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BGonline.org Forums
Language of countries
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Language of countries (Bob koca)
Date: Wednesday, 13 July 2016, at 12:03 a.m.
Bob Koca wrote:
Why is Cote de Ivoire French?
As is often the case, Wikipedia has the answer to your question.
The name had long since been translated literally into other languages, which the postindependence government considered to be increasingly troublesome whenever its international dealings extended beyond the Francophone sphere. Therefore, in April 1986, the government declared Côte d'Ivoire (or, more fully, République de Côte d'Ivoire) to be its formal name for the purposes of diplomatic protocol, and officially refuses to recognize or accept any translation from French to another language in its international dealings.
While I'm on the topic, I might as well give the answers to the quiz.
South Sudan: Juba. I didn't realize it at the time I posted, but severe violence erupted in Juba on that very day. So you might have heard the name in the news recently. But since South Sudan became an independent nation just five years ago, you won't have memorized its name in any list of world capitals prior to that.
St. Lucia: Castries. This one is "easy" because it hasn't changed and it's the only big city, but of course many people don't even know that St. Lucia is an independent nation. I find that many people who claim to know all the world capitals are rather shaky when it comes to island republics like Tuvalu or Comoros or Dominica.
Palau: Ngerulmud. This one is a bit of a minefield. "Koror" still jumps to my mind when I hear "Palau" because Ngerulmud didn't become the capital until 2006. To add to the confusion, the U.N. and the U.S. consider Melekeok to be the capital, but most go by what the government itself says.
Montenegro: Podgorica. The breakup of Yugoslavia and of the former Soviet Union caused me some headaches because it meant learning a whole bunch of hard-to-spell-and-pronounce capital cities. At least most of them haven't changed over time, but Kazakhstan's capital is now Astana (not to be confused with Asmara [Eritrea], another capital that wasn't on my list as a kid) rather than Almaty (formerly Alma-Ata).
Myanmar: Naypyidaw. This one is also complicated politically, especially for Americans, because the shift from Yangon (a.k.a. Rangoon) to Naypyidaw took place in 2005, but the U.S. government didn't recognize the de facto government of Myanmar at the time, supporting Aung San Suu Kyi instead and referring to the country as "Burma." These conflicts have been more or less sorted out now, though, and Aung San Suu Kyi is now back in the government (not as president, though).
Côte d'Ivoire: Yamoussoukro. When I first learned the capitals, Abidjan was the capital, but this one doesn't confuse me much any more since it's been Yamoussoukro since 1983.
Tanzania: Dodoma. The capital was formerly Dar es Salaam, which is still the de facto capital city for some purposes, but Dodoma has been the official capital for so long that it sticks in my mind more strongly than Dar es Salaam now.
Sri Lanka (legislative): Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte. I've also seen this spelled Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte. For the purposes of a test, one would obviously have to decide on a particular English spelling in advance. I originally learned that the capital city was Colombo, and Kotte could be thought of as a suburb of Colombo, plus (like Dar es Salaam vs. Dodoma) the transition from Colombo to Kotte isn't complete, so one could argue that Colombo isn't a wrong answer.
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