{"id":572,"date":"2010-01-13T10:21:13","date_gmt":"2010-01-13T10:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=572"},"modified":"2010-01-12T22:33:53","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T22:33:53","slug":"the-atlas-of-true-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/13\/the-atlas-of-true-names\/","title":{"rendered":"The Atlas of True Names"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/travel\/picturegalleries\/6810022\/The-Atlas-of-True-Names.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/The-Atlas-of-True-Names-300x241.jpg\" alt=\"The Atlas of True Names\" title=\"The Atlas of True Names\" width=\"300\" height=\"241\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-573\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/The-Atlas-of-True-Names-300x241.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/The-Atlas-of-True-Names.jpg 496w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>We know that all words have origins, and place names probably have some of the most interesting origins.<\/p>\n<p>When I attended school in London as a child, we learned about the history of the city partly through place and street names \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.londononline.co.uk\/streetorigins\/Pudding_Lane\/\">Pudding Lane<\/a> for example, was where the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.historylearningsite.co.uk\/great_fire_of_london_of_1666.htm\">Great Fire of London<\/a> started, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.londononline.co.uk\/streetorigins\/Rotten_Row\/\">Rotten Row<\/a> is a corruption of \u2018route du roi\u2019 (road of king). (If you\u2019re interested in this subject, check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.londononline.co.uk\/streetorigins\/\">this<\/a> website).<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kalimedia.com\/Atlas_of_True_Names.html\">Atlas of True Names<\/a> is a set of world maps where the traditional names of cities, countries and geographical features have been replaced with words showing their origins and literal meanings. The results are surprising and intriguing, with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/London\">London<\/a> renamed the somewhat less substantial \u201cUnfordable River Town\u201d and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Philadelphia \">Philadelphia<\/a>, the City of Brotherly Love, becoming \u201cSibling Love\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>As some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.languagehat.com\/archives\/003318.php\">language<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=861\">commentators<\/a> have pointed out though, it\u2019s best not to take the map too seriously \u2013 some of the etymology may be disputed or incorrect. As a way to look at the world in a different light and discover the fun of words though, it\u2019s a great resource. And as the cartographers say:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We wanted to let the Earth tells its own story,&#8221; Stephan Hormes, who produced the maps together with his wife Silke Peust, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. &#8220;The names give you an insight into what the people saw when they first looked at a place, almost with the eyes of children. Through the maps, we wanted to show what they saw.&#8221; (Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/zeitgeist\/0,1518,591702,00.html \">Der Spiegel<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Take a look at a slideshow of the maps <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/travel\/picturegalleries\/6810022\/The-Atlas-of-True-Names.html \">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We know that all words have origins, and place names probably have some of the most interesting origins. When I attended school in London as a child, we learned about the history of the city partly through place and street names \u2013 Pudding Lane for example, was where the Great Fire of London started, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,45,44],"tags":[532,533,45,530,196,531,528,529,44],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-words","tag-atlas","tag-atlas-of-true-names","tag-etymology","tag-great-fire-of-london","tag-london","tag-london-street-name-origins","tag-street-names","tag-word-origins","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}