Odessa vs Odesa

[IvanV]

In Russian, it is Одесса, Odessa, a fact not mentioned on the English Wikipedia page for Odessa, even though the headline for the article remains Odessa.

In Ukrainian, it is Одеса, Odesa, and in 2010 Ukraine passed a resolution that the official romanisation of the city's name is Odesa.

In 2015, we read that 96% of residents spoke Russian at home. Though apparently the number of people admitting to at least occasional use of Ukrainian rose from 6% in 2015 to 29% in 2021.

In Spain, we have got used to the idea of naming places by the spelling of the local population in their language, rather than following the Spanish. So what was known in Spanish as Lérida is now known as Lleida, on the grounds that is what the people who live there mostly actually call it. Though if you are speaking Spanish, the Spanish name Lérida remains available to you.

Whilst I understand saying/writing Kyiv (with 2 syllables, kee-iv, please, not keev) in solidarity with the residents, I'm not convinced that writing Odesa is really the same thing, when that's not actually what the local population generally actually calls it.

Though, oddly, the English pronunciation of Odessa is more nearly Ukrainian than Russian. A Russian-speaker would say something like adyessa.

[Brightonian]

In Russian, it is Одесса, Odessa, a fact not mentioned on the English Wikipedia page for Odessa, even though the headline for the article remains Odessa.

In Ukrainian, it is Одеса, Odesa, and in 2010 Ukraine passed a resolution that the official romanisation of the city's name is Odesa.

In 2015, we read that 96% of residents spoke Russian at home. Though apparently the number of people admitting to at least occasional use of Ukrainian rose from 6% in 2015 to 29% in 2021.

In Spain, we have got used to the idea of naming places by the spelling of the local population in their language, rather than following the Spanish. So what was known in Spanish as Lérida is now known as Lleida, on the grounds that is what the people who live there mostly actually call it. Though if you are speaking Spanish, the Spanish name Lérida remains available to you.

Whilst I understand saying/writing Kyiv (with 2 syllables, kee-iv, please, not keev) in solidarity with the residents, I'm not convinced that writing Odesa is really the same thing, when that's not actually what the local population generally actually calls it.

Though, oddly, the English pronunciation of Odessa is more nearly Ukrainian than Russian. A Russian-speaker would say something like adyessa.

I see there's been a lot of arguing within Wikipedia about the name, but they're sticking with Odessa. There was a long-running argument where they changed from Kiev to Kyiv.

I think it's about time the Vlissingen Dilemma thread is correctly named.

[warumich]

I find language politics bl..dy fascinating. Since you mention Spain, people generally don't insist on calling Bilbao Bilbo or San Sebastian Donostia (unless you're actually speaking basque) as they probably should given that Basque nationalism can be every bit as fierce as Catalan nationalism. Maybe it's because fewer people speak basque in daily life or maybe because the language is so much more different from Castilian that they don't really feel they need to make that point?

On the other extreme, people in Munich wouldn't generally give a toss that no other language calls the town by its native name.

[TimW]

Odesa seems like a poor transliteration. Luckily it was preceded by Odessa so we're less likely to mispronounce it.

I wonder whether Warsaw (Varsava) will get a rethink one day.

Football sometimes seems to lead the way on international pronunciation; Seville is "Severe" and PSG is "Paree San German". So maybe one day Paris won't be Paris.

[sTeamTraen]

In Spain, we have got used to the idea of naming places by the spelling of the local population in their language, rather than following the Spanish. So what was known in Spanish as Lérida is now known as Lleida, on the grounds that is what the people who live there mostly actually call it. Though if you are speaking Spanish, the Spanish name Lérida remains available to you.

About 35 years ago there was a Europe-wide (but, I think. not EU) convention adopted that a road sign in country A pointing to a town in country B should spell the name in the language (or dominant local language) of country B. Old signs were grandfathered, so for example you can still find a few older signs in the eastern Netherlands pointing to Keulen (Köln) or in part of western Flanders pointing to Rijsel, which is the French city of Lille (Mrs sTeamTraen got caught out by that during her time in Belgium). There is also a small town called Lille in Belgium, where unwary satnav operators occasionally take people on a mystery tour.

[Bird on a Fire]

Ukraine has passed quite a lot of laws to suppress the Russian language. I don't know if that reflects wider sentiments about the Russian minority population or not, but you start to understand why Russian Ukrainians near the border might not be so against being "liberated".

[Aoui]

About 35 years ago there was a Europe-wide (but, I think. not EU) convention adopted that a road sign in country A pointing to a town in country B should spell the name in the language (or dominant local language) of country B. Old signs were grandfathered, so for example you can still find a few older signs in the eastern Netherlands pointing to Keulen (Köln) or in part of western Flanders pointing to Rijsel, which is the French city of Lille (Mrs sTeamTraen got caught out by that during her time in Belgium). There is also a small town called Lille in Belgium, where unwary satnav operators occasionally take people on a mystery tour.

