European Endonyms (from http://endonymmap.com)
We spoke in class on Tuesday about the fact that the names we use (in English) for other countries are often different from the names they have in local languages. I learned today that there is a word for this phenomenon, endonym, defined as ‘a name used by a group or category of people to refer to themselves or their language, as opposed to a name given to them by other groups. For example, Deutschen is the endonym of a people known in English as German.’
I learned this new word when I stumbled across this interesting post on the blog GeoCurrents about endonyms in Africa, a part of the world where many countries have several (in some cases hundreds of) different indigenous languages. It’s worth taking a look at, as is Endonym Map, which shows most countries in the world and some of the names by which they are known.
|
|
