Posted by Alan Hakim on March 09, 2005 at 19:08:19 from 212.137.171.188 user awhakim.
In Reply to: Re: Talkee English bimeby posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on March 08, 2005 at 11:00:21:
'Mumbai' has always been the name for Bombay in Marathi, the local language. I don't know whether it's a corruption of the Portuguese name, or it was always there, and the Portuguese misheard/adapted it when they moved in.
What I object to in all these post-colonial name changes is the assumption that a world-famous place should now disappear behind a local name, however well-established. Nobody forces us English-speakers to talk about Deutschland instead of Germany. And the French refer to our Archbishop as Cantorbéry.