On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Hans Franke wrote:
> > > > > A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
> > > > > by Mark Twain
>
> > > Jep. What I like most is that similar aproaches are available to German,
> > > eliminateing most letters ... keep in mind that German has already a mostly
> > > phonetic spelling ... And the replacements are likewise selected.
>
> > That may be so, but I have never been able to understand how Muenchen(?)
> > ever got to be translated to Munich. Obviously, there are some
> > pronounciation differences that I am missing!
>
> It's not about Pronounciation, but rather history. For one thing,
> there is at least a dozend named for Munich
>
> Standard German: Muenchen (ue = umlaut u)
> Bavarian: Minga (Note, we got our own name :)
> Latin: Monacensis
> Englich: Munich
> French: Munich (Pronounciation differs dramaticly from English)
> Italian: Monaco
> Turkish: Munih (umlaut dots above the u and no dot on the i)
> Czech: Mnichow (Most slavic languages variy here only the spelling)
> Hungarian .... And a lot more I don't remember at the moment.
>
> Since the oldest _known_ part is connected to a monk settlement, basicly
> all the names are variations thereof - the official founding date is 1158,
> but that's only the oldest known text to name the city. Foundations tell
> that the oldest known settlements are at least 4 to 7 hundred years older.
>
> So take some 1000 years of history of a place along known trade routes,
> and people wll tell about the place and start to adaptr the name in their
> own language.
>
> And at least for the French Name, it's just taken from Muncih coins - the
> Name of the City in the 12th century, as used is said docunent was Munichen.
> When on coins space for lettes was even more rare than bytes on earyl computers,
> so they often droped letters. For the Englisch, I assume they just took the
> French spelling and changed the pronounciation over the years (as the french
> did also).
>
> So after all, it's no translation, just a sign of changes over the years.
> Today we belive way to often that things like names are static and have to
> be the same everywhere. As for myself, I'm proud to live in a city well
> known to lots of people to give names of their own.
>
> Gruss
> H.
>
> --
> VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
> http://www.vcfe.org/
>
Thank you Hans, that clears up a lot!
- don
Received on Mon Jan 07 2002 - 13:45:30 GMT