Wood's "Hole" and Wood's "Holl;" for many years it was called Wood's
Hole, recently it would seem to be the conclusion that it should be
called Wood's Holl; we formerly had "Hurl" Gate, and now "Hell" Gate;
"Princess" Bay was at one time spelled "Prince's" Bay, the error
arising, doubtless, from the pronunciation; we also have "Body's"
Island or "Bodies" Island; we have a peculiar case on the North
Carolina coast, "Pamplico" Sound has generally been used, now we have
"Pamlico" Sound, legalized by the State legislature; on the coast of
Virginia we have the case of "Metomkin," which has frequently been
written "Metompkin" and "Matomkin;" in California we have Point
Conception, whether it should be spelled with the "c," or with the
"t," in the last syllable; we also have "Point Boneta" or "Bonita;"
should Yaquina be spelled with one "n" or two ("nn"); Coos Bay, with
"k" or "c." This name, I understand, is sometimes pronounced "Co-os,"
as though it had two syllables; if the spelling of this name was
governed by the rules of the Royal Geographical Society the "K" would
be used for the hard "C," but "Coos" has been adopted by the State
legislature and will probably be retained. One of the most singular
perversions is found in "Bering Sea;" the explorer wrote his name
"Bering," and yet we find it is customary, almost everywhere, to spell
it "Behring."
In the second class of cases, where we have different names for the
same place, we may cite Bangs Island, at the entrance to Portland
harbor; an effort was made not long ago to change this name on the
Coast Survey charts to Cushing's Island, the evidence was so strong
that an order was issued to effect the change, when the supporters of
"Bangs" produced additional evidence and secured the retention of that
name. On the coast of Florida we had two Saint Joseph's Bays, and a
comparatively modern name, "Anclote Anchorage," was presented to take
the place of a part of one of them, which led to designating the rest
of the bay "Saint Joseph's Sound," Sound being more appropriate for
the locality. We have also some notable instances on the Pacific
coast, as "Cape Orford" or "Blanco;" "Cape Gregory" or "Arago;" "South
Farallon" or "Southeast Farallon;" and in Alaska there are instances
too numerous to mention.
In the third class of cases, the locality to which the name applies,
we may cite "Isle-au-Haut" Bay and "East Penobscot" Bay, on the coast
of Maine; "Hempstead" Bay, on the coast of Long Island, a bay which is
almost filled with small islands, rendering it most difficult to
satisfactorily define the limits; "Chincoteague" Bay, on the Jersey
coast, is an instance of growth; it was at one time called
"Assateague," and although "Assateague" was retained for many years as
applicable to the upper part of the bay, it has finally been
restricted to a very small cove in Assateague Island. On the Pacific
coast there are a great many instances, possibly one of the most
difficult relates to the limits of Admiralty Inlet, how far it extends
into Puget sound? Again, to the northward, is what for years has been
called "Washington" Sound, an effort is being made to change it to
"Possession" Sound, the latter name, I believe, was once applied to a
portion of the area; perhaps we shall eventually see both names on the
chart. The difficulty of defining the limits to which a name applies
may be experienced in dealing with "Hampton Roads," or "Tybee Roads;"
apparently simple problems, but who will undertake to define the exact
limits of these famous roadsteads?
These questions, even when stated in their simplest form, are
oftentimes very complex, for several of the general classes I have
referred to may be included in one question, and when we attempt to
determine that which is best they become very perplexing. In seeking
advice we are met with a variety of views; some will maintain that we
should take the nick-names given by the fishermen; some prefer names
that have been recognized independent of nick-names; some will abhor
corruptions, while others prefer the corruptions, if expressive and in
general use. The experts are very prone to hunting up the root, or, if
necessary, to constructing one, and throwing out everything that will
not conform with it. The fact that our country was settled by French,
Spanish, and English, and that many names are derived from the Indian
dialects, also causes peculiar difficulties in treating some sections.
The rules of the Royal Geographical Society can be a great help, so
far as they are applicable; they seem to have been used in the modern
spelling of "Dakota"--for the man-of-war we had of this name some
years ago, it was spelled "Dacotah," but in the name of the States
recently admitted to the Union, "k" has been substituted for the hard
"c" and the final "h" has been dropped. There is also great
disagreement as to the propriety of the use of the possessive case;
some will not admit it at all, others would like to drop the
apostrophe and retain the "s" in certain cases for euphony: this is a
question that requires special consideration in each case, as the
omission of the possessive will sometime give the name a descriptive
meaning not at all applicable to the locality or feature. The
propriety of personal names is also questioned by many, and may lead
to continued discussion in Alaskan nomenclature, where explorers and
surveyors have been so liberal in bestowing new names on the same
places. It would seem to be a good rule in selecting a new name to
follow the old Indian custom of describing the place. An opportunity
for an expressive nomenclature seems to have been lost in the
north-west in transferring so many of our eastern names, instead of
selecting new names from the rich native vocabularies.
As different bureaus may be governed by different principles, and may
not even be consistent in their own rulings, through new principles
that may come in by the frequent change of personnel, it has
heretofore been impracticable to secure uniformity, and disputed
questions have been carried along for years. The board that has been
organized is in the direction of developing uniformity in the practice
of all. It is no easy task, but if guided by a generous spirit,
willing to yield a little here and there, its object may be
successfully accomplished.
We cannot foresee to what extent the board will be called upon. It has
not power to take the initiative; but we hope its rulings will prove
acceptable; that it may establish a reputation that will be recognized
by the people as well as by the departments interested in its
organization; and that eventually rules may be recommended for the
nomenclature of our own country that may be an acceptable guide in the
determination of new names, as well as in the interpretation of those
now in question.
* * * * *
MR. HERRLE: Any one conversant with the state of geographic
nomenclature of a large part of the world cannot fail to appreciate
the difficulties in the way of the establishment of a comprehensive
and uniform system of writing geographic names, that would be
acceptable to all nations using the Roman alphabet in their
literature. But while some advance towards international uniformity
has been made within the last five years, we are still very far from
it; we may, however, at least rejoice in the prospect of the general
acceptance of a uniform system in geographic orthography by all
writing the English language.
I refer to the action of the British Hydrographic Office and of the
Royal Geographical Society in 1885, when they adopted certain _main_
principles to guide the orthography of geographic names, and thereby
took an important and far-reaching step in the line of a reform which
had already been too long delayed.
In France a reform in geographic nomenclature had been earnestly
agitated by Édouard de Luze since 1880, and soon after the publication
of the system adopted by the Royal Geographical Society, the Société
de Géographie appointed a commission which, in 1886, reported a system
for the guidance of French geographers.
In Germany, we also find individual attempts made (Egli, Kirchhoff,
Ewald and others) to bring system into the orthography and
pronunciation of geographic names, primarily with a view to secure
uniformity in text books and in the teaching of geography in schools.
No doubt influenced by the action of the British and French geographic
societies the Imperial German Hydrographic office in 1888 also
established rules for guidance in its future publications.
We thus see three of the principal nations of Europe inaugurate a
reform, the beneficial effects of which will not, however, become
apparent until a sufficient time has elapsed, that is, until the
British, French and Germans have had time to apply the rules in their
publications, and particularly in the construction of new and in the
correction of old charts. No reform of this nature can be carried
through by the stroke of a pen, but a generation's life-time will be
required to accomplish it.
The adopted rules which lay down a general phonetic principle only
require, of course, perfection in details, so as to furnish an
unerring guide in the treatment of names belonging to special
languages.
If we compare the British, French and German systems, we can clearly
see a gravitation towards uniformity in the spelling of foreign
geographic names that are not originally written in the Roman
alphabet. Each of the three systems contains important concessions to
the others; the British, by adopting the continental vowel system, and
the French and German, by representing certain phonetic values
differently from the old way, so as to approach the British system. In
the French system, this is particularly the case in regard to the
letters _ou_, _c_, _ch_, _g_, _q_, _th_, _tch_, _w_ and _y_, and in
the German system in regard to the letters _c_, _j_, _q_, _ch_, _sh_
and _y_.
