Anendonym/ˈɛndənɪm/ (also known asautonym/ˈɔːtənɪm/) is a common,nativename for a group of people, individual person,geographical place,language, ordialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group orlinguistic community to identify or designate themselves, their place of origin, or their language.[1]
Anexonym/ˈɛɡzənɪm/ (also known asxenonym/ˈzɛnənɪm/) is an established,non-native name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place,[1] language, or dialect, meaning that it is used primarily outside the particular place inhabited by the group or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only forhistorico-geographical reasons but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words,[1] or from non-systematic attempts at transcribing into a different writing system.[2]
For instance,Deutschland is the endonym for the country that is also known by the exonymsGermany andGermania inEnglish andItalian, respectively,Alemania andAllemagne inSpanish andFrench, respectively,Niemcy inPolish, andSaksa andSaksamaa inFinnish andEstonian, respectively.
The termsautonym,endonym,exonym andxenonym are formed by adding specificprefixes to theGreek root wordὄνομα (ónoma)'name', fromProto-Indo-European*h₃nómn̥.
The prefixes added to these terms are also derived from Greek:
The termsautonym andxenonym also have different applications,[3] thus leavingendonym andexonym as the preferred forms.
Marcel Aurousseau, an Australiangeographer, first[4] used the termexonym in his workThe Rendering of Geographical Names (1957).[5]
Endonyms andexonyms can be divided in three main categories:[citation needed][6]
As it pertains togeographical features, theUnited Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names defines:[8]
For example,India,China,Egypt, andGermany are the English-language exonyms corresponding to the endonymsBhārat (भारत),Zhōngguó (中国),Masr (مَصر), andDeutschland, respectively. There are also typonyms of specific features, for examplehydronyms for bodies of water.
In the case of endonyms and exonyms oflanguage names (glossonyms),Chinese,German, andDutch, for example, are English-language exonyms for the languages that are endonymously known asZhōngwén (中文),Deutsch, andNederlands, respectively.
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By their relation to endonyms, all exonyms can be divided into three main categories:
Sometimes, a place name may be unable to use many of the letters whentransliterated into an exonym because of the corresponding language's lack of common sounds.Māori, having only oneliquid consonant, is an example of this here.
London (originallyLatin:Londinium), for example, is known by the cognate exonyms:
An example of a translated exonym is the name for theNetherlands (Nederland in Dutch) used, respectively, inGerman (Niederlande),French (Pays-Bas),Italian (Paesi Bassi),Spanish (Países Bajos),Irish (An Ísiltír),Portuguese (Países Baixos) andRomanian (Țările de Jos), all of which mean "Low Countries". However, the endonymNederland is singular, while all the aforementioned translations except Irish are plural.
Exonyms can also be divided into native and borrowed, e.g., from a third language. For example, theSlovene exonymsDunaj (Vienna) andBenetke (Venice) are native, but theAvar name of Paris,Париж (Parizh) is borrowed fromRussianПариж (Parizh), which comes from PolishParyż, which comes from ItalianParigi.
A substantial proportion of English-language exonyms for places incontinental Europe are borrowed (or adapted) from French; for example:
Many exonyms result from adaptations of an endonym into another language, mediated by differences in phonetics, while others may result from translation of the endonym, or as a reflection of the specific relationship an outsider group has with a local place or geographical feature.[9]
According toJames Matisoff, who introduced the termautonym intolinguistics, exonyms can also arise from the "egocentric" tendency of in-groups to identify themselves with "mankind in general", producing an endonym that out groups would not use, while another source is the human tendency towards neighbours to "be pejorative rather than complimentary, especially where there is a real or fancied difference in cultural level betweenthe ingroup and the outgroup." For example, Matisoff notes,Khang "an opprobrious term indicating mixed race or parentage" is thePalaung name forJingpo people and theJingpo name forChin people; both the Jingpo andBurmese use the Chinese wordyeren (野人; 'wild men', 'savage', 'rustic people') as the name forLisu people.[10]
As exonyms develop for places of significance for speakers of the language of the exonym, consequently, many European capitals have English exonyms, for example:
In contrast, historically less-prominent capitals such asLjubljana andZagreb do not have English exonyms, but do have exonyms in languages spoken nearby, e.g.German:Laibach andAgram (the latter being obsolete);Italian:Lubiana andZagabria.Madrid,Berlin,Oslo, andAmsterdam, with identical names in most majorEuropean languages, are exceptions.
