While listening to the discussion of the dreadful bombings in Bombay yesterday, I could not help noticing the BBC falling over themselves to make sure they called the city by its "real name" of Mumbai. The name was adopted in 1995 by the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition government although it had always been called this by people who speak the local languages of Marathi and Gujarati; Hindi speakers called it Bambai (see this Wikipedia article). The English name has been Bombay for pretty much as long as the city has been in existence, and is not a mutilation of a native name but derives from the Portuguese Boa Baía (good bay).
Listening to those on the BBC London station on the "Jono and Jo" show on BBC London radio this morning, however, you'd think that the name Bombay really was some hideous colonial imposition. Someone would mention Bombay and then say, "sorry, Mumbai" very seriously. Is there some Hindu lobby which furiously writes letters any time someone mentions one of the old names on the radio, similar to the pro-Israeli serial complainers who are known of? Despite the fact that more English speakers have heard of Bombay than of Mumbai, the BBC's South Asia page right now is full of headlines about Mumbai. Given that the name change was politically-motivated and carried out by a government dominated by parties of communalist bigots, the bombings have been very good publicity for their new brand.
Bombay isn't the only Indian city name whose name has been changed. Bangalore is changing to Bengaluru, the name already in common use in the vernacular (provoking one local headline, "Bengaluru changes name to Bengaluru"), Madras has become Chennai, Calcutta has become Kolkata which is closer to Bengali pronunciation, and Trivandrum has reverted to the native Thiruvananthapuram. The last, of course, is a mouthful the colonials could not be bothered to learn how to pronounce, so they mangled it and wrote it down, and it stuck. As for Madras, it was derived from a coastal town called Madraspatnam; locals, however, always called the conurbation Channapatnam or Chennapuri.
A lot of people suppose that the reason the English have their own names for cities in India is to do with colonialism and that the names are colonial impositions, as if they were some sort of deliberate show of contempt for local culture. However, India is not the only place where the English names differ from the native ones - it is true for several major cities in Europe, if not in the name then in the pronunciation. However, we are not falling over ourselves to call Copenhagen, Florence and Athens by their native names or pronounce Berlin, Paris or Madrid the way locals pronounce them, though I'm sure the BBC does this in its World Service programmes in those languages. As with city names in every other language, the BBC should reserve Mumbai for its Gujarati and Marathi programmes, and call Bombay by its English name in English programmes.
Yes, the Mumbai thing is barmy. I'm not keen on the Beijing thing either. Let's face it, unless you speak Chinese you're going to get it wrong. Beijing is no nearer the original than Peking.
Mind you, most English people from the South, cannot pronounce Atherton correctly. The "th" is voiced, as in "there", rather than voiceless as in "filth".
For all the major news networks out here in Asia that I get (BBC, CNN, CNA, StarNews), it's always Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, etc. Get used to it. :)
OP: as I understand it Beijing is pronounced "Beizhing" and it is close to the Chinese pronunciation but the letters are not always pronounced as in English (for example, j and zh are reversed and Q is a sort of ch sound). However you prounounce Beijing you'll probably be calling it something altogether else, because Chinese is tonal, and your tone of voice changes the meaning. So the word "ma" means mother, horse or hemp depending on your tone of voice.
You're right about tones in Chinese, but I thought that Beijing was pronounced "Bei-jeeng". Both J and ZH are pronouned like English J, but J is used only before I or U, which are pronounced like a Turkish dotted i (European i or English 'ee') or German/Turkish ü respectively. I or U after ZH on the other hand are pronounced like a Turkish dotless I (or Russian bI) or a European u/English 'oo' respectively.
A similar rule applies to CH versus Q, and to SH versus X (Although in the old Wade-Giles transliteration of Chinese, these latter two sounds were distinguished, with the pinyin X written as HS).
re: the European place names, there did seem to me to be an entirely daft push to make everyone call Turin 'Torino' during the recent Winter Olympics. This was particularly stupid, because in the Turin dialect the city is, indeed, also called 'Turin' (albeit with different pronunciation to what an Englishman would manage).
Oh and don't get me stared about Myanmar/Burma and Yangon/Rangoon. Apologies if you already knew, but the name change occured because the junta didn't want the country to be associated with the colonialists. It is just another one of those pathetic feeble excuses as I'd like to think that the English couldn't exactly pronounce the native [1] words.
My brain never fails to go momentarily blank whenever I wanted to say, "Myanmar" or "Yangon" or even "Myanmese". I'm very sure it's got nothing to do with age.
[1] just like how we ended up pronouncing the common Portuguese-Eurasian surname Rodriguez as Roar-dre-geese and thence a change in spelling to Rodrigues.
Ange: I think you'll find the Portuguese have always used the S ending, while the Spanish use Z: Gomes instead of Gomez, Rodrigues instead of Rodriguez and so on. It's an easy way of recognising someone of Portuguese rather than Spanish origin.
Ack, so did I get myself confused then? Now that I recall, I read off this Eurasian website that clarified certain origins of surnames as there could be some Spaniards who joined the Portuguese back then to sail - or rather, conquer - to this part of the world. The same goes with Germans and Belgians/Flemish onboard Dutch ships a century later.
I said this as a primary school teacher was a Mrs Fernandez. And there's this quasi celebrity whose family name is Lopez. Regardless, mind-boggling stuff, this. My apologies for going off-topic, all.
Madras is always Madras, no matter whoever changes it or calls it otherwise.
Changes are so much irritating and make life more difficult . I always say Madras as I'm used to from childhood but people around me frown as I've uttered some obscene word.
Well, If you don't like british names or anything done by british then, why do you still celebrate Jan 1st as New year? We have seperate Tamil New Year right? Why don't you destroy the high courts, railway tracks constructed by british & reconstruct from the start? Sounds stupid right... Same way, It sounds stupid to change from Madras to Chennai when both co-existed without any problem. Now , only Chennai exists . where's my magnificent Madras? My DOB Certificate lists it as Madras. A'm I born in a city which does not exist? These changes promote regionalism & not nationalism… which will ultimately result in a separate Country ThamizlNadu(Once known as the State of Madras).
Don't know where will it End?