A guide to renamed cities 城市重命名指南

喂喂士武

来源：经济学人 3.26 文化
A guide to renamed cities
城市重命名指南
Some reasons for changing place-names are better than others
有些城市重命名是有道理的
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has had enough of bad puns that conflate Turkey, the country he has governed for two decades, with the ugly bird served for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Convinced that his power extends to the English language, late last year Mr Erdogan decreed that his country would henceforth be known to the rest of the world as Türkiye, as it is in Turkish. It plans to register with the United Nations under the new name. State institutions have begun using it already.
雷杰普-塔伊普-埃尔多安(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)已经受够了恶俗双关语，把他统治了20年的国家土耳其与感恩节和圣诞节的丑鸟混为一谈。埃尔多安先生确信他的权力已经扩展到英语国家，去年年底，他宣布他的国家今后将被世界其他国家称为Türkiye，就像它的土耳其语一样。它计划用这个新名字在联合国注册。国家机构已经开始使用这个名字。
Despite the fortune spent on a new publicity campaign, including videos aired on Turkish Airlines the world over, Türkiye is not catching on. At a recent international forum in Antalya, on the country’s southern coast, diplomats did not appear in the least interested in using the new name (pronounced with a ü somewhat like the German one and a “yeah”­like ending). Their Turkish counterparts occasionally used the old one, then corrected themselves, then realised no one really cared. The only people who stayed on message, at least in public, were foreigners working for Turkey’s state propaganda channel, hired as panel moderators, who took turns garbling Türkiye. Mr Erdogan’s supporters nonetheless rejoice in the idea that foreigners will be made to call their country by its authentic name. Critics say the move is a populist gimmick.
尽管在新的宣传活动上花费了大量资金，包括在世界各地的土耳其航空公司播放的视频，但“Türkiye”这个名字并没有流行起来。最近在该国南部海岸的安塔利亚举行的一个国际论坛上，外交官们似乎对使用新名称（发音为有点像德国的ü，结尾为 "耶"）丝毫不感兴趣。他们的土耳其同行偶尔会使用旧名称，然后纠正自己，然后意识到没有人真正关心。唯一这样做的人，至少在公开场合，是为土耳其国家宣传频道工作的外国人，他们被雇为小组主持人，轮流讲土耳其语。然而，埃尔多安先生的支持者对外国人将被要求以真实的名字称呼他们的国家的想法感到高兴，而批评者说此举是民粹主义的噱头。
Almost any place’s true name can be a matter for discussion. Three of Turkey’s neighbours officially call themselves Hellas, Sakartvelo and Hayastan—better known as Greece, Georgia and Armenia in English. Meanwhile Hindistan, the name for India in Turkish, can also mean “the country of turkeys”. There is no neutral, non­political way to refer to almost any square of the globe. Most names annoy somebody.
几乎任何地方的真实名称都可以成为一个讨论的问题。土耳其的三个邻国正式称自己为Hellas、Sakartvelo和Hayastan--在英语中更多地被称为希腊、格鲁吉亚和亚美尼亚。同时，土耳其对印度的称呼Hindista，也意味着 "火鸡之国"。没有中立的、非政治性的方式来指称地球上几乎任何地方。大多数名字都会惹恼某人。
This is most obvious when a territory goes from belonging to one state to another. Westerners were accustomed to referring to cities in Ukraine as Kiev, Kharkov and Lvov. Some grumble at having to learn new names for them—Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv. But the old ones were not neutral. They were Russian, and after the country became independent many of its people wanted the Ukrainian versions to be used even in English. Outsiders’ decision to use Ukrainian place­names is now a political declaration of support for Ukraine’s very right to exist.
