Rename that language!

[Ryusenshi]

If we're talking about wide-ranging changes: I suggest we change all language names that come from a country's name. If the country has several languages, it gives undue prominence to the one that has the same name ("Spanish" is only one of the languages spoken in Spain, so we'd better call it "Castilian"[%]). On the other hand, if the language is spoken in several countries, it gives undue prominence to one country (Portugal has no special claim on "Portuguese" compared to Brazil or even Angola). Plus, we could stop using stupid redundant expressions such as "English English" or "French French".

[%] Wait, does that name give undue prominence to the region of Castile?? Hum, this reform is going to be more complex than I thought...

[sasasha]

How about designating languages by writers' names that characterise them? Without necessity for total standardisation, perhaps.

You want to specify English of 1580-1820? Shakespeare-Austenian. Etc.

Falls apart when you get to polyglot writers like Conrad though!

[bradrn]

If we're talking about wide-ranging changes: I suggest we change all language names that come from a country's name. If the country has several languages, it gives undue prominence to the one that has the same name ("Spanish" is only one of the languages spoken in Spain, so we'd better call it "Castilian"[%]). On the other hand, if the language is spoken in several countries, it gives undue prominence to one country (Portugal has no special claim on "Portuguese" compared to Brazil or even Angola). Plus, we could stop using stupid redundant expressions such as "English English" or "French French".

[%] Wait, does that name give undue prominence to the region of Castile?? Hum, this reform is going to be more complex than I thought...

Isn’t it already called Castillian?

[Linguoboy]

Isn’t it already called Castillian?

Depends who you're talking to. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controver ... pa%C3%B1ol

[Starbeam]

Wait, does that name give undue prominence to the region of Castile?? Hum, this reform is going to be more complex than I thought...

I mean, Castile is the locational origin of the language. Very, very few spread all that far without some either kind of imperialism or displacement. I do completely understand wanting to avoid the association of language/culture=country, which plagues many anthropological and geographical communities.

[zompist]

I was going to suggest a round of "Ruin a language name by changing one letter", but it turns out to be pretty hard. But maybe y'all are better at it.

[Pabappa]

Squamish > Squeamish, though that's an insertion, not a swap.
Cornish > Pornish.
Greek > Gleek. Or Geek if you allow deletions. Or Green, which is at least fertile ground for puns.
Cantonese > well, replace the A with U and you wont get a word but its still something you wouldnt want to say

We could revive the old name of Scottish, Scyttisc, which disappeared curiously around the time that we did /sk/ > /š/ ... hmm, cant quite figure out why.

[Starbeam]

It would probably be easier with double-barrelled names, such as refernces to dialects or languages that got saddled with two or more word monikers. Lemme show:

Clay Frisian -> Play Frisian
White Hmong -> Shite Hmong

vs.

Italian -> eTalian
Swahili -> Seahili

Actually, looking at those names, i can see your point. I really had to stretch for the one-word names and the multiple word names seem less like harmless jokes and more like actual hateful insults people would use.
---

Also, Scyttish would have yielded Skittish or Skettish. *Sk didn't soften before umlauted vowels iirc?

[Pabappa]

Ah. Well, Skittish still would be a funny name, though not what I was thinking of.
edit: http://enwp.org/Phonological_history_of ... talization <--- i think unconditional /sk/ > /š/ happened word-initially, actually

Also some more I thought of:
Punic > Pubic
Turkish > Turdish
Kurdish > Turdish as well

Demotic Greek > Demonic

[Yalensky]

If we're talking about wide-ranging changes: I suggest we change all language names that come from a country's name. If the country has several languages, it gives undue prominence to the one that has the same name ("Spanish" is only one of the languages spoken in Spain, so we'd better call it "Castilian"[%]). On the other hand, if the language is spoken in several countries, it gives undue prominence to one country (Portugal has no special claim on "Portuguese" compared to Brazil or even Angola). Plus, we could stop using stupid redundant expressions such as "English English" or "French French".

[%] Wait, does that name give undue prominence to the region of Castile?? Hum, this reform is going to be more complex than I thought...

One idea that I find poetic: replacing geographic names with names derived from the qualities that speakers ascribe to those languages. Already existing examples would be Sanskrit "well-made" and Nahuatl "clear". Likewise the "common speech" spoken in countless fantasy worlds. Bonus points for deriving the name from some famous quote about the language.

Spanish > limpiado, fijado, or espléndido (which keeps the ISO 639-1 code es) from the motto of the Real Academia Española "limpia, fija, y da esplendor". It also happens to be the motto of the Academia's Mexican counterpart as well, which helps keep it less Spain-centric.
French > le immortel, along similar lines as Spanish.
Russian > velikomoguchiy, from Turgenev's famous description of Russian as the "great and mighty" language that is his sole comfort while thinking about depressing national affairs.
English > the only famous quotations about English that come to mind is the one about English rifling through other langs' pockets for loanwords and the cliche that English is "three languages in a trenchcoat". "Pickpocket-speech" will have to do until we think of something suitably sublime.

[sasasha]

If we're talking about wide-ranging changes: I suggest we change all language names that come from a country's name. If the country has several languages, it gives undue prominence to the one that has the same name ("Spanish" is only one of the languages spoken in Spain, so we'd better call it "Castilian"[%]). On the other hand, if the language is spoken in several countries, it gives undue prominence to one country (Portugal has no special claim on "Portuguese" compared to Brazil or even Angola). Plus, we could stop using stupid redundant expressions such as "English English" or "French French".