Some European cities might be considered partial exceptions, in that whilst the spelling is the same across languages, the pronunciation can differ.[11] For example, the city ofParis is spelled the same way in French and English, but the French pronunciation [paʁi] is different from the English pronunciation [ˈpærɪs].
For places considered to be of lesser significance, attempts to reproduce local names have been made in English since the time of theCrusades.Livorno, for instance, wasLeghorn because it was an Italian port essential to English merchants and, by the 18th century, to theBritish Navy; not far away,Rapallo, a minor port on the same sea, never received an exonym.[citation needed]
In earlier times, the name of the first tribe or village encountered became the exonym for the whole people beyond. Thus, the Romans used the tribal namesGraecus (Greek) andGermanus (Germanic), the Russians used the village name ofChechen, medieval Europeans took the tribal nameTatar as emblematic for the wholeMongolic confederation (and then confused it withTartarus, a word forHell, to produceTartar), and theMagyar invaders were equated with the 500-years-earlierHunnish invaders in the same territory, and were calledHungarians.
TheGermanic invaders of theRoman Empire applied the word "Walha" to foreigners they encountered and this evolved inWest Germanic languages as a generic name for speakers of Celtic and later (as Celts became increasingly romanised) Romance languages; thence:
During 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 apejorative way. For example,Romani people often prefer that term to exonyms such asGypsy (from the name ofEgypt), and the French termbohémien, bohème (from the name ofBohemia).[12] People may also avoid exonyms for reasons of historical sensitivity, as in the case of German names for Polish and Czech places that, at one time, had been ethnically or politically German (e.g. Danzig/Gdańsk, Auschwitz/Oświęcim and Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary); and Russian names for non-Russian locations that were subsequently renamed or had their spelling changed (e.g. Kiev/Kyiv).[13]
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 asAnkara rather than use the Spanish exonymAngora.[14] Another example, it is now common for Italian speakers to refer to some African states asMauritius andSeychelles rather than use the Italian exonymsMaurizio andSeicelle.[15] According to theUnited 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 an 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.
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In some situations, the use of exonyms can be preferred. For instance, inmultilingual cities such asBrussels, 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 could be used instead of favoring either one of the local names (Dutch/Flemish:Brussel;French:Bruxelles).
Other difficulties with endonyms have to do with pronunciation, spelling, andword category. The endonym may include sounds and spellings that 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 undergonephonetic changes, either in the original language or the borrowing language, thus changing an endonym into an exonym, as in the case ofParis, where thes was formerly pronounced in French. Another example is the endonym for the German city ofCologne, where theLatin original ofColonia has evolved intoKöln in German, while the Italian and Spanish exonymColonia or the PortugueseColónia closely reflects the Latin original.
In some cases, nostandardised spelling is available, either because the language itself is unwritten (even unanalysed) 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.[citation needed] Finally, an endonym may be aplural noun and may not naturally extend itself toadjectival usage in another language like English, which has the propensity to use the adjectives for describing culture and language.[citation needed]
Sometimes the government of a country tries to endorse the use of an endonym instead of traditional exonyms outside the country:
Following the 1979 declaration ofHanyu Pinyin spelling as the standardromanisation of Chinese, many Chinese endonyms have successfully replaced English exonyms,[22] especially city and most provincial names inmainland China, for example:Beijing (北京;Běijīng),Qingdao (青岛;Qīngdǎo), and the province ofGuangdong (广东;Guǎngdōng). However, older English exonyms are sometimes used in certain contexts, for example: Peking (Beijing;duck,opera, etc.), Tsingtao (Qingdao), and Canton (Guangdong). In some cases the traditional English exonym is based on a localChinese variety instead ofMandarin, in the case ofXiamen, where the name Amoy is closer to theHokkien pronunciation.
