POLITE GEOGRAPHY
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In this enlightened and cosmopolitan day and age, why do we not call Germany Deutschland, Austria Oesterreich, Holland Nederland ; Copenhagen Kobenhavn, Heisingfors Helsinki, Reval Tallin ?
The Wagon Lits Company, in the map of Europe to be found in the corridors of their carriages, follow the com- mendable custom of giving the names of towns and countries in the language of the land of their origin. Should not our schools and newspapers do the same ? Why continue to call Livorno Leghorn ? There is no reason to-day why we should not write Anvers, Bruxelles, Den Haag, Hoek van Holland, Koln, Roma, Lisboa, Praha, Beograd, Wien, Bucaresti, Istanbul, Ankara, Alep, Dames, &c., instead of their illiterate English equivalents. Only a few exceptions need be made.
Ceskoslovenska and the Kraljevina Srba Hrvata Slovenaca are two European countries which contain towns so tongue- twistingly " consonanted " that they are difficult to remember and pronounce : in Africa and Asia there are others, but as regards the major part of Europe there is no reason why we should not call every place-name by the title its natives have given it : to do otherwise is to confess to a retrograde nineteenth-century mentality.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
