boo sapmi, boo! boo inconsistency, boo!!

[RobRoy3]

I would've said Lappland, too, just for consistency sake, and because that's the term I'm familiar with. However, I wasn't aware it was considered derogatory.

If the group of people who it would represent find the term offensive, no matter how mildly, no, don't use it. Why would we knowingly impose a slur on their nation at the very time we're making it (theoretically) possible for them to exist in the game? That's not some knee-jerk political correctness, that's just common courtesy.

I presume the folk at Paradox are somewhat aware, though. That would explain why they are using the far less familiar term. Props to them.

I'm mildly curious, though, WHY it's deemed offensive?

 

[perhje]

You should also remember that most samis(?) are not from the region of Lappland in this period. A lot of them live in Finnmark, northern Finland and Kola as well. Think of it, if they had revolted, they wouldn't neither use the swedish term "lapp" or the norwegian term "finn" in the name of their newly indenpendent country. They would called it something else and the other countries of Europe would followed to use their own therm and not the one that the swedish gave them

 

[perhje]

I would've said Lappland, too, just for consistency sake, and because that's the term I'm familiar with. However, I wasn't aware it was considered derogatory.

If the group of people who it would represent find the term offensive, no matter how mildly, no, don't use it. Why would we knowingly impose a slur on their nation at the very time we're making it (theoretically) possible for them to exist in the game? That's not some knee-jerk political correctness, that's just common courtesy.

I presume the folk at Paradox are somewhat aware, though. That would explain why they are using the far less familiar term. Props to them.

I'm mildly curious, though, WHY it's deemed offensive?

I beleive it is partly because of the treatment they have gotten from the people that invented the term "lapp" and they have been called that with a negative tone through centuries

 

[physics1915]

Under ideal circumstances all countries should have their names by their endonyms, that should stop part of the stupid nationalistic threads as most people gets pissed off by seeing their country name written wrong plus it adds flavor.

I disagree, ideally all countries should have the name that is most appropriate to the language the game is in, without respect to how it's perceived in other languages; unless you have dynamic province names turned on. So if you have the English localization settings on, you use the name most common in English, if you have the French settings, you use the name most common in French, etc. Let the nationalists create their own localization settings, don't butcher the English language to appease them.

 

[Draker5]

I beleive it is partly because of the treatment they have gotten from the people that invented the term "lapp" and they have been called that with a negative tone through centuries

What I found out is that the swedish word "lapp" might come from the finnish word "lappi" (Svensk Etymologisk Ordbok) which origianlly meant just a sort of place in the northern inland wilderness, not on the coast. So the term "lappalainen" just meant someone living up there, but the sami people wanted to be called sami, so finnish people living there started to call themselves "lappalainen". This happened during the 20th centruy. So I don't really know exactly how or why they consider it degrading.

 

[AlphaSonic]

It's not the first ingame inconsistence Sapmi, and it exists in English. Just because you are not used to it doesnt mean they need to change it.

 

[ahyangyi]

I don't get it. How is Sapmi hard to pronounce when you pronounce "shipment", "upmost" and "mapmaker" just fine?

 

[matissvein]

Talking about endonyms.
Kurland is in german, but couronia or courland is the english one (full name - duchy of courland and semigalia ( in latvian - kurzemes un zemgales hercogiste)

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Under ideal circumstances all countries should have their names by their endonyms, that should stop part of the stupid nationalistic threads as most people gets pissed off by seeing their country name written wrong plus it adds flavor.

Please, please no. No people in all of history have ever called every country by its local name, no historical map has ever called every country by its local name, and there's a reason - it looks hideous to make every country name visually clash with others. Balgariya next to Basileion ton Rhomaion (with all appropriate diacritics) next to Devlet-i-Aliye-Osmaniyye might wow some people who aren't used to seeing foreign languages, but at least to me it just makes the map look like a disorganized mess.

And no, it's not that I can't pronounce them - I could probably even read almost all of them in their native script. However, making names unpronounceable and unrecognizable for most players is a very real problem that's another reason Paradox shouldn't do this.