In the case ofBeijing, the adoption of the exonym by media outlets quickly gave rise to ahyperforeignised pronunciation, with the result that many English speakers actualize thej inBeijing as/ʒ/.[23] One exception of Pinyin standardization in mainland China is the spelling of the provinceShaanxi, which is the mixedGwoyeu Romatzyh–Pinyin spelling of the province. That is because if Pinyin were used to spell the province, it would be indistinguishable from its neighboring provinceShanxi, where the pronunciations of the two provinces only differ by tones, which are usually not written down when used in English.
In Taiwan, however, the standardization of Hanyu Pinyin has only seen mixed results. InTaipei, most (but not all) street and district names shifted to Hanyu Pinyin. For example, the Sinyi District is now spelledXinyi. However, districts likeTamsui and even Taipei itself are not spelled according to Hanyu Pinyin spelling rules. As a matter of fact, most names of Taiwanese cities are still spelled usingChinese postal romanization, includingTaipei,Taichung,Taitung,Keelung, andKaohsiung.
During the 1980s, the Singapore Government encouraged the use of Hanyu Pinyin spelling for place names, especially those with Teochew, Hokkien or Cantonese names, as part of theSpeak Mandarin Campaign to promote Mandarin and discourage the use of dialects. For example, the area of Nee Soon, named afterTeochew-Peranakan businessmanLim Nee Soon (Hanyu Pinyin: Lín Yìshùn) became Yishun and the neighbourhood schools and places established following the change used the Hanyu Pinyin spelling. In contrast,Hougang is the Hanyu Pinyin spelling but the Hokkien pronunciationau-kang is most commonly used.[24] The changes to Hanyu Pinyin were not only financially costly but were unpopular with the locals, who opined that the Hanyu Pinyin versions were too difficult for non-Chinese or non-Mandarin speakers to pronounce. The government eventually stopped the changes by the 1990s, which has led to some place names within a locality having differing spellings. For example, Nee Soon Road and theSingapore Armed Forces base Nee Soon Camp are both located in Yishun but retained the old spelling.[25]
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Matisoff wrote, "A group's autonym is often egocentric, equating the name of the people with 'mankind in general,' or the name of the language with 'human speech'."[10]: 5
InBasque, the termerdara/erdera is used for speakers of any language other than Basque (usually Spanish or French).
Many millennia earlier, the Greeks thought that all non-Greeks were uncultured and so called them "barbarians", which eventuallygave rise to the exonym "Berber".
Exonyms often describe others as "foreign-speaking", "non-speaking", or "nonsense-speaking". One example is theSlavic term for the Germans,nemtsi, possibly deriving from plural ofnemy ("mute"); standard etymology[26] has it that theSlavic peoples referred to their Germanic neighbors as "mutes" because they could not speak the "language". The term survives to this day in the Slavic languages (e.g.Ukrainian німці (nimtsi);Russian немцы (nemtsy),Slovene Nemčija), and was borrowed intoHungarian,Romanian, andOttoman Turkish (in which case it referred specifically toAustria).