We drove past Arnhem on our way to Germany today. On the way back we followed the signs towards Arnheim until we got back to the Netherlands. I'll have to pay more attention, but I think the Dutch use the Dutch names still on signs for Belgian towns when you are heading down that way. I don't head down that way quite as often though.

[Grumble]

In Spain, we have got used to the idea of naming places by the spelling of the local population in their language, rather than following the Spanish. So what was known in Spanish as Lérida is now known as Lleida, on the grounds that is what the people who live there mostly actually call it. Though if you are speaking Spanish, the Spanish name Lérida remains available to you.

About 35 years ago there was a Europe-wide (but, I think. not EU) convention adopted that a road sign in country A pointing to a town in country B should spell the name in the language (or dominant local language) of country B. Old signs were grandfathered, so for example you can still find a few older signs in the eastern Netherlands pointing to Keulen (Köln) or in part of western Flanders pointing to Rijsel, which is the French city of Lille (Mrs sTeamTraen got caught out by that during her time in Belgium). There is also a small town called Lille in Belgium, where unwary satnav operators occasionally take people on a mystery tour.

Did you mix up your A’s and B’s? Can’t quite follow that.

[nekomatic]

Road sign in Italy (A)
pointing to Nice in France (B)
should say NICE (French spelling, language of B)
not NIZZA (Italian spelling, language of A)

[shpalman]

Road sign in Austria (A)
pointing to Bratislava in (Czecho)Slovakia* (B)
should say Bratislava (language of B)
not f.cking Pressburg
(and not Pozsony which is what the Hungarians call it, but I haven't tried to get there from Hungary)

But then the Italians think Lviv is called Leopoli, while the Americans used to call Livorno Leghorn.

And football can f.ck off too, because the Italians call AC Milan "Meeelan" for some reason. Real Madrid.

* - this was true back when those two countries were joined.

[Grumble]

Road sign in Italy (A)
pointing to Nice in France (B)
should say NICE (French spelling, language of B)
not NIZZA (Italian spelling, language of A)

Ah, but there are some older signs from before that. Got it now. Think I was a bit tired.

[IvanV]

About 35 years ago there was a Europe-wide (but, I think. not EU) convention adopted that a road sign in country A pointing to a town in country B should spell the name in the language (or dominant local language) of country B. Old signs were grandfathered, so for example you can still find a few older signs in the eastern Netherlands pointing to Keulen (Köln) or in part of western Flanders pointing to Rijsel, which is the French city of Lille

My experience of driving in Belgium is that all signposts are only in the language of the locality, with some small exceptions near the German border, only. Every signpost to Lille is Rijssel while in Flanders, including modern signposts on recently built motorways. Every signpost to Kortrijk is Courtrai while in Wallonia, meaning you don't see its local name until you have actually got half way across the bridge over the river separating Flanders from Wallonia, which the town sits on the bank of.

We had an interesting game of "Name That Town" the first time. Do I want the Doornik side at this motorway bifurcation? Can we guess what might be the normal name of that, as shown on my map? Can that really be Tournai? Seems like it must be.

The EU convention is subjugated to the language politics of the country, in this case.

[shpalman]

Whereas Locarno, Lugano, Lucerne, and Luzern are three different cities on lakes in Switzerland.

[IvanV]

Road sign in Austria (A)
pointing to Bratislava in (Czecho)Slovakia* (B)
should say Bratislava (language of B)
not f.cking Pressburg
(and not Pozsony which is what the Hungarians call it, but I haven't tried to get there from Hungary)

And here we have another problem, which is that most towns in Slovakia near the border with Hungary are Hungarian speaking, Bratislava being the main exception to that. My single experience of crossing the border from Hungary to Slovakia is going from Győr in Hungary to Veľký Meder in Slovakia, about 100km E of Bratislava. Veľký Meder is the Slovak name, which you will see on Google Maps. But it is plainly a Slovak-isation of the Hungarian name Nagymegyer, which is what the great majority of locals, being Hungarian-speaking, would actually call it. (Nagy is Hungarian for great or big, corresponding to Slovak veľký; and Megyer is a Hungarian toponym - Slovak Meder imitates the pronunciation.)

The solution the Hungarians have come up with is never to mention the name of Veľký Meder/Nagymegyer on a signpost at all. The signposts in that direction have a road number and an SK mark. To the extent they name any localities in that direction out of Győr at all, they mention only the hamlets and villages on the Hungarian side of the border that you can access from that road before you cross the border. I've crossed the Austrian/Czech border by bicycle quite frequently, and you see the same thing there quite often - they don't mention the name of the place across the border, only the last village before the border, and, if you are lucky, an A or CZ sign to indicate. Though that's on smaller roads: on a motorway the main city across the border would be mentioned, eg Wien/Vídeň when heading to Vienna. (Just to fox you, the Czech word for Austria is Rakousko.)