 

[MetalTaberna]

Under ideal circumstances all countries should have their names by their endonyms, that should stop part of the stupid nationalistic threads as most people gets pissed off by seeing their country name written wrong plus it adds flavor.

So suppose we'd get a Belgium tag. Is that Belgie or Belgique, then? Or Belgien?

 

[ahyangyi]

Please, please no. No people in all of history have ever called every country by its local name, no historical map has ever called every country by its local name, and there's a reason - it looks hideous to make every country name visually clash with others. Balgariya next to Basileion ton Rhomaion (with all appropriate diacritics) next to Devlet-i-Aliye-Osmaniyye might wow some people who aren't used to seeing foreign languages, but at least to me it just makes the map look like a disorganized mess.

And no, it's not that I can't pronounce them - I could probably even read almost all of them in their native script. However, making names unpronounceable and unrecognizable for most players is a very real problem that's another reason Paradox shouldn't do this.

Bulgaria, Romania and Ottomans are straightforward translations of these country names. They don't come with any political correctness problem.

Lapland for Sapmi is not.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Bulgaria, Romania and Ottomans are straightforward translations of these country names. They don't come with any political correctness problem.

Lapland for Sapmi is not.

I wasn't arguing specifically for that. Personally I'd probably mod it to Lapland for personal use, as that's likely what such a state would have been called in English at the time, but there's also a good chance that if the state persisted, they would succeed in getting the rest of the world to call them by a name derived from Sapmi/Saami. So, for the general game, Samiland sounds like a pretty good suggestion to me.

 

[Sun_Wu]

Lapland is unacceptable because Lapp is considered a racist term and Sweden was engaging in eugenics against Saami into the 1970s which is recent memory.

 

[physics1915]

Bulgaria, Romania and Ottomans are straightforward translations of these country names. They don't come with any political correctness problem.

Lapland for Sapmi is not.

We also have a proper English term for 'political correctness problem': whining.

 

[EleventhAvenue]

I think this is considered a bit of a special case... in the case of, say Catalonia, both the endonym and the anglicanized word is based on the same word. Of course, this doesn't explain why Courland is referred to by its endonym, or why Persia is Persia... so maybe this is a bad explanation. Hm.

I think this thread is veering a bit off course. The problem, the subject of this thread, is how country names are inconsistent, not that there are evil racist eugenic trolls hiding between every word. I suggest we avoid that subject because I'm pretty sure that we'll totally derail if we keep going down that road.

Here's a suggestion: We call the Sami revolter tag Sámi. Like all other Tribal governments, named after what the people calls itself! Consistency! Sure, this revolter might not necessarily revolt as a tribal government, but other tribal governments that become non-tribals still keep their endonym name, so this is still consistent! (with the exception of the Iroquois that are referred to by their French exonym, for some reason)

 

[Chieron]

Under ideal circumstances all countries should have their names by their endonyms, that should stop part of the stupid nationalistic threads as most people gets pissed off by seeing their country name written wrong plus it adds flavor.

I guess then non-latinized names are also needed, as the romanization is not unique and local enough. Also, multiligual countries would get funny (e.g. Switzerland), complete with their demonyms..
This is something for mods, but pretty silly for the main game. If there rest of the game is in one language, and the country names are in another, its just somewhat jarring. Province names are much less visible and tend not to be anglicized anyway.

Avoiding controversial names is a good idea in general. A Swedish company not using Lappland belongs into that category. Sapmi is acceptable and pronouncable.

 

[physics1915]

I guess then non-latinized names are also needed, as the romanization is not unique and local enough. Also, multiligual countries would get funny (e.g. Switzerland), complete with their demonyms..
This is something for mods, but pretty silly for the main game. If there rest of the game is in one language, and the country names are in another, its just somewhat jarring. Province names are much less visible and tend not to be anglicized anyway.

Avoiding controversial names is a good idea in general. A Swedish company not using Lappland belongs into that category. Sapmi is acceptable and pronouncable.

I'd presume it's pronounced 'sap me' as in to weaken or destroy (sap) me. It sounds rather derogatory, though I wouldn't know because I've never actually heard the term used in English. I have, however, heard Lapland/Laplander heard many a time, but never with any negative connotation. It may be derogatory in Swedish, but it's not in English and I play the game in English, not Swedish.