[%] Wait, does that name give undue prominence to the region of Castile?? Hum, this reform is going to be more complex than I thought...

One idea that I find poetic: replacing geographic names with names derived from the qualities that speakers ascribe to those languages. Already existing examples would be Sanskrit "well-made" and Nahuatl "clear". Likewise the "common speech" spoken in countless fantasy worlds. Bonus points for deriving the name from some famous quote about the language.

Spanish > limpiado, fijado, or espléndido (which keeps the ISO 639-1 code es) from the motto of the Real Academia Española "limpia, fija, y da esplendor". It also happens to be the motto of the Academia's Mexican counterpart as well, which helps keep it less Spain-centric.
French > le immortel, along similar lines as Spanish.
Russian > velikomoguchiy, from Turgenev's famous description of Russian as the "great and mighty" language that is his sole comfort while thinking about depressing national affairs.
English > the only famous quotations about English that come to mind is the one about English rifling through other langs' pockets for loanwords and the cliche that English is "three languages in a trenchcoat". "Pickpocket-speech" will have to do until we think of something suitably sublime.

I like Trenchcoat for English. Sounds like it could be a Discworld language name.

[alice]

English -> "Inglish"???

[Tropylium]

Ruin a language name by changing one letter

Think got me thinking how much is it possible to move between language names just by changing one letter. Probably a fair amount between simple CVCV and CVC names, other examples are going to be rarer.
– Romanian ↔ Aromanian (possibly should be considered trivial)
– Lycian ↔ Lydian ↔ Ludian ↔ Luwian (one of these is unlike the others)
– Hindi ↔ Tindi

Any substantially longer language name is however probably going to be an edit distance of more like half a dozen away from the closest name. Even cases like Tadaksahak ↔ Tabassaran (edit distance 4, or 1 per syllable) already seem closeish really.

[bradrn]

Ruin a language name by changing one letter

Think got me thinking how much is it possible to move between language names just by changing one letter. Probably a fair amount between simple CVCV and CVC names, other examples are going to be rarer.
– Romanian ↔ Aromanian (possibly should be considered trivial)
– Lycian ↔ Lydian ↔ Ludian ↔ Luwian (one of these is unlike the others)
– Hindi ↔ Tindi

Any substantially longer language name is however probably going to be an edit distance of more like half a dozen away from the closest name. Even cases like Tadaksahak ↔ Tabassaran (edit distance 4, or 1 per syllable) already seem closeish really.

We’ve been collecting examples over at the Amusing Language Names thread:

• Jarawa (from the Andaman Islands) vs Jarawa (from Nigeria) vs Jarawara (from South America)
• Arawan (South American language family, contains Jarawara) vs Arawakan (another South American language family)
• Marawan vs Marawá (both Arawakan)
• Kabyle (Algeria) vs Kabiye (Togo) vs Kabie (Sino-Tibetan)
• Wampar (Lower Markham) vs Wampur (Upper Markham)
• Mari (Upper Markham) vs Mari (Uralic)
• Quechuan (South American language family) vs Quechan (Yuman language from Arizona)
• Mande (West African language families) vs Manda (Dravidian) vs Mandaic (a variety of Aramaic)

So there’s a surprising number of languages with an edit distance of 0 or 1!

[Pabappa]

Japanese <---> Javanese is another obvious one.

Also, one more derogatory transformation: Kissi ---> Pissi

[Linguoboy]

This does show one of the problems with naming related languages after a cognate set: you get a lot of very very similar names!

Which honestly makes sense for a dialect continuum.

All the Goidelic languages, for instance, self-designate by using cognates of "Goidelic". When it's necessary to specify a dialect, one adds a geographical qualifier. So the Standard Irish for "Scottish Gaelic" is simply "Gaeilge na hAlban" ("the Gaelic of Scotland"), exactly parallel to "Gaeilge Mhanann" ("the Gaelic of Man", i.e. "Manx"), "Gaeilge Uladh" for Ulster Irish, or "Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne" for the local dialect of the Dingle Peninsula in Kerry.

(If I were to divvy up the Gaelic continuum based on a common grammatical word, it would probably be the "how" in "How are you?" since this is a very salient difference that most speakers are acquainted with.)

[Vijay]

I wish Micmac was called Lnuismk (more often) in English. Mi'kmawi'smk (Mi'kmawi'simk?) would be fine, too. Micmac just sounds dumb in English. It sounds like knick-knack, as in knick-knack paddywhack, or possibly like a duck quacking.

[ratammer]

This does show one of the problems with naming related languages after a cognate set: you get a lot of very very similar names!

This comment made me think - how about you name each language after a word where that language famously uses a completely different word from most other languages? My first thought for English was "pineapple".

[Darren]

This does show one of the problems with naming related languages after a cognate set: you get a lot of very very similar names!

This comment made me think - how about you name each language after a word where that language famously uses a completely different word from most other languages? My first thought for English was "pineapple".

Perhaps we could name European languages after what they call Germany

[Ryusenshi]

How about using the word for ""?

English→butterfly
French→papillon
Italian→farfalla
Spanish→mariposa
Portuguese→borboleta
German→Schmetterling
Dutch→vlinder
Russian→бабочка
Polish→motyl
Greek→πεταλούδα
Hungarian→pillangó