Indigenous Names To New World Places

[Dogmeat]

Nothing bad actually happened when we started calling "Mt. McKinley" Denali. I don't see why this is worth getting worked up over.

So, as a centrist sometimes I like to criticise the stupid shit the left and says does and to a lesser extent, and to a lesser extent, what the far right says or does.

Not sure who you're trying to fool. Yourself?

[Australian rePublic]

Nothing bad actually happened when we started calling "Mt. McKinley" Denali. I don't see why this is worth getting worked up over.

You're not wrong. I don't see anything at all wrong with, within reason, renaming places to have Aboriginal names. One particular example that I am happy about was the island formally known as "Frasier Island", who which was named after a woman who lied and falsly claimed she was mistreated by the island's Aboriginals and later was later proben to have made the allegations up. Thank God that's no longer named after her. I don't know what's it called now, but at least it's not named after that racist bigot.

So, as a centrist sometimes I like to criticise the stupid shit the left and says does and to a lesser extent, and to a lesser extent, what the far right says or does.

Not sure who you're trying to fool. Yourself?[/quote]
Hey, it's not my fault that there's a significantly higher number of left wingers who say stupid shit than right-wingers. Okay, so that's not fair. They're are plenty of right-wingers who say stupid shit but it's so ridiculous.that I don't have time and more often than not conspitatorial, and I don't have the time nor am I bothered to discuss every crackpot conspiracy theory out there. You've actually inspired me to create a thread about the ridiculous great replacement nonsense. And I have called out right-wingers. Just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. You know that not everyone who disagrees with you is a far right white nationalist? Don't even get me started on those people...

[The Blaatschapen]

I live in the east of Germany.

There are places called Chemnitz, or Bernau, or Rathenow.

Trust me, none of those names are of germanic origin.

They're slavic. And then germanised a bit.

Now, one could rename those places (Chemnitz was called Karl Marx Stadt for a while by the authoritians of east Germany). All in the name of some weird flavour of nationalism, but that would mostly confuse the natives. And everyone else.

So basically, does the name make sense already? Then keep it. If there is no name for a particular area yet in a current local language, feel free to borrow it from a previous local language, etc.

[Soviet Haaregrad]

Is this where someone launches the campaign to rename Tittybong, Victoria?

A city named after two of the greatest things to ever exist. What a legend.

[Soviet Haaregrad]

Nothing bad actually happened when we started calling "Mt. McKinley" Denali. I don't see why this is worth getting worked up over.

So, as a centrist sometimes I like to criticise the stupid shit the left and says does and to a lesser extent, and to a lesser extent, what the far right says or does.

Not sure who you're trying to fool. Yourself?

Enlightened Centrism is a hell of a drug.

[The Apollonian Systems]

I really don’t care and frankly it’s up to the locals, both native and settler descent.

[Page]

Hot take: Status quo bias is actually a valid reason to oppose changing a name. I was willing to play ball with changing Kiev to Kyiv, it's 4 letters and pretty phonetic either way, but Turkey is still Turkey to me, not Türkiye. That's asking too much. The country now known legally as Northern Macedonia is just Macedonia too me, as was it back when it was called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. I'm not going to indulge the narcissism of chauvinistic Greeks. Mumbai instead of Bombay? Sure. Calling The Ivory Coast only by its French name? GTFO. Everyone has exonyms, everyone has endonyms. I've never heard a German bitch about the country they call Deutschland referred to as Germany or Allegmania, and if I did meet one, I'd assume them to be some AfD or Reichsbürger type.

Now, if instead of countries we're talking individuals' new names, like transgender folks, that's a completely different story. Their preferred name matters to them a lot. If it matters a lot to people, then I'm largely on board. As such, if a street or a bridge is named after someone from the KKK, I'm for renaming it because that seriously bothers a lot of people. By contrast, I won't refrain from using a word like "spooky" because some ridiculous people think it's close to the slur "spook", which is so old-timey that these days if somebody called a black person a spook, one should say in response "Time travel much?" And numbers matter. A majority of black people don't want a bridge named after the KKK, whereas there are only like 8 people in the world who object to the use of the word spooky, and 6 of those 8 are affluent white college students.

I don't know enough about Australia to know how many Aboriginals strongly desire these station names. If it's a significant amount, then maybe change them, but choose names that are memorable, and limit syllables per name.

Also, maybe Australia could do something more concrete, like fix the incarceration disparity of Aboriginals that is so extreme it makes the disparity of incarcerated black people in America lookalike a rounding error by comparison.

[Zancostan]

I live in Omaha. We were founded in 1854.

People are gonna name shit whatever they want.

[USS Monitor]

the USA's northernmost city which was formally Barrow, Alaska, changed it's name to Utqiagvik in 2016, but that's all I can really think of...

