Originally Posted by New Brisavoine
Nobody imposes names in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, etc to Hindophones, Tamilophones, Bengalophones, etc. What words Western languages choose to use is up to them. No Chinese person makes a fuss because Anglophones call their country "China" and not "Zhongguo". They insisted on Anglophones calling their capital "Beijing" instead of "Peking" however, so it's rather inconsistent in terms of attitude.
In any case, how Anglophones, Francophones, etc choose to name foreign places is up to them, and should be nobody's business except Anglophones, Francophones, etc.
In the Francophone world, the only country that has made a fuss about which names should be used in French is Algeria (which is kind of ironic since at the same time the Algerian government is doing its best to destroy the French language in Algeria, so why do they care which words Francophones use??). That insistence worked only for one Algerian city, Bône, which is now called Annaba in French (Bône is considered colonial and thus avoided, despite the fact it's a beautiful name, and just as legit as Annaba to name the Christian city that was originally called Hippone, hometown of Christianity's most famous thinker, Saint Augustine). They tried also to impose "Wahran" instead of "Oran", but it never worked, people still use Oran. Same for Constantine ("Qacentina"), it didn't work. As for Algiers, the Algerian government never even tried to impose the Arabic name.
Apart from that, and with the exception of Saigon now renamed Hô Chi Minh-Ville, I can't think of any example of renaming in French (except in the former Belgian Congo, where various cities have been renamed, but like Saigon, it's not a mere orthography change, it's a full name change, such as Léopoldville becoming Kinshasa).
In any case the problem with French now is the abuse of English, not the fact the French language doesn't use the changed orthography of foreign places. Mexico City (called "Mexico" in French) is increasingly called "Mexico City" by stupid young French people (in French the country is "le Mexique", and the capital city is "Mexico", no article, but I can't count the number of people or even media articles which say "Mexico City", as in "Les meilleurs restaurants à Mexico City"). Likewise, "Capetown", which is "Le Cap" in French, is increasingly called "Capetown" by stupid young French people. It shows a great lack of culture, and complete domination of Anglophone culture. This, in a bizarre way, has even extended to Beijing, with more and more young people and some media saying "Beijing", not because of Chinese government recommendation, but because of English influence. It's ridiculous because no Francophone knows how to pronounce "Beijing" correctly, so they might as well continue to say "Pékin", it won't be any more "foreign sounding" than "Beijing" pronounced by a Francophone who has never studied Chinese.
Oddly I don't see the new Indian names used in French (except Chennai, which has gained some traction as of late). Even young people keep saying Bombay and Calcutta, despite the influence of English. Maybe because "Mumbai" and "Kolkata" just sound ugly in French, I don't know. Same for "Myanmar", it sounds rather ugly in French. Whereas "Bombay", "Calcutta", and "Birmanie" have positive connotations associated to them, a whiff of Orient and antiquity, etc.
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). All these names predated British colonialism, they appeared spontaneously when Portuguese and Dutch sailors arrived in India in the 16th century and heard the names of these cities and countries. In general, most of these names (such as "Burma") were transmitted into English from Portuguese (sometimes via French).
That, my dear Sir, is acting like a troll.
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