Endonym and exonym
An endonym (also known as autonym) is a common, native name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate themselves, their homeland, or their language.
An exonym (also known as xenonym) is an established, non-native name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place[1], language or dialect, meaning that it is used primarily outside the particular place inhabited by the group or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words,[1] or from non-systematic attempts at transcribing into a different writing system.[2]
For instance, Deutschland is the endonym for the country that is also known by the exonyms Germany and Germania in English and Italian, respectively, Alemania and Allemagne in Spanish and French, respectively, and Niemcy in Polish.
The terms autonym, endonym, exonym and xenonym are formed by adding specific prefixes to the Greek root word ónoma (ὄνομα, 'name'), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃nómn̥.
The prefixes added to these terms are also derived from Greek:
The terms autonym and xenonym also have different applications,[3] thus leaving endonym and exonym as the preferred forms.
Marcel Aurousseau, an Australian geographer, first[4] used the term exonym in his work The Rendering of Geographical Names (1957).[5]
Many exonyms result from adaptations of an endonym into another language, mediated by differences in phonetics, while others may result from translation of the endonym, or as a reflection of the specific relationship an outsider group has with a local place or geographical feature.[9]
According to James Matisoff, who introduced the term autonym into linguistics, exonyms can also arise from the "egocentric" tendency of in-groups to identify themselves with "mankind in general", producing an endonym that out groups would not use, while another source is the human tendency towards neighbours to "be pejorative rather than complimentary, especially where there is a real or fancied difference in cultural level between the ingroup and the outgroup." For example, Matisoff notes, Khang "an opprobrious term indicating mixed race or parentage" is the Palaung name for Jingpo people and the Jingpo name for Chin people; both the Jingpo and Burmese use the Chinese word yeren (野人; 'wild men', 'savage', 'rustic people') as the name for Lisu people.[10]
As exonyms develop for places of significance for speakers of the language of the exonym, consequently, many European capitals have English exonyms, for example:
In contrast, historically less-prominent capitals such as Ljubljana and Zagreb do not have English exonyms, but do have exonyms in languages spoken nearby, e.g. German: Laibach and Agram (the latter being obsolete); Italian: Lubiana and Zagabria. Madrid, Berlin, Oslo, and Amsterdam, with identical names in most major European languages, are exceptions.
Some European cities might be considered partial exceptions, in that whilst the spelling is the same across languages, the pronunciation can differ.[11] For example, the city of Paris is spelled the same way in French and English, but the French pronunciation [paʁi] is different from the English pronunciation [ˈpærɪs].
For places considered to be of lesser significance, attempts to reproduce local names have been made in English since the time of the Crusades. Livorno, for instance, was Leghorn because it was an Italian port essential to English merchants and, by the 18th century, to the British Navy; not far away, Rapallo, a minor port on the same sea, never received an exonym.
In earlier times, the name of the first tribe or village encountered became the exonym for the whole people beyond. Thus, the Romans used the tribal names Graecus (Greek) and Germanus (Germanic), the Russians used the village name of Chechen, medieval Europeans took the tribal name Tatar as emblematic for the whole Mongolic confederation (and then confused it with Tartarus, a word for Hell, to produce Tartar), and the Magyar invaders were equated with the 500-years-earlier Hunnish invaders in the same territory, and were called Hungarians.
The Germanic invaders of the Roman Empire applied the word "Walha" to foreigners they encountered and this evolved in West Germanic languages as a generic name for speakers of Celtic and later (as Celts became increasingly romanised) Romance languages; thence:
Usage[edit]
In avoiding exonyms[edit]
During the late 20th century, the use of exonyms often became controversial. Groups often prefer that outsiders avoid exonyms where they have come to be used in a pejorative way. For example, Romani people often prefer that term to exonyms such as Gypsy (from the name of Egypt), and the French term bohémien, bohème (from the name of Bohemia).[12] People may also avoid exonyms for reasons of historical sensitivity, as in the case of German names for Polish and Czech places that, at one time, had been ethnically or politically German (e.g. Danzig/Gdańsk, Auschwitz/Oświęcim and Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary); and Russian names for non-Russian locations that were subsequently renamed or had their spelling changed (e.g. Kiev/Kyiv).[13]
In recent years, geographers have sought to reduce the use of exonyms to avoid this kind of problem. For example, it is now common for Spanish speakers to refer to the Turkish capital as Ankara rather than use the Spanish exonym Angora.[14] According to the United Nations Statistics Division: