pronunciation of foreign place names

Hi there,

So I’m from the Netherlands and some cities here have an English pronunciation style. Like Amsterdam and The Hague. The Hague also has a distinct spelling. Dutch people call this Den Haag. But there are many lesser known places that don’t have an English pronunciation variant. Like Burgh-Haamstede and Groningen. I choose these two because I think this is a though example for English speakers.

So when talking with an English speaker about things in the Netherlands, would it be best when a Dutch place name comes along you pronounce them as Dutch? Are there clear rules on this topic? For example the term The Hague must be well defined. There might even be a paper that states that we use this English term to talk about this city.

Greetings Daphne

If the place is generally unfamiliar to English speakers (or any other language), then use your own pronunciation. Be prepared for the foreign speaker to mangle the name into something they can pronounce.

If you're speaking while in the Netherlands I think you should pronounce every place name in the Dutch way.

Daphne said:

Are there clear rules on this topic? For example the term The Hague must be well defined. There might even be a paper that states that we use this English term to talk about this city.

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I can't really guess what you're thinking about here. No, there are no rules or definitions or papers.

jutfrank said:

If you're speaking while in the Netherlands I think you should pronounce every place name in the Dutch way.

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I agree, except for The Hague. Many English speakers do not know its Dutch name, and would almost certainly not recognise it when spoken.

Thanks for the contributions.

jutfrank said:

I can't really guess what you're thinking about here. No, there are no rules or definitions or papers.

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Sorry for my not so clear communication. On Wikipedia I found the proper terminology to talk about these things. See link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym

So as an example Den Haag is the endonym and The Hague is the exonym. But in the case Amsterdam the endonym and exonym have the same spelling. But pronunciation differs. I was looking if exonyms were regulated in some way.

The theory that we should pronounce place names the way people who live there do leads to the delightful conclusion that Long Island should be pronounced Lawn Guyland.