This brings up a pretty important consideration.
Will people actually use the indigenous name?

It that example, yes because it has a large indigenous population.

[Juansonia]

Hot take: Status quo bias is actually a valid reason to oppose changing a name. I was willing to play ball with changing Kiev to Kyiv, it's 4 letters and pretty phonetic either way, but Turkey is still Turkey to me, not Türkiye. That's asking too much. The country now known legally as Northern Macedonia is just Macedonia too me, as was it back when it was called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. I'm not going to indulge the narcissism of chauvinistic Greeks. Mumbai instead of Bombay? Sure. Calling The Ivory Coast only by its French name? GTFO. Everyone has exonyms, everyone has endonyms. I've never heard a German bitch about the country they call Deutschland referred to as Germany or Allegmania, and if I did meet one, I'd assume them to be some AfD or Reichsbürger type.

Now, if instead of countries we're talking individuals' new names, like transgender folks, that's a completely different story. Their preferred name matters to them a lot. If it matters a lot to people, then I'm largely on board. As such, if a street or a bridge is named after someone from the KKK, I'm for renaming it because that seriously bothers a lot of people. By contrast, I won't refrain from using a word like "spooky" because some ridiculous people think it's close to the slur "spook", which is so old-timey that these days if somebody called a black person a spook, one should say in response "Time travel much?" And numbers matter. A majority of black people don't want a bridge named after the KKK, whereas there are only like 8 people in the world who object to the use of the word spooky, and 6 of those 8 are affluent white college students.

I don't know enough about Australia to know how many Aboriginals strongly desire these station names. If it's a significant amount, then maybe change them, but choose names that are memorable, and limit syllables per name.

Also, maybe Australia could do something more concrete, like fix the incarceration disparity of Aboriginals that is so extreme it makes the disparity of incarcerated black people in America lookalike a rounding error by comparison.

TIL all black people are spies. /s

[Australian rePublic]

Why? Why is wanting good wayfinding illogical?

It's illogical to think people need to have dumbed down toponyms to find their way around.

To a certain extent, I'd have to agree with you, but there's a point. For example, let's say the current transport minister built a station in, say, Illawong and instead of naming it "Illawong", she names it after herself and we end up with "Haylenburg", it'd be pretty shitty shitty for trying to find your way around

[Australian rePublic]

Nobody complains that Southern Cross Staton in Melbourne is no longer called Spencer Street. Nobody has issues with way finding there. Why is it only an issue if the name in question is indigenous?

Yea, racist idiots tend to be like that

[Australian rePublic]

Ome thing that bothers me more than the actual name of transit station is how they very rarely pay homeage to their name sake. The only one that pretty much that I can think of is Warawee, which means "stop here", but Green Square has no green squares, Rose Bay ferry wharf has no roses, Telopia tram stop (along the same line as Yallamundi) has no waratahs (of which "Telopia" is the scientific name of), Kogarah station (which means "place of many reeds" has no reeds, despite having other plants on the platform, and the list goes on. Yallumndi means "story teller" so they should have had one of those stations with the many artifcts they discovered whilst building the line (like they do in Rome or Athens). Obviously there are times when you can't, for example, Notmanhurst can't, but other stations that can don't and it upsets me. Chullora which means "flour" doesn't have a train station but it has a bread factory, which makes me really happy. Maybe I should do a YouTube video about that including suggestions about how we could pay homage to the name...

Anyways, I couldn't care less about the name beyond wayfinding purposes and in fact like the fact that we name things with Indegnous names.

But something that really gets my goat is that the city named after Robert Town was named "Townsville" instead of "Townstown". If I had a time machine, I'd give those people a nice "talking to". 7 year old me was also really upset that Townsville never used the Powerpuff Girls as a tourism campaign (but now the popularity of the show has faded and it's too late)

[The Apollonian Systems]

Nothing bad actually happened when we started calling "Mt. McKinley" Denali. I don't see why this is worth getting worked up over.

So, as a centrist sometimes I like to criticise the stupid shit the left and says does and to a lesser extent, and to a lesser extent, what the far right says or does.

Not sure who you're trying to fool. Yourself?

Won’t lie the indigenous names are pretty much always better than “new old world place” or “guy who died decades of not centuries ago place”.

On top of that there’s also places that have names derived form westerns who explicitly did not want these places to be renamed, most notably Mt Everest.

[USHALLNOTPASS]

There are no gods of war in Marsfield, no woods in Eastwood. What a fucking scam.

[Durius]

It's illogical to think people need to have dumbed down toponyms to find their way around.

