Re: CHAT: silly names

John Cowan wrote:
>Nik Taylor scripsit:
>
> > > But now I find that in Massachusetts, some miles south, we have Lake
> > > Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg, locally pronounced
> > > ['wEpsta].  Take *that*.
> >
> > ['wEpsta] = Webster?  I'm guessing that it used to be called Lake
> > Webster, but then they decided to change it to honor the Native American
> > tribe who was there before, but people kept using the old name.
>
>Exactly.
Annoying habit, isn't that? We're having a really weird example of the same
idea in Sweden right now. The highest mountain (ca 2100m) in Sweden is
usually called _Kebnekaise_, an adaption to Swedish phonology and spelling
from the Sami original. However, the agency responsible for making official
maps recently decided that it was more progressive and multicultural to use
the modern Sami spelling _Giébmigaisi_. Very well, but the local tourist
industry is furious because clearly people won't be willing to pay the same
for climbing Giébmigaisi as for climbing Kebnekaise.

It's possibly irrelevant that most people living around the thing are
Swedish-speakers.

                                                     Andreas
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