There is very little doubt that English and French geographers will
readily adopt the systems set up by their foremost geographic
societies; but whether scientific Germany will be willing to follow in
the wake of its Hydrographic Office, we will probably learn after the
next meeting of the German Geographic Congress.
If we compare the British, French and German systems further, we find
also a perfect agreement in the treatment of the geographic names of
those nations that use the Roman alphabet in their literature, they
differing only as to exceptions from the rules of old forms of names,
which, through long usage, are held almost sacred. The spirit of
conservatism tends to retard every reform, and this one makes no
exception from the rule. It is, however, to be regretted that neither
the British, nor the French, nor the Germans have set any fixed limit
to permissible exceptions, leaving, apparently, everybody to decide
for himself what is meant by "long usage."
If a radical departure from past usage is perhaps too objectionable to
many, this much could be done at present to greatly reduce the list of
exceptions, leaving it to the future to smooth over the remaining
cases: let all names which are now written but slightly different from
their national form and which are easily recognized in the latter
form, be corrected, and extirpate all gross corruptions. Also lessen
the number of exceptions in those foreign names which are readily
understood when written in accordance with the adopted phonetic rules:
as Kalkutta for Calcutta, Mekka for Mecca, Kutch for Cutch, Selebes
for Celebes, Bonni for Bonny, etc.
Another notable agreement in the British, French and German
Hydrographic Office systems is found in their declarations in regard
to diacritical marks in the writing of foreign geographic names. The
British say that a system which would attempt to represent the more
delicate inflections of sound and accent would become so complicated
as to defeat itself. They therefore recommend only the use of the
acute accent to denote the syllable on which stress should be laid.
The German Hydrographic Office has adopted the same view. The French
Commission in its deliberations expressed decided opposition to the
adoption of Lepsius' or any similar system, and finally adopted
besides the "_tilde_" and "_créma_," only the accent "_circonflex_"
and the "_apostrophe_," signs of which the two last are ordinarily
employed in the writing of the French language. "In our country," the
French commission says, "a native of the Normandy and one of the
Provence do not employ exactly the same sounds in pronouncing, for
instance, Marseille, Enghien, or Montrichard, and, in foreign lands,
we find still greater diversity in this respect." Therefore, we should
use diacritical marks with the greatest economy, and only when they
are indispensable.
It is of course not to be expected that a certain school of
geographers, who are in favor of the strict application to geographic
names of a simplified form of Lepsius' standard alphabet, will
acquiesce in this view, but it is to be hoped that all practical
minded geographers will agree to reserve the extended use of
diacritical alphabets for purely linguistic literature only.
In the meanwhile, the United States has not been idle, and the
Hydrographer, Captain Henry F. Picking, U. S. N., has taken the
initiative by the appointment of a board to consider and report a
system of orthography for foreign geographic names for guidance in the
compilation of the Hydrographic Office charts, sailing directions and
notices to mariners, which as we know cover all parts of the world.
The Hydrographic Office, by its daily experience with the subject
matter, is thus peculiarly fitted to inaugurate a reform, and it is
hoped that the board, profiting by what the British, French and
Germans have already done, will report rules, that may become
generally satisfactory to American geographers.
