Exonym

An exonym (from the Greek ἐξ, ex, “out of”, and ὄνομα, ónoma, “name”) is the name with which a community of speakers refers to another human group or its members (without coinciding with the ethnonym that that other group gives itself). It is also the name that a community gives to a place that is outside the sphere of influence of its own language. On the contrary, the way in which the inhabitants of the referred place refer to it in the native language is known as an endonym. The voice is a technicality typical of the field of linguistics.

The Royal Academy and the Association of Spanish Language Academies recommend the use of traditional exonyms, citing Rangoon, Izmir, Belgrade, Milan, Bucharest and Turin as examples, and not the foreign words Yangon, Izmir, etc.

General information

Classic examples could be Bordeaux for Bordeaux, London for London or Munich for München. On the contrary, an endonym is the name by which a place is known in the native language. Exonyms are a traditional and common phenomenon in all educated languages that is still fully valid. Most of the countries have authorities (whether national or local) in charge of fixing the official name of geographical accidents and administrative entities within the country itself, without traditionally trying to get other languages to adopt it literally or renounce their rights. own graphic or phonetic adaptations.

However, recently some local and international political instances have emerged that recommend that place names be used in their original language and that new exonyms not be created. In this regard, it is the UN that has promoted the meetings of the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names) or UNCSGN for its acronym in English., which makes recommendations to provide a single geographic nomenclature throughout the world. In its work, this commission was forced to coin the term exonym, accepting that there are traditional exonyms, firmly rooted, in the national languages. Although they accept them, they recommend that for the new geographical names that have been created and those that are created in the future —especially as a result of the transfer of territories as a result of the Second World War (or other future ones) and the rejection of tradition colonialist in the case of countries that acquired their independence for the first time— new exonyms are not created and the official place name is used.

In contrast, its critics argue that these types of suggestions are mere declarations of intent without practical consequences, since the adaptation of names is a perfectly normal phenomenon in almost all languages that cannot be suppressed by decree. Some lexicographers tend to oppose this new trend of ignoring adaptations (which is usually adopted in professional circles, such as librarians or documentalists, or politicians) and continue to consider the use of exonyms, both traditional and new, mandatory, at least in unofficial spheres. The lexicographer Martínez de Sousa justifies this criterion as follows:

In non-professional writings, in literature and journalism, exonyms are of compulsory use, since the original forms are unknown and do not entrongue with the popular culture and phonetics of each language. More abound, a series of phonetic signs or combinations of letters (especially in transcripts) that the bulk of the public does not know and only serve to disorient it would have to be used, as the aforementioned professionals do.

José Martínez de Sousa, Spanish Language Style Manual2007, p. 371

For their part, the Spanish language academies point out in the Ortografía de la lengua española of 2010 that it is advisable to continue using the traditional exonyms established in the Spanish language, particularly when used by Spanish speakers is still valid. For larger populations (countries, regions or large cities) there is a tendency to coin new exonyms or to adapt the name of these places according to the orthographic rules of Spanish; however, as with anthroponymy, for the rest of the place names the tendency for translation has decreased over time, and there is now a predilection for the transfer of the original forms. It may also happen that a traditional form Spanish has fallen into disuse or has come to be considered politically inappropriate, then the use of the local form is forced, such is the case of Bremen, formerly Brema, or Ankara, formerly Angora.