One of the more prominent theories regarding the origin of the term "Slav" suggests that it comes from the Slavic rootslovo (hence "Slovakia" and "Slovenia" for example), meaning 'word' or 'speech'. In this context, theSlavs are describing Germanic people as "mutes"—in contrast to themselves, "the speaking ones".[citation needed]
The most common names of severalIndigenous American tribes derive from pejorative exonyms. The name "Apache" most likely derives from aZuni word meaning "enemy". The name "Sioux", an abbreviated form ofNadouessioux, most likely derived from aProto-Algonquian term,*-a·towe· ('foreign-speaking).[27] The name "Comanche" comes from theUte wordkɨmantsi meaning "enemy, stranger".[28] TheAncestral Puebloans are also known as the "Anasazi", aNavajo word meaning "ancient enemies", and contemporaryPuebloans discourage the use of the exonym.[29][30]
Various Native-American autonyms are sometimes explained to English readers as having literal translations of "original people" or "normal people", with implicit contrast to other first nations as not original or not normal.[10]: 5
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Although the pronunciation for several names of Chinese cities such asBeijing andNanjing has not changed for quite some time while inMandarin Chinese (although theprestige dialect shifted fromNanjing dialect toBeijing dialect during the 19th century), they were calledPeking andNanking in English due to the olderChinese postal romanization convention, based largely on theNanjing dialect.Pinyin, based largely on theBeijing dialect, became the officialromanization method forMandarin in the 1970s.
As the Mandarin pronunciation does not perfectly map to anEnglish phoneme, English speakers using either romanization will not pronounce the names correctly if standard English pronunciation is used. Nonetheless, many older English speakers still refer to the cities by their older English names, and even today they are often used in their traditional associations, such asPeking duck,Peking opera, andPeking University. As for Nanjing, the historical event called theNanking Massacre (1937) uses the city's older name because that was the name of the city at the time of occurrence.
Likewise, many Korean cities likeBusan andIncheon (formerly "Pusan" and "Inch'ŏn" respectively) also underwent changes in spelling due to changes in romanization, even though the Korean pronunciations have largely stayed the same.
Exonyms and endonyms must not be confused with the results ofgeographical renaming as in the case ofSaint Petersburg, which became Petrograd (Петроград) in 1914, Leningrad (Ленинград) in 1924, and again Saint Petersburg (Санкт-Петербург,Sankt-Peterbúrg) in 1991. In this case, althoughSaint Petersburg has a Dutch etymology, it was never a Dutch exonym for the city between 1914 and 1991, just asNieuw Amsterdam, the Dutch name ofNew York City until 1664, is not its Dutch exonym.
Old place names that have become outdated after renaming may afterward still be used ashistoricisms. For example, even today one would talk about theSiege of Leningrad, not the Siege of St. Petersburg because at that time (1941–1944) the city was called Leningrad. Likewise, one would say thatImmanuel Kant was born in Königsberg in 1724, not inKaliningrad (Калининград), as it has been called since 1946.
Likewise,Istanbul (Turkish:İstanbul) is still calledConstantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολη) in Greek, although the name was changed in Turkish to dissociate the city from its Greek past between 1923 and 1930 (the name Istanbul itselfderives from a Medieval Greek phrase).[31] Prior toConstantinople, the city was known in Greek asByzantion (Greek:Βυζάντιον,Latin:Byzantium), named after its mythical founder,Byzas.
Following independence from the UK in 1947, many regions and cities have been renamed in accordance with local languages, or to change the English spelling to more closely match the indigenous local name. The nameMadras, nowChennai, may bea special case. When the city was firstsettled by English people, in the early 17th century, both names were in use. They possibly referred to different villages which were fused into the new settlement. In any case, Madras became the exonym, while more recently, Chennai became the endonym. Madrasi, a term for a native of the city, has often been used derogatorily to refer to the people ofDravidian origin from thesouthern states of India.[32]
"Hancock tells me the word "gypsy" itself is an "exonym" – a term imposed upon an ethnic group by outsiders. When the Roma people moved westward from India towards the European continent, they were mistaken to be Egyptian because of their features and dark skin. We see the same phenomenon across several languages, not only English. Victor Hugo, in his epic Hunchback of Notre Dame, noted that the Medieval French term for the Roma was egyptiens. In Spanish, the word for gypsy is "gitano," which comes from the word egipcio, meaning Egyptian – in Romanian: tigan, in Bulgarian: tsiganin, in Turkish: cingene – all of which are variations of slang words for "Egyptian" in those languages."
