--- In phoNet@egroups.com, "Mark Odegard" <markodegard@h...> wrote:

> From: ecl4 <ecl4@o...>
> Date: Tue May 16, 2000 9:01am
> Subject: Re: Hey Bwana ....
>
>
>
> I don't think Poles do Warsaw as Wore-Saw. Or Crack-cow. But that's

how native-speakers of Midlands American English do it.

>
> Mark.

A WARSAW (or BATTLESAW) was a Mediaeval weapon :)

And joking apart:
English Warsaw, Cracow (the UK pronunciation is often "crack-oh")
look as if they were derived from German Warshau, Krakau = Polish
Warszawa [varSava] (with postalveolar [S]), Kraków [krakuf], gen.
Krakowa [krakova].

We call NYC Nowy Jork [novI jork] and Washington Waszyngton
[vaSINkton]; London is Londyn [londIn]. The existence of
traditional, "nativised" forms of placenames in other languages is
actually a nice thing; it proves that there is a long history of
mutual familiarity and that the placenemes in question are known
internationally. Like translating translatable royal names, it has a
long-standing tradition. Some educated Polish people use Akwizgran (<
Aquisgranum) for Aachen, but the uneducated know the name mainly from
railway timetables where it's written in German, so that's what they
say. What a shame.

I've observed a recent tendency in English-language reference books
to avoid the form Cracow and to use Kraków or Krakow instead (like
Beijing for Peking). If it's motivated by political correctness, it's
a very stupid instance of its application. The form "Cracow" is old
and respectable; it has been around for many centuries; it's spelt
like the Latin version "Cracovia"; it offends no Polish sensitivities
(Polish Americans have named many a place in the USA "Cracow",
not "Krakow"); finally, an alternative English spelling is
unnecessarily confusing.

In some cases recent European history has made the spelling of
placenames a political issue, also quite unnecessarily. IMO Germans
have every right to say Danzig and Breslau rather than struggle with
Gdansk and Wroclaw, respectively; and Poles have a right to say Wilno
for Vilnius and Lwów for Lviv. The names of places, or their
history,
cannot be monopolised by their current "owners".

Piotr