In the specific case of Bratislava, the city was never called that before WW1. Then the population was roughly equally split between Germans and Hungarians, with only about 15% Slavs, who called it Prešporok, a slavisation of Pressburg. The name Bratislava had been suggested in the 19th century by some slavic nationalists, but it had no currency until the name was officially determined in 1919 when Czechoslovakia came into existence - it nearly got called Wilsonstadt. The Hungarian population mainly left at this point, and the Germans were ethnically cleansed after WW2. Nor had the city any specific historical role in relation to the broader "Hungarian highlands", or felvidék, as much of modern Slovakia was generally known, before the concept of Slovakia was created in the 19th century. Nor was it some Slavic city at some earlier stage of its history.

The terms Slovak and Slovakia were 19th century inventions. Before that, those people had no specific collective ethnonym, not even their own. Rather they were "some Slavs" living in the Hungarian Highlands, using various local dialects mostly similar to Czech, but blending into Polish (or Goral, the local Polish dialect) and Ukrainian as you approached those language areas. Ironically, Slav nationalism was encouraged by the Austro-Hungarian empire during the 19th century to try and create a counter-weight to pan-Germanism. Austria-Hungary feared being subsumed into a Greater Germany, as Germany itself was being put together into a large and powerful nation. So at this point the term Slovak was dreamed up to refer to the Slavs of his area. (Source: Heimann, M; Czechoslovakia, The State that Failed - very interesting and readable book that dispels many national myths.)

The naming of cities that have been ethnically cleansed during the last century or so is a particularly difficult aspect of language politics. Examples include as Vilnius (99% Polish before WW2 - Poland was astonished it lost it), Uzhhorod (80% Hungarian before WW2, albeit in Czechoslovakia at the time), numerous "Sudeten" towns in Czech & Slovakia (many of which only came into existence because Germans were invited into the area in mediaeval times for their skills in creating fortified cities and knowledge of city trades), Kaliningrad, Vyborg, etc.

So, perhaps the expletive in front of Pressburg is unmerited.

[shpalman]

Ok so they've only had 103 years to update the name on the sign.

[IvanV]

Ok so they've only had 103 years to update the name on the sign.

Meanwhile, what do departure boards at airports in Britain say? How often do you see the local name, even as an alternation with the English name, when those differ? Not very much. But when you get to your airport in Spain/France, somehow you do not expect to see your destination described only as Londres or Edimburgo.

Between WW1 and WW2, when Bratislava remained substantially German-speaking, maybe around 50/50, as Czechs and Slovaks moved in to fill the void left by the departing Hungarians, why should we expect signposts in a German-speaking nation to say anything different from what German-speaking people called the place?

And then when that changed because of ethnic cleansing after WW2, are they really going to be of a mind to alter that? Certainly not in a hurry.

[nekomatic]

I’m pretty sure I’d expect to see LONDRES not LONDON on the departure boards at CDG, but I’d probably feel differently if it was something random like CORDUROY instead of Manchester.

Where do you stand on Helsingfors?

[bob sterman]

I defer to the Brothers Gibb on this issue...

[EACLucifer]

Ukraine has passed quite a lot of laws to suppress the Russian language. I don't know if that reflects wider sentiments about the Russian minority population or not, but you start to understand why Russian Ukrainians near the border might not be so against being "liberated".

I've spoken to a Russian speaking Ukrainian about this, and suffice to say I've got a radically different picture - they were adamant that Russian is not, in fact, suppressed, so I'm curious where you are getting this from.

Also, assuming language spoken=culture is a very bad idea. Russian was imposed on Ukraine, both by the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. This would be a bit like assuming that English speaking Irish would somehow think fondly of Britain compared to Irish speaking Irish.

Everyone I've spoken to and everything I've seen suggests that Ukraine is extraordinarily united against the Russian invasion, and language really isn't a factor.

And please remember that the "pro-Russian seperatists", as our media liked to call them, in the Donbas weren't miners from the Donbas but ultranationlist Russians from Russia.

[discovolante]

Ok so they've only had 103 years to update the name on the sign.

Meanwhile, what do departure boards at airports in Britain say? How often do you see the local name, even as an alternation with the English name, when those differ? Not very much. But when you get to your airport in Spain/France, somehow you do not expect to see your destination described only as Londres or Edimburgo.

Between WW1 and WW2, when Bratislava remained substantially German-speaking, maybe around 50/50, as Czechs and Slovaks moved in to fill the void left by the departing Hungarians, why should we expect signposts in a German-speaking nation to say anything different from what German-speaking people called the place?

