Exonym

Exonym is a category of geographical names that arises under the aspect of the spatial relationship between the human community using the name and the geographical feature denoted by that name. An exonym, under this aspect, is the geographical name that is not used by the local community (the name "from without") and is distinct from the endonym (the name "from within"), the geographical name used and accepted by the local community. The aspect mentioned is a sociological and geographical (spatial) one that corresponds to two basic human attitudes: (1) to distinguish between “mine” and “yours”, “ours” and “theirs”; (2) territoriality, the need for one's own space/place, expressed at all levels of human activity and community building. This aspect therefore always has a social, political and legal meaning and is for this reason politically sensitive and often the cause of political conflicts. Most exonyms are the result of a local community's intense relationship with particular geographical features outside its area: foreign endonyms of commonly encountered features are translated into one's language or adapted to one's own language morphologically or phonetically. Today's exonyms are often taken over from older endonyms. The German exonym Prag, e.g., corresponds to the older Czech endonym Praga, before this became Praha due to a change in Czech orthography. In any case, exonyms exist only for geographical features that are or were important for the recipient community either because of their proximity or because of their special importance. They reflect to some extent the (historical and current) network of external relations of a local community. They also developed primarily 'naturally' - because they fulfilled this function - and were intentionally 'placed' only in exceptional cases. The intensive and ostentatious use of historical endonyms, which are now exonyms (e.g. for the former German areas in today's Poland or the Czech Republic), can also be politically motivated, expressing political claims, political nostalgia or cultural dominance behavior. The use of exonyms is therefore politically sensitive and requires careful consideration.

The field of application of exonyms is primarily the communication between members of a community, especially a language community. Compared to the corresponding endonyms, exonyms often have the advantage that they are easier to pronounce and are therefore easier to learn and remember. They are also easier to decline and put into the adjectival form. The use of the exonym for the current object often also ensures the consonance with designations in historical literature (Austerlitz, Tannenberg) as well as with microtoponymy and other names of the user community. Exonyms are also part of a community's cultural heritage for this reason. Exonyms, especially those of global trade languages, are also used for international communication. For example, English exonyms are used for airports, the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) defines names in global trade languages for seas and parts of seas for the purpose of international maritime navigation, and names in a number of languages have been defined for international use for geographical features on Antarctica. Many exonyms thus take on the additional function of international names or coinonyms. There are different opinions about how much the exonym must differ from the endonym in order to be considered an exonym. Names in letter and syllabary scripts are usually only considered exonyms if they differ from the endonym not only by pronunciation (e.g. Paris, London) but also in spelling, whereby there is no agreement on whether the omission of the article or diacritics or the mere translation of the generic part of a compound leads to an exonym. In the case of names in kanji, an ideographic script of the Sinosphere, the same written form often corresponds to a completely different spoken form in the various languages that use them, so that the difference that must exist between exonym and endonym does not apply generally and globally to the written form. Exonyms, like endonyms, can be standardized when, for example, they are recommended or prescribed by national naming authorities and boards for use in their own country's publications, or when they are specified (see above) by international authorities for specific purposes. The term exonym presented here corresponds to the usual usage, encompasses all possible cases and is not tailored to a specific purpose, although for the latter reason it differs in nuances from other, but purpose-specific definitions. The glossary of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN), established with the aim of developing rules for the standardization of geographical names, defines the exonym as “a name in a specific language for a geographical feature outside the area in which that language is widely spoken, differing in form from the corresponding endonym in the area in which the geographical feature is located. Examples: Warsaw is the English exonym for Warszawa (Polish); Milan the German for Milano; Londres the French for London; Quluniyā the Arabic for Cologne. On the other hand, Moskva (for Mocквa), transliterated according to GOST83, is not an exonym, nor is the official Latin spelling Beijing, which was based on pinyin; Beijing, on the other hand, is an exonym.” The International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS) Glossary defines exonym as "a name in a particular language for a geographical feature outside the area in which that language is widely spoken, which differs in form from the corresponding endonym in the area in which the geographical feature is located - e.g. French Londres for London, German Warsaw for Warszawa, Bangkok for Krung Thep, Spanish Ginebra for Genève.”

Norway, Germany, Turkey, Vienna, Danube, Alps, Baltic Sea