当一块领土从属于一个国家变成另一个国家时，这一点最为明显。西方人习惯于将乌克兰的城市称为Kiev, Kharkov and Lvov。有些人对不得不为它们学习新的名字感到不满—即Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv。但问题在于旧的名字并不是中立的。它们来源于俄语，在国家独立后，许多人希望即使在英语中也能使用乌克兰语版本。外部人士决定使用乌克兰地名，现在则成为了支持乌克兰存在权利的政治宣言。
A countervailing argument holds that foreign places have long­established English names which it is perfectly normal for English­speakers (and publications) to use. English­speakers refer to Italy and Rome, not Italia and Roma, no matter what locals may say, and this is generally not controversial. For their part, Romans refer to Inghilterra and Londra. Unusually, Italian lobbyists persuaded the International Olympic Committee to officially dub the host of the Winter Olympics of 2006 “Torino”, a city universally known in English as Turin. But the committee could not force the change on others: some media outlets went with the Italian name, others stuck with the English equivalent.
一种相反的观点认为，外国的地方有历史悠久的英文名称，英语使用者（和出版物）使用这些名称是非常正常的。不管当地人怎么说，英语使用者使用Italy and Rome，而不是Italia and Roma，这通常没有争议。就他们自己而言，罗马人指的是Inghilterra和Londra。与众不同的是，意大利游说者说服国际奥林匹克委员会将2006年冬季奥运会的主办地正式命名为  “Torino”，这个城市在英语中被普遍称为Turin。但该委员会不能强迫其他人做出改变：结果是一些媒体使用意大利名字，另一些则坚持使用英文名称。
Some calls for change involve colonial names or spellings that were imposed by outsiders. India­watchers have had to adjust to Mumbai (once Bombay), Kolkata (Calcutta) and Chennai (Madras), while remembering that institutions like the Bombay Stock Exchange and the University of Madras continue to use their old monikers. Such renamings often purport[江城1]  to hark back to an unsullied past, but are really exercises in nationalist myth­making. Sometimes they are inarguable. Citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo (once Zaire) understandably wanted to rename their capital, Leopoldville, which recalled a Belgian ruler whose name was a byword for the worst in colonial brutality. It is now Kinshasa.
一些呼吁改变是因为这些城市涉及殖民，或相关名字是被外国人强加的。印度观察家们不得不适应孟买（曾经的Bombay）、加尔各答（Calcutta）和钦奈（Madras）等新名称，同时也要记得孟买证券交易所和马德拉斯大学等仍在使用它们的旧名称的机构。这种重新命名往往声称要回到一个不受污染的过去，但实际上是在进行民族主义的自我幻想。有时它们是可以理解的。刚果民主共和国（曾经的扎伊尔）的公民想要重新命名他们的首都利奥波德维尔[江城2] ，这是可以理解的，这让人想起了一位比利时统治者，他的名字是殖民时期最糟糕的暴行的代名词。现在它被称为金沙萨。
The trickiest cases involve not out-and-out[江城3]  Kinshasa­style renamings (which are almost always respected), but requests for English­speakers to abandon a well­established English name and adopt something similar, but closer to the natives’ own. The Czech Republic has a one­word name in Czech (Česko), and so the Czechs have asked for their country to be called Czechia in English. This has yet to catch on.
最棘手的案例并不涉及金沙萨式的重名（这几乎总是被尊重的），而是要求英语使用者放弃一个既定的英文名称，采用类似的，但更接近当地人的名字。捷克共和国在捷克有一个单字的名字（Česko），所以捷克人要求他们的国家在英语中被称为Czechia。但这一点还没有流行开来。
Populists and autocrats may think they can dictate place­names, but no amount of decrees can force people to say Türkiye instead of Turkey. And the greater the attempt to strong­arm them into doing so, the greater the chance they will stick with the old version out of stubbornness. As the widespread adoption of Kyiv shows, no one likes a bully.
民粹主义者和专制主义者可能认为他们可以支配地名，但再多的法令也不能强迫人们说Türkiye代替土耳其。而且，越是试图强迫他们这样做，他们就越有可能出于固执而坚持使用旧版本。正如基辅的被接纳采用所表明的那般，没有人喜欢霸凌者。
<hr/>[江城1]n.主旨; 大意; 主要意思;
vi.自称; 标榜;


    [江城2]金沙萨1966年前称利奥波德维尔，历史上曾为比属刚果的首府。1960年独立，比属刚果独立，定都金沙萨。金沙萨是个拥有千万人口的现代化非洲都城，是全国政治、经济、交通和文化中心。


    [江城3]十足的; 完全的; 彻头彻尾的;