In our own country the territory of Alaska needs special attention in
regard to settling the orthography of its geographic names of Russian
origin. Russian names have always been more or less of a bugbear in
geographic literature, since so great a number of them appear in
different forms. The difficulties of transcribing Russian names so as
to reproduce the correct pronunciation are well enough understood. In
the first place the Russian alphabet contains 36 letters, of which 12
are vowels and diphthongs, 3 are semi-vowels, and the balance,
consonants. In this alphabet, there are 12 elements which have no
exact equivalents in the English alphabet, and, on the other hand,
there are 4 English sounds (_j_, _w_, _x_ and _h_) not represented in
the Russian alphabet. Hence, whatever system is employed, we can only
hope to give the pronunciation approximately. Many of the Russian
names found to-day in English and American maps and publications show,
by the way in which they are rendered, an utter absence of knowledge
of the grammatical construction of Russian on the part of those who
originally transcribed them. There are few other languages in which
case and gender play such an important part in the terminal
inflections of proper names as in this great Slavonic idiom. Any one
not conversant with the Russian declensions should not, therefore,
attempt to transcribe Russian geographic names into English, as he
will be sure to blunder. On Russian maps, for instance; Behring Strait
reads, "Beringov Proliv;" Behring Sea, "Beringovo More;" Kamchatka
Bay, "Zaliv Kamchatkii;" Herald Island, "Ostrova Gheralda;" etc.
By the by, I cannot exactly understand why the spelling of the name of
_Behring_ should, within the last few years, have been changed on
American and English maps to _Bering_. The navigator of this name,
_Veit Behring_, was a native of Germany, in the service of Russia, and
it is safe to say that his name contained the letter _h_. Naturally,
in transcribing his name into Russian, the _h_ had to drop out, as
that letter is missing in the Russian alphabet.
The excellent system of transcribing Russian names into English,
published in a recent number of _Nature_[1] having already been
accepted by English and American representatives of various scientific
institutions, it is greatly to be desired that English and American
geographic societies should express their views of it at an early day.
The system is easily brought in harmony with the general principles
adopted by the Royal Geographical Society, by a simple declaration in
regard to the diacritical marks by which, mainly for the purpose of
facilitating correct re-transliteration of Russian names, the vowels
_i_, _i_ [with macron], _i_ [with breve], _e_ and _é_ and the silent
semi-vowels are sought to be distinguished in the written names. For
the benefit of those unacquainted with the system of transliterating
Russian, published in _Nature_, it is reprinted at the close of this
paper.
[Footnote 1: February 27, 1890.]
A few words more in regard to the treatment of the Russian geographic
names found in Alaska. This territory will in the course of time
contain a large English-speaking population, and its geographic names
of Russian and Eskimo origin should, in a certain sense, no longer be
classed by us under the category of foreign names.
The future official orthography of Alaska might, therefore, be treated
liberally, that is to say, complicated spelling following from a
strict transliteration might be simplified to a certain extent, as has
been done with the spelling of many aboriginal Indian names.
Of the geographic nomenclature of Asiatic countries none has become so
rapidly well known as that of the Japan Archipelago, and we can
already now class Japan among the countries having an official
geographic nomenclature in Roman character.
Within less than twenty years, the wonderfully progressive Japanese
have established a geographic service for the survey of their domain,
and a hydrographic service for the survey of their coasts and
navigable waters. They have now published several hundreds of nautical
charts, which are as good and practical as any published by other
nations.
On those Japanese charts, which are based exclusively on their own
surveys, the names are printed in the signs of the '_Kana_' with the
transliteration of the name in Roman character added. It is this
feature which has materially helped us to a better and correct
knowledge of their geographic names. Within the last few years the
_Romaji-Kwai_[2] has made immense progress, and I understand that the
society's system forms already part of the instruction in a number of
schools in Japan. Hence, we may look forward to the day when Japanese
books printed in Roman characters will supersede, to a large extent,
the books in the signs of the '_Kana_.'
[Footnote 2: Society for the introduction of the Roman character for
writing the Japanese language.]
One of the best authorities for writing and pronouncing the names of
the districts, cities, towns and villages of Japan is a very recent
publication[3] by our honored countryman, Mr. W. N. Whitney,
interpreter at the U. S. Legation at Tokyo, who compiled this
admirable book with great care and labor from the official records of
the Japanese empire. It not only contains the names in the original
Japanese print, but what is of chief value to us, also the
transcription, in accordance with the _Romaji-Kwai_ system. We cannot
do better, at present, than to follow this book in determining the
orthography of geographic names in Japan.
