So much to say

 Stanley – Thursday

 

There are so many things to talk about this week! 

 

First, today is the day we’ve all been waiting for—the historic re-inauguration of Donald Trump. I am sitting here with bated breath (not held breath) in front of the TV.

 

Second, it was this week in 1885 that the Berlin Conference ended. This was the conference where the European powers divided up Africa, each scrambling to get the best resources and land. 

 

I'll have this piece.

The result

There were no Africans at the conference. 

 

The United States had observer status in the person of Henry Morton Stanley of ‘Dr Livingston, I presume’ fame—a rogue if there ever was one. Most people think he was an American. He wasn’t. He was Welsh.

 

Henry Morton Stanley

 

Third, in a related event, the city of Port Elizabeth in South Africa (or P E as it is often referred to) was renamed Gqeberha, a Xhosa word that has caused a lot of interest and some pushback. Named in 1920 after the late wife of Lord Charles Somerset, governor of the Cape Colony, P E became the commercial centre of the Eastern Cape. The reason for the renaming is that before the colonists arrived, the local river was called Gqeberha. It is part of a larger, long-term effort to change colonial names back to local ones.

Downtown Gqeberha

Gqeberha has lovely beaches.

 

Some people, mainly White, I suspect, are against the change, offering various arguments, such as it will cost too much money, or everyone knows the town is called P E, or the new name is unpronounceable.

 

A number of other towns’ names were also changed, also to difficult-to-pronounce Xhosa names. King Williams Town is now Qonce (with its two different clicks), and Maclear is now the challenging Nqanqarhu.

 

These names ARE difficult to pronounce. Even for many Black South Africans who aren’t Xhosa.

 

Thisvery amusing three-minute video gives a good idea of the problems that even the locals are having.

 

This one-minute video shows a delightfully creative approach to pronouncing the three most difficult new names. Think Miriam Makeba, who would have been delighted.

 

Personally, I’m very much in favour of changing these old colonial names. And I love these new ones. I’m sure it won’t take long for people to start referring to the old P E as G Q. That will avoid tongue sprain.

 

Which brings me to a question I’ve pondered for many years. Namely, why do people in one country so frequently change the name of places in other countries? Sometimes the change is purely in the pronunciation, such as English speakers say Paris, while the French call their city of light Paree (still spelt Paris). Generally, I understand this. Someone who hasn’t visited France or who doesn’t speak French would naturally think that the final s in Paris should be articulated.

More puzzling to me is when the local name for a place is easy to say in English, but is still changed. So to the Italians, the city is Roma, but we English speakers have changed it to Rome.  Why? After all, we can all say Roma.

 

I sort of understand it when different languages pronounce letters differently. The Austrian capital is Wien to the Austrians, pronounced Veen. At face value, in English this would be pronounced Ween. I guess, rather than learning the correct pronunciation of Wien, English speakers tried to spell it with letters that approximated the correct pronunciation. Hence Vienna. But, if you are going to change it, why not to Veen?

 

I do understand that English got many of its city names from the French, who call Firenze Florence, for example, which is an adaptation of its original Latin name Florentia. But even the Brits can pronounce Firenze, so why not leave it alone?

 

Things get even more complicated in countries that have multiple official languages. The little, mountainous country in Europe that we know as Switzerland, has Helvetia on its stamps, but its official name is Swiss Confederation (or Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft in German). Each of the four official languages has a different name for the country: die Schweiz (German), Suisse (French), Svizzera (Italian), and Svizra (Romansch). Very confusing.

 

And of course, Swiss towns often have different names in the different languages. Geneva, for example, is Genf in German. You have to be on the ball when looking at Swiss road signs.

 

We’ve been lucky in South Africa (with its 11 official languages) that most towns have one name. Certainly since the democratic elections in 1994, a number of names have changed, like Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha, but officially there is always only one. I happen to live in the only exception I can think of: Cape Town is Kaapstad in Afrikaans. What is confusing to visitors is street signs: 2^nd Avenue on one street sign will be 2de Laan (Tweede Laan) on the next for the same street. English and Afrikaans again.

 

It is all so confusing.

 

I think I am going to start the Places Should Have One Name society: the PSHON society. In this age of social media, Google, and television, it should be pretty easy to standardise names. Since PSHON will be in make-things-easy mode, it could have a committee to study the introduction of one worldwide time, as well as the adoption of Esperanto as the world’s official language. 

 

Now, is Trump president yet?