In an essay for THE WEEKLY STANDARD some years ago, John Derbyshire argued, persuasively, for the retention of Anglo-Saxon geographic nomenclature:
The question is rhetorical: Having been given the novels of George Borrow (Lavengro, Romany Rye) to read at an early age, I happen to know that rom means “man” in the Gypsy language. The Roma are the Gypsies. How many other people know this, I cannot guess, but I feel sure it is not many. So why confuse us like this? Why not say “Gypsy”?
There is a lot of this going on. A scholarly e-group I belong to recently featured some e-mail exchanges about a people called the Saami. This one I didn’t know and had to ask about: “Saami” is the new, PC-certified name of the Lapps. Further east, the Samoyeds are now “Nemtsi.” Meanwhile, down in Africa, Hottentots are “Khoi” while Bushmen must be called “San.” What will now become of my party piece, reciting the silliest word in the German language: Hottentotenpotentatenstantenattentater–“one who assails the aunt of a Hottentot potentate”?
Ethnonymy–the naming of peoples–is apparently headed down the same slippery slope that toponymy–the naming of places–embarked on 20 years ago, when we were all supposed to start saying “Beijing” and “Mumbai” instead of Peking and Bombay, out of imagined deference to the sensibilities of the Third World. Toponymical practice has now passed far beyond the bounds of reason into a realm of utter lunacy. The other day I needed to know the name of that wee gulf up in the top right-hand corner of the Mediterranean. I pulled down my Times Atlas of the World and got the answer: Iskenderun korfezi. Now, I am sure that somewhere in there was the Turkish word for “gulf,” but, alas, I had mislaid my Turkish dictionary.
It’s gone beyond academic circles now. A recent episode of the excellent TV show House, M.D. featured a strange, tribal character who traveled in caravans with his extended family. He was, he informed viewers, “Romani.” Derbyshire would have winced. But not nearly so violently as he would have a few weeks ago when the State Department sent around a little message marking a name change of their own:
Effective immediately, the official designation of the U.S. Consulate General Calcutta is changed to U.S. Consulate General Kolkata. This reflects a change of standard name use adopted by the United States Board of Geographic Names.
Such cultural sensitivity–from George W. Bush’s imperialist, unilateral administration, no less–is something to behold.