[Footnote 3: A concise Dictionary of the principal _roads_,
_chief-towns_ and _villages_ of Japan, with _populations_,
_post-offices_, &c.; together with Lists of _Ken_, _Kori_, and
_Railways_. By W. N. Whitney, M.D., Interpreter of the U. S. Legation,
Tokyo.]
In not so satisfactory a state as the orthography of Japanese
geographic names is that of the countries adjacent to Japan.
Considering that Asiatic names have been transcribed phonetically by
explorers and surveyors of different nationalities, at different
periods of time, and who were often but little, or not at all,
acquainted with the languages they had to deal with, it is not
surprising that many of the names we find on the charts should have
been written utterly wrong. That such was the case on even
comparatively recent surveys is, for instance, illustrated by the
change in the nomenclature on the French plan of Cape Koan Lan, in the
Gulf of Tongking (Plan No. 3721). In this French survey of 1878 the
same names on the editions of 1879 and 1886, respectively, are
rendered thus:
1879. 1886.
Cap Cua-Lam. Cap Koan Lang.
Ile Capuitao. Cai-puï-tao.
Ile Soum-La-Too. Siong-Lai-Tao.
Ile Laito-San. Lai-Tao.
Ile Foum-Lung. Ile Fong Wong.
Such differences in spelling, and examples of pleonasm, as are
indicated by these names, are found on the charts of all nations, but,
under the beneficial working of the systems adopted by the British,
French and Germans, similar errors are rapidly being corrected, and
progress is being made towards international uniformity in the
spelling of all geographic names.
Owing to the number of languages and alphabets in use in the Indian
empire, the orthography of its geographic names has for a long time
been in controversy. As we see from the "British System," the Royal
Geographical Society has decided to spell Indian names in accordance
with "Hunters' Imperial Gazetteer of India," a decision which, in view
of the fact that the spelling in the Gazetteer is not always in
harmony with the adopted rules, is to be regretted. But we can at the
same time understand the difficulties of the situation, and appreciate
the strong love of the British for old forms and long usage. The
differences between the system and the Gazetteer are, however, not
radical, since the continental vowel system is followed; still, it
would be just as easy to write Kalkutta, Kutch, etc., for Calcutta,
Cutch, etc., as it is to write Korea for Corea, and thus be consistent
with the rules.
Geographic names in Malay and its branches we know mainly through
Dutch, British and Spanish surveyors, and their status may be judged
from the prefatory remarks in Maxwell's grammar of Malay, published in
1882, wherein he says, that the spelling of Malay words in the native
character is hardly yet fixed, though the Perso-Arabic alphabet has
been in use since the 13th century, and that those _follow but a vain
shadow_ who seek to prescribe exact modes of spelling words, regarding
which even native authorities are not agreed, and of which the
pronunciation may vary according to locality.
On the charts published by the Batavian Hydrographic Office, the Malay
names are rendered in accordance with the Dutch phonetic system of
transliteration (only that the sound of _g_ is always hard) and as
this differs from the British phonetic system in several particulars,
it is clear that certain corrections must be applied to the spelling
of "_Dutch_" Malay names to facilitate the approximately correct
pronunciation of such names by English speaking peoples. But a source
of trouble is the seeming uncertainty of the Batavian geographers
themselves in regard to the orthography of many names, since it is a
frequent occurrence to find the same names variously rendered on
charts, or in sailing directions issued at short intervals of time.
We can see, from what has been said above, that chances for
disagreement in the rendering of geographic names, originating in
countries that do not use the Roman alphabet for their literature, are
numerous, and hence, the occurrence of errors in the application of a
new system should not be too harshly condemned; nor would the culprits
deserve to be dealt with according to the law laid down by the
municipal council of the good old Swiss town of Küssnacht, which not
very long ago issued a decree that the final _t_ in the name of their
town should be dropped in all official communications, and that any
local official failing to obey this decree should be fined.
* * * * *