Vancouver's Strathcona neighbourhood finally gets a library

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

And it's Musqueam with an "A." I mean no harm, but preaching respect for the First Nations somewhat loses its point if you don't care about them enough to get the name right.

oh snap! cant even get the anglizied name right. my bad.

no harm taken. at the very least it raises discussion and awareness about native names and how people determine their own cultures. you and i certainly aren't ignoring the library signage.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

at the very least it raises discussion and awareness about native names and how people determine their own cultures.

You're right about that. The problem with integrating cultures is that something will always get lost in translation.

But the gains outweigh the losses. Baobei in Chinatown for example: the Chinese "B" is actually halfway between English's B and P. So it can be irritating to hear people mangling the name, but the important part is that people are visiting the restaurant and talking about it, and that can lead to further interest in the cuisine or even the culture. How far would they get if the sign was in Mandarin characters?

Originally Posted by mezzanine

you and i certainly aren't ignoring the library signage.

Very true

[jollyburger]

If it wasn't a hollow gesture they would name every branch with an alternative Musquem name.

[BobLoblawsLawBlog]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

But who is it a problem for? I'm no expert but the salish orthography communicates proper stress and tone of the words in unicode, which is lost with anglicization of the words, ie, what is the "correct" spelling of the words? how would you transmit pronunciation etc for posterity?

If the musqeum decide that this is the "correct" way to display these words who am i as a non-musquem to say no, another way easier and better and better for me?

even if names are anglisized, salish as a language will still be severely threatened. IMO anglicising the names win the short game, but going for a more complex written language (compared to english) aims for the long game.

I mean by your logic we should call France Gallia because that's the original "correct" name. When you say "salish orthography communicates proper stress and tone of the words in unicode, which is lost with anglicization of the words" You are implying people are actually going to care and pronounce it with 3 second intervals. And it doesn't really matter is the word somewhat changes when it Anglocizes. I mean that's what happens to lots of European names like
Vancouver = van Coevorden
Montreal = Mont Royal
Vermont = Vert Mont(agne)s
Heemstede = Hempstead NY
Brooklyn = Breuckelen
Delaware = De La Warr

The thing about names is that they are as generic as how we name our cars Avalon or Corolla. All that matters is that the names sound pretty.