On the other hand, the game uses France/French, which certainly is regarded as derogatory name in English.

 

[Chieron]

I'd presume it's pronounced 'sap me' as in to weaken or destroy (sap) me. It sounds rather derogatory, though I wouldn't know because I've never actually heard the term used in English. I have, however, heard Lapland/Laplander heard many a time, but never with any negative connotation. It may be derogatory in Swedish, but it's not in English and I play the game in English, not Swedish.

On the other hand, the game uses France/French, which certainly is regarded as derogatory name in English.

Suhp-mee (?) [ˈsapmi] should be the pronunciation.
I could live with Lap(p)land, too. I don't consider/use it derogatory either. The Sami probably do so, as well as many Swedes to whom that ugly history is closer.
Paradox can not win anything with calling it Lapland, however.
Sami or Samis as a tribal name might be an alternative, but do feel odd (like many of the other tribal/dynastic names in civilized areas, esp. "Ottomans")

 

[physics1915]

Suhp-mee (?) [ˈsapmi] should be the pronunciation.
I could live with Lap(p)land, too. I don't consider/use it derogatory either. The Sami probably do so, as well as many Swedes to whom that ugly history is closer.
Paradox can not win anything with calling it Lapland, however.
Sami or Samis as a tribal name might be an alternative, but do feel odd (like many of the other tribal/dynastic names in civilized areas, esp. "Ottomans")

Perhaps that may be the case, I didn't even now there was a controversy over the name Lapland until I encountered this thread. I just get tired of everyone trying to insist we change words in our language because they're different in some foreign language. Ceylon is now Sir Lanka, Burma is Myanmar, Rhodesia is Zimbabwe, Calcutta is Kolkata, Rangoon is Yangon, etc. now we have Sapmi instead of Lapland, the worst one yet (though Myanmar is pretty bad); I guess we can thank a racial slur for not having to call Japan 'Nippon'. In every case they we're taking a perfectly good and easy to pronounce English name and turning into some unpronounceable foreign name. If people want to use these names in their own language, that's perfectly reasonable, but don't turn around and pretend they should be proper English, they're not.

 

[perhje]

Perhaps that may be the case, I didn't even now there was a controversy over the name Lapland until I encountered this thread. I just get tired of everyone trying to insist we change words in our language because they're different in some foreign language. Ceylon is now Sir Lanka, Burma is Myanmar, Rhodesia is Zimbabwe, Calcutta is Kolkata, Rangoon is Yangon, etc. now we have Sapmi instead of Lapland, the worst one yet (though Myanmar is pretty bad); I guess we can thank a racial slur for not having to call Japan 'Nippon'. In every case they we're taking a perfectly good and easy to pronounce English name and turning into some unpronounceable foreign name. If people want to use these names in their own language, that's perfectly reasonable, but don't turn around and pretend they should be proper English, they're not.

You know that Sapmi is coming in as an international term too. This is already used in intenational cooperation with indigenous people and in some encyclopedias so you can safely use that term in english. Most would understand you if you used Sapmi in english if they know about the people in northern Scandinavia. Like yourself, you clearly understood it if you are discussing it so it can't be a completly strange term for you either. I'm judging that you are english-speaking by your profil flag.

And about unpronounceable names. I wouldn't beleive "Lapland" isn't easier to say in english, just that it is used more in english, but this is just how I feel when I try to say both words in english.. Same goes every other name you mentioned. They are equally difficult to pronounce in english from my point of view.

You know that also "Lapland" was once a term you got from the scandinavians too, so it can't be the term that is taken the most care to make for the englishmen. So basicly it is a swedish, finnish or norwegian term, because it wasn't that important for them, just that they got understood the few times they used it.

And those country name are proper nouns, not just words, so that mean you should try to call them what they call themselves in the same way you wouldn't call a person named Joseph José just because you spoke spanish to him.

And lastly, just a question to clear things up for me. Are those names you don't like in official use in the english language or just in EUIV?