And then when that changed because of ethnic cleansing after WW2, are they really going to be of a mind to alter that? Certainly not in a hurry.

I recently flew back from Valencia to Edimburgo.

[Opti]

I recently flew back from Valencia to Edimburgo.

Did you enjoy València? *






* Valencian sp.

[IvanV]

Where do you stand on Helsingfors?

I met someone once who told he quite clearly he came from Helsingfors, and indeed held a post at Helsingfors University, and that he had every right to call it that. He was Mårten Ringbom, one of the 5% of Finns who are Swedish speaking. He said he had a 15-min programme on Finnish radio where he did a kind of Alastair Cooke raconteur type of thing, and was also involved in putting together the Latin language news broadcast that Finnish radio used to run from 1989-2019.

Given his pride in being a Swedish-speaker, I suppose it is inevitable that the Wiki article for him is found only on Swedish Wikipedia, and not on Finnish.

I met him in a backpacker hostel in Papeete, the main town of Tahiti and capital of French Polynesia. He bought me a drink in a nice bar as it was my birthday. And entertained me well with his stories for an evening. What he was doing in a backpacker hostel in Papeete, Tahiti, I have no idea, I never got an explanation for that. It had prison-cell like rooms, and much the biggest cockroaches I've ever seen. When I came back to Papeete, as I did twice again as I spent a few days exploring Tahiti itself, and 3 of the nearer islands, with my bicycle, I stayed in a much nicer place about 10km out of town.

[Bird on a Fire]

Ukraine has passed quite a lot of laws to suppress the Russian language. I don't know if that reflects wider sentiments about the Russian minority population or not, but you start to understand why Russian Ukrainians near the border might not be so against being "liberated".

I've spoken to a Russian speaking Ukrainian about this, and suffice to say I've got a radically different picture - they were adamant that Russian is not, in fact, suppressed, so I'm curious where you are getting this from.

Well, it's banned from being used officially and can't be used in schools, which sounds a bit oppressy to me. Like the English used to do with Welsh and Gaelic etc.:

Russian is the most common first language in the Donbas and Crimea regions of Ukraine and the city of Kharkiv, and the predominant language in large cities in the eastern and southern portions of the country.[1] The usage and status of the language is the subject of political disputes. Ukrainian is the country's only state language since the entry into force of the 1996 Constitution, which prohibits an official bilingual system at state level but also guarantees the free development, use and protection of Russian and other languages of national minorities.[2] In 2017 a new Law on Education was passed which restricted the use of Russian as a language of instruction.[2] Nevertheless, Russian remains a widely used language in Ukraine in pop culture and in informal and business communication.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_l ... in_Ukraine
Note that 2017 is quite recent, too. Hard not to see it as a reaction to events in Crimea.

Also, assuming language spoken=culture is a very bad idea. Russian was imposed on Ukraine, both by the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. This would be a bit like assuming that English speaking Irish would somehow think fondly of Britain compared to Irish speaking Irish.

Everyone I've spoken to and everything I've seen suggests that Ukraine is extraordinarily united against the Russian invasion, and language really isn't a factor.

And please remember that the "pro-Russian seperatists", as our media liked to call them, in the Donbas weren't miners from the Donbas but ultranationlist Russians from Russia.

Well, before 2014 polling suggested a majority of Crimeans supported secession, and support was higher amongst ethnic Russians (who are the majority in the region). I'm going to assume there's a fair bit of overlap between Russian ethnicity and Russian language.

Which isn't to say they support the invasion as it's currently happening of course. I expect there's very little reliable data on that.

[EACLucifer]

Well, before 2014 polling suggested a majority of Crimeans supported secession, and support was higher amongst ethnic Russians (who are the majority in the region). I'm going to assume there's a fair bit of overlap between Russian ethnicity and Russian language.

Which isn't to say they support the invasion as it's currently happening of course. I expect there's very little reliable data on that.

The Soviet Union ethnically cleansed Crimea of Tatars and it hosted a Russian military base. That would be a bit like polling the current population of Diego Garcia as to its future and ignoring the displaced islanders.

[WFJ]

Well, before 2014 polling suggested a majority of Crimeans supported secession, and support was higher amongst ethnic Russians (who are the majority in the region). I'm going to assume there's a fair bit of overlap between Russian ethnicity and Russian language.

Which isn't to say they support the invasion as it's currently happening of course. I expect there's very little reliable data on that.

The Soviet Union ethnically cleansed Crimea of Tatars and it hosted a Russian military base. That would be a bit like polling the current population of Diego Garcia as to its future and ignoring the displaced islanders.

Similarly like polling the current population of any American country, Australia, Gibraltar or Northern Ireland. At some point it makes no sense to consider residents of a country as invalid because of how their ancestors arrived. If those examples are too historical, Israel would be a contemporary equivalent.