ON GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 5832, 24 February 1906, Page 3

ON GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

Speaking of names, I do not think the world at largo will accept "Kabafuto' or "Karafute” instead of Sagbalicn. The Japanese may introduce new names or revive old ones ns they like, but tho outer world refuses to learn Japanese, even in geography. Tho great world still speaks of Formosa, seldom of Taiwan: Korea, not Chosen; Bunin Islands, not Ognsnwarajima; Port Arthur, not llyojnnko. It is too much trouble to unlearn a name once it is widely known. It pleases the people of Japan to call Uicir country Nippon or Nihon, but they are only forty or fifty' million people; there arc forty or fifty times ne many outside, and those 1.C00,000,000 or 2,000.000.000 will persist in saying "Japan," whenever they sny anything at all about this country. Tho same majority prefers to use tho name "China" for tho adjacent empire, though practically no native of that country calls it so, except when speaking to an "ignorant foreigner." Surely it is the natives who are ignorant, for tho majority must prevail. Tho Chinese never have had a name for their country. They have had dozens of different local names. changing incessantly'; the name "China” has outlived them all ami is more nearly universal. The southern Chinese call the empire Tangkwo; the northerner calls it Chqngo. while in the Spanish tongue "chongo" means monkey. To the Myiuchu rulers, the land is Tsing. Similarly, India is not called "India" in any language of flic country. In fact, there is no word for tho whole, in any vernacular speech, for to tho natives the land is a group of different nations only- brought together nv the alien conqueror. Tho single name for the entire peninsula dates from the lime of tho early Greeks and Romans. 1 do not think Moses, David. Solomon, nor any of tho Hebrew writers knew, much about geography, for they never mention "India” as far ns I remember. On tho whole, it must be concluded that only the European took a wide view of the world. No' Asiatic seems to have used one word for Asia, or to have viewed the continent comprehensively. They have not been so broad of view as to invent the cry "Asia for the Asiatics/* and so they lest*. The changing of mimes (« a frequent fancy ampnjj Chinese and Japanese; with tho latter, it is nowadays chiefly nainea of places that are altered, while with the former it is more commonly names of persons.—"F. A. in the "Japan Weekly Chronicle."