To a certain extent, I'd have to agree with you, but there's a point. For example, let's say the current transport minister built a station in, say, Illawong and instead of naming it "Illawong", she names it after herself and we end up with "Haylenburg", it'd be pretty shitty shitty for trying to find your way around

Ignoring the clear corruption case that in nothing has to due with the actual discussion, people nowadays can just use GPS. Metro or train stations, airports, etc. being named after famous people already happens (e.g.: JFK airport, not New York airport). But if it really really confuses you so so much, just name it Illawong - Haylenburg and be done with it.

[Australian rePublic]

To a certain extent, I'd have to agree with you, but there's a point. For example, let's say the current transport minister built a station in, say, Illawong and instead of naming it "Illawong", she names it after herself and we end up with "Haylenburg", it'd be pretty shitty shitty for trying to find your way around

Ignoring the clear corruption case that in nothing has to due with the actual discussion, people nowadays can just use GPS. Metro or train stations, airports, etc. being named after famous people already happens (e.g.: JFK airport, not New York airport). But if it really really confuses you so so much, just name it Illawong - Haylenburg and be done with it.

Yallamundi- Rose Hill, now that's a good idea. And GPS does javkshit to help you with transit wayfinding- it's more like "hey, I live in Illawong, catch a train there" or "located in Rosehill, just across the train station". You don't wanna end up like Singapore:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NmDlBk7NLHE

[Durius]

Ignoring the clear corruption case that in nothing has to due with the actual discussion, people nowadays can just use GPS. Metro or train stations, airports, etc. being named after famous people already happens (e.g.: JFK airport, not New York airport). But if it really really confuses you so so much, just name it Illawong - Haylenburg and be done with it.

Yallamundi- Rose Hill, now that's a good idea. And GPS does javkshit to help you with transit wayfinding- it's more like "hey, I live in Illawong, catch a train there" or "located in Rosehill, just across the train station". You don't wanna end up like Singapore:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NmDlBk7NLHE

Did you actually ever used a maps app?

[Australian rePublic]

To a certain extent, I'd have to agree with you, but there's a point. For example, let's say the current transport minister built a station in, say, Illawong and instead of naming it "Illawong", she names it after herself and we end up with "Haylenburg", it'd be pretty shitty shitty for trying to find your way around

Ignoring the clear corruption case that in nothing has to due with the actual discussion, people nowadays can just use GPS. Metro or train stations, airports, etc. being named after famous people already happens (e.g.: JFK airport, not New York airport). But if it really really confuses you so so much, just name it Illawong - Haylenburg and be done with it.

It was just an example. Jo Haylen wouldn't in a million years name a station after herself, and that's obviously not the point. Why are you so in favour of Illawong-Haylenburg but against Yallamundi Rosehill?

Yallamundi- Rose Hill, now that's a good idea. And GPS does javkshit to help you with transit wayfinding- it's more like "hey, I live in Illawong, catch a train there" or "located in Rosehill, just across the train station". You don't wanna end up like Singapore:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NmDlBk7NLHE

Did you actually ever used a maps app?

I drive for a living. Google Maps is my livihood. It doesn't change a damn thing I said. And it becomes a lot harder when you're in a place you're not familiar with or even worse overseas where it's harder to use mobile data. Now, I'm happy if they were to build a Yallumndi road or something like that nearby. Gadigal is a different story because it's already in the downtown area and the station is a big enough attraction to sort its own navugability issue over a short time, but Yallamundi isn't. Now, if we had Yallamundi road or Yallumundi Avenue, or better yet, University of Western Sydney Yallamundi campus, I wouldn't have anything bad at all to say about that name. I mean if you're going to go down the path of not needing names for wayfinding purposes, why even bother with names to begin with? You can just have station 1, station 2, station 3, etc. It'll make making sigange a hell of a lot easier

[Dogmeat]

Nothing bad actually happened when we started calling "Mt. McKinley" Denali. I don't see why this is worth getting worked up over.


Not sure who you're trying to fool. Yourself?

Won’t lie the indigenous names are pretty much always better than “new old world place” or “guy who died decades of not centuries ago place”.

On top of that there’s also places that have names derived form westerns who explicitly did not want these places to be renamed, most notably Mt Everest.

Fun fact about that one: the way that everyone pronounces "Everest" is not the way the guy's name is pronounced.

Should be "eev-rest" not "ever-rest."

[Kerwa]

The UK does it too. Cheviot, for example, or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Neither are English.

True, but the historical process behind the use of a pre-English Celtic name for the Cheviots is arguably very different from the process of a post-colonial society deciding how to best use indigenous place names. You could argue that they both ultimately stem from a process of colonisation and appropriation, but the time depth of 'Cheviot' means it has a very different sociopolitical context. And it's not as if anyone (to the best of my knowledge) is running around proposing we anglicise every occurrence in England of 'River Avon' to 'River River' so we all stop using Brythonic indigenous names.

