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Comment by throwaway210222 | Hacker News Reader

Nonsense, there is no legitimate way another language can tell English (or another language FWIW) what its name for a place must be.

Examples:

Deutchland - Germany, Allemagne, Doitsu

Nederland - Niederland, Pays-Bas, Netherlands

Zhōngguó - China,

Nippon - Japan, Iapana

Munchen - Munich, Monaco

I can go on, but this phenomenon of prescribing the English word for a proper noun is very recent, and disrespectful of the long, native English (and very much world-wide) culture.

English is not common property any more than Persian is.

So, no: its Kiev [ and Ayers Rock :) ] when speaking English- that's if other people's cultures matter.

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Coincidentally I was just reading that the variation in other language's names for Germany is because the country originally federated a bunch of nation-states together, and its neighbors simply called the new country the name of whoever they had been dealing with prior

In any case it seems more respectful IMO to call a place the name by which it would be most recognized by that place's inhabitants. Practically, however, I learned the word 'Kiev' first, and 'Kyiv' just now, so Kiev it is.

Framing the differences here as disrespecting other people's culture is a bit of a stretch, though.

> Framing the differences here as disrespecting other people's culture is a bit of a stretch, though.

What would you call the insulting hysteria that occurs when an English speaker doesn't change his language and culture to use some foreign-language word for a place?

You'll notice no one goes around demanding a billion Chinese change from 'Měiguó' to the 'USA'. Hell, even the Germans get away with calling 'Beijing' Peking.

Its just the poor, down-drodden Anglos. :)

We do it all the time in the USA too... "This is America! Here we speak English!"

There is no "poor Anglos", we are cultural assholes too

> Munchen - Munich, Monaco

As a french, this one caught me off guard. Didn't help that you used the french word as second alternative on first ones, but til that in italian Munich is called "Monaco di Baviera". Now I wonder what's in common between those two cities..

This is mostly but not entirely coincidental. The name München is derived from the word for monk, which would be "monaco" in Italian. Both "monaco" (monk) and "Monaco" (city) ultimately descend from μόνος (Greek for "solitary").

> when speaking English

I guess, when not speaking English, you speak Russian, "tovarisch major".

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