist attack

> datelined "Mumbai, India," in The New York Times. It reported, "A

> string of powerful bombs ripped through a vital spine of Mumbai's

> commuter train system ... killing nearly 200 people, bringing India's

> financial capital to a standstill. ... " Two paragraphs later, the

> article helped its readers locate the scene with "more than six

> million people ride the trains in Mumbai, formerly Bombay. ... "

>

> The Washington Post, in its coverage, referred repeatedly to the

> familiar Bombay. So did most U.S. newspapers and electronic media: "At

> the Associated Press we say Bombay," its librarian, David Goodfriend,

> informs me, "and all of our datelines from the city say Bombay. But

> usually about nine or 10 graphs in, we'll say that the city is also

> called Mumbai."

>

> In 2004, The Times decided to go along with the decision made nearly a

> decade before by local and national Indian authorities. The paper's

> updated style manual decreed: "Mumbai, formerly Bombay. Gracefully

> remind readers of the former name of the Indian city when necessary."

> Craig Whitney, The Times' standards editor, says: "In 2004, we decided

> to call it what it was calling itself. If you've tried to fly to

> Bombay on any airline over the past six years, you would find yourself

> looking up fares and schedules to Mumbai. Clearly, we waited long

> enough to see if it was sticking." Whitney adds: "In general, after a

> decent interval we call places what they call themselves — Ho Chi Minh

> City instead of Saigon, Myanmar instead of Burma, Frankfurt instead of

> Frankfort, etc., though on those first two (and perhaps on Mumbai as

> well) there are people who object for political reasons."

>

> Now let's hear from Mark Rockmore, a top toponomist, or place-name

> expert, who keeps the official U.S. foreign-names database for the

> National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. (You never heard of the

> N.G.-I.A.? Have I blown a whole agency's cover? Will the next "On

> Language" be written from jail?) "Bombay was an Anglicization of the

> Portuguese name for the city, but on our maps now the official use is

> Mumbai, commonly with Bombay in parenthesis."

>

> India leads the name-changing and respelling campaign. That colorful

> Madras shirt you're wearing will soon be a Chennai shirt, because

> that's the new name of the city, drawn from the Tamil language. And if

> you're a tourist planning a visit to the famed Black Hole of Calcutta,

> you need to know that the name of India's former capital city is now

> spelled Kolkata, a closer approximation of the Bengali name. "If I had

> to hazard a guess," says the man from N.G.-I.A., "I'd say that within

> a year or so, Bangalore will likely change its name to the local

> Bengaluru, from the Kannada language. This is all an effort to shed

> the colonial British names and reassert local, indigenous names."

>

> The potential for commercial fallout exists. Will Bollywood become

> Mumblywood? Will the global acceptance of Mumbai — from the Marathi

> name of the goddess Mumbadevi — by media standard-bearers affect the

> Bombay Company, a U.S. outfit that sells furniture? Or to Bombay

> Sapphire gin? Spokesmen for both companies refuse to speak for the

> record, but I take it that neither company is thinking of a name

> change, because they don't want to confuse customers. The name of a

> place may be subject to transformation by its residents, but a brand

> is a brand.

>

> Americans can identify with Indians, Burmese and other anti-colonial

> namers. "The biggest renaming issue in the U.S. right now is to do

> with Mount McKinley in Alaska," says Mark Monmonier, professor of

> geography at Syracuse University. North America's tallest peak was

> known to locals by its Athabaskan name, Denali, but a gold prospector

> who liked Rep. William McKinley's stand on silver claimed to have

> discovered the mountain and named it after the presidential candidate;

> after his assassination, the memorial name stuck.

>

> In Alaska, the state officially calls the mountain Denali; the United

> States applies that name to the surrounding national park, but still

> designates the mountain McKinley. That's because Rep. Ralph Regula of

> Ohio is from the district that McKinley represented, and every two

> years introduces a bill to reaffirm that name. "It never goes to a

> vote but is always on the table," Professor Monmonier notes. "And the

> U.S. Board on Geographic Names has a policy that if a name is up

> before Congress, it won't rule on a name change." President McKinley,

> from his celestial front porch, is smiling while Alaskans fume.

>

> Names have political power. I say one way to put the heat on Iran

> today is to threaten to change the name of the Persian Gulf to the

> Arabian Gulf.

>

> SOURCE: ON LANGUAGE By WILLIAM SAFIRE. Mumbai, Not Bombay. Safire is a

> Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of the New York Times, based in

> Washington, D.C.

> URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/magazine/06wwln_safire.html

>