The modern Welsh example is arguably closer to the thread topic since the village previously (and still informally) known as 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyll' seems to have had its name deliberately and artificially lengthened in the 19th century to 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch' as a publicity stunt subsequently embraced by the local Welsh-speaking community.

I just wanted to use Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. As for Cheviot I picked that because it is possibly pre Celtic - though that theory might have fallen out of favor by now.

But it got me thinking about renaming things. (Or rather restoring the name of things). What do you do in cases like York. Does it revert to Jorvik, Eoforwic, Eboracum or Eborakun? I’m not sure that this decolonization thing is as simple as people make it out to be.

[Durius]

Ignoring the clear corruption case that in nothing has to due with the actual discussion, people nowadays can just use GPS. Metro or train stations, airports, etc. being named after famous people already happens (e.g.: JFK airport, not New York airport). But if it really really confuses you so so much, just name it Illawong - Haylenburg and be done with it.

It was just an example. Jo Haylen wouldn't in a million years name a station after herself, and that's obviously not the point. Why are you so in favour of Illawong-Haylenburg but against Yallamundi Rosehill?

What? I'm simply contradicting your premise that indigenous toponyms are problematic. They aren't. At least no more than colonialist names are.

Did you actually ever used a maps app?

I drive for a living. Google Maps is my livihood. It doesn't change a damn thing I said. And it becomes a lot harder when you're in a place you're not familiar with or even worse overseas where it's harder to use mobile data. Now, I'm happy if they were to build a Yallumndi road or something like that nearby. Gadigal is a different story because it's already in the downtown area and the station is a big enough attraction to sort its own navugability issue over a short time, but Yallamundi isn't. Now, if we had Yallamundi road or Yallumundi Avenue, or better yet, University of Western Sydney Yallamundi campus, I wouldn't have anything bad at all to say about that name. I mean if you're going to go down the path of not needing names for wayfinding purposes, why even bother with names to begin with? You can just have station 1, station 2, station 3, etc. It'll make making sigange a hell of a lot easier

With all due respect, but I will put it in the "no" box for gps (or general) navigation capabilities.

[The Archregimancy]

True, but the historical process behind the use of a pre-English Celtic name for the Cheviots is arguably very different from the process of a post-colonial society deciding how to best use indigenous place names. You could argue that they both ultimately stem from a process of colonisation and appropriation, but the time depth of 'Cheviot' means it has a very different sociopolitical context. And it's not as if anyone (to the best of my knowledge) is running around proposing we anglicise every occurrence in England of 'River Avon' to 'River River' so we all stop using Brythonic indigenous names.

The modern Welsh example is arguably closer to the thread topic since the village previously (and still informally) known as 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyll' seems to have had its name deliberately and artificially lengthened in the 19th century to 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch' as a publicity stunt subsequently embraced by the local Welsh-speaking community.

I just wanted to use Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. As for Cheviot I picked that because it is possibly pre Celtic - though that theory might have fallen out of favor by now.

But it got me thinking about renaming things. (Or rather restoring the name of things). What do you do in cases like York. Does it revert to Jorvik, Eoforwic, Eboracum or Eborakun? I’m not sure that this decolonization thing is as simple as people make it out to be.

In the case of York - which I know very well - those are all just variations on the same place name, with different linguistic endings added to the core original Ebor/Evor stem [historical pronunciations of 'v' and 'b' can merge - see also Spanish and Greek]; one of the Welsh names for the city (Caer Efrog) uses a prefix rather than a suffix, but the same principle holds. The Anglo-Saxon and Viking names use a suffix that signified 'harbour' or 'bay' (though York is on a river, of course); see Icelandic Reykjavik ('smoke harbour' or 'smoke bay'). Over time the various syllables seem to have merged, leaving us with the first syllable of the original stem and the last consonant of the early medieval suffixes.

[Dazchan]

it's more like "hey, I live in Illawong, catch a train there" or "located in Rosehill, just across the train station".

"Hey, I live on Spencer St, catch a train to Southern Cross Station."
"Located in Pitt St, just across from Gadigal Station."

That didn't seem too hard.

[The Archregimancy]

Won’t lie the indigenous names are pretty much always better than “new old world place” or “guy who died decades of not centuries ago place”.

On top of that there’s also places that have names derived form westerns who explicitly did not want these places to be renamed, most notably Mt Everest.

Fun fact about that one: the way that everyone pronounces "Everest" is not the way the guy's name is pronounced.

Should be "eev-rest" not "ever-rest."

And then there's K2, named after Qaytu, the Ladakhi god of second-biggest things.