Information AboutExonym |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT EXONYM AND ENDONYM | |
| ethnicity | |
| semantics | |
| toponymy | |
| place names | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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Some languages use the same spelling as the endonym but change the pronunciation, thus making it an exonym. The English pronunciation of Paris , for example, is not an attempt at pronouncing the word the way the French do, with a silent "s." It is noteworthy that exonyms have developed only for those places that are of especial significance for speakers of the language in question. For minor places of no significance, attempts to reproduce local names have been made in English since the time of the Crusades . Livorno , to take an 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, a minor port on the same sea like Rapallo never received an exonym. In the late 20th century the use of exonyms often became controversial. Groups often prefer that outsiders avoid exonyms; for example, Roma People prefer that term over exonyms like ''Gypsy''. People may also seek to avoid exonyms due to historical sensitivities, as in the case of German names for Polish and Czech places which used to be ethnically or politically German. In recent years, . But according to the United Nations Statistics Division: ''Time has, however, shown that initial ambitious attempts to rapidly decrease the number of exonyms were over-optimistic and not possible to realise in the intended way. The reason would appear to be that many exonyms have become common words in a language and can be seen as part of the language’s cultural heritage.'' In English, attempts to skirt a familiar exonym in order accurately to reproduce an endonym often appears pretentious, a device used to comic effect in E.F. Benson 's novels concerning Miss Mapp and Lucia. LIST OF ENGLISH EXONYMS FOR PEOPLES List Of English Exonyms For German Toponyms LIST OF CREATORS OF EXONYMS LIST OF COUNTRY EXONYMS LIST OF GEOGRAPHICAL REGION EXONYMS SEE ALSO
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