Luhansk vs Lugansk

[Travis B.]

I have mixed feelings about when governments--particularly those run by dictators or reactionary nationalists--insist on fixing the form of name used in foreign media. "Call people what they want to be called" is a basic principle of interpersonal politeness, but I'm not sure it scales up to this level--particularly when there's a disconnect between the regime and the folks they are supposedly representing. ("Myanmar" was an egregious example of this, with many folks insisting for years on using the previous exonym out of distaste for the military dictatorship.)

"Myanmar" is a classic example of this. I personally insist on Burma for this very reason.

[Zju]

Because exonyms don't exist, and we only speak of Zhongguo, Rossiya, España, Deutschland, Nippon, Italia, and so on.

Newsflash: nonstandard romanisations aren't exonyms.

Spelling a word slightly differently is so much more extreme, isn't it?

I'm not sure why you think this is the case, but ok.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Newsflash: nonstandard romanisations aren't exonyms.

Spelling a word slightly differently is so much more extreme, isn't it?

I'm not sure why you think this is the case, but ok.

It's sarcasm.

[Moose-tache]

The Republic of China is a weird case, as its closest allies are the ones most insistent on never referring to it by it's official name, while its enemies will at least use part of the name.

[Richard W]

"Myanmar" was an egregious example of this, with many folks insisting for years on using the previous exonym out of distaste for the military dictatorship.

If you chase the etymology from Burma at Wiktionary, you'll find that in origin, Burma is just another form of Myanmar. It dates back to the days when the initial cluster of the latter was pronounced /mr/, as it is still written in Burmese.

[Linguoboy]

"Myanmar" was an egregious example of this, with many folks insisting for years on using the previous exonym out of distaste for the military dictatorship.

If you chase the etymology from Burma at Wiktionary, you'll find that in origin, Burma is just another form of Myanmar. It dates back to the days when the initial cluster of the latter was pronounced /mr/, as it is still written in Burmese.

Um, yeah, I'm aware of this. Many exonyms are cognate with the endonyms which replace them. (This is particularly common with the names of Indian cities, e.g. Bombay/Mumbai, Calcutta/Kolkata, Bangalore/Bengaluru.) I'm not sure what this has to do with sociopolitical ramifications of preferring one over the other in particular contexts.