{"id":21114,"date":"2014-08-08T05:46:46","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T21:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=21114"},"modified":"2025-01-08T19:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T00:28:14","slug":"japans-naming-of-scores-of-islands-the-latest-volley-in-the-worlds-battles-over-place-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/08\/08\/japans-naming-of-scores-of-islands-the-latest-volley-in-the-worlds-battles-over-place-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s naming of scores of islands the latest volley in the world\u2019s battles over place names"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Map<\/a>
Map of the World in 1922. Photo from National Geographic Society \/ Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TOKYO\u2014Is it the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf? Mount McKinley or Denali? Mumbai or Bombay?<\/p>\n

Some geographic names don\u2019t just tell us where we live or where we\u2019re going. They\u2019re also a political statement, or in the eyes of some, a politically incorrect one. They may not spark a war of the worlds, but they can cause a war of words.<\/p>\n

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China struck back last week after Japan slapped monikers on 158 previously unnamed islands off its shores. Five of them are part of a cluster that both nations claim and is itself the subject of a name dispute: Is it the Senkaku or the Diaoyu islands?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo unilateral action undertaken by Japan can change the fact that Diaoyu and its surrounding islands belong to China,\u201d Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, using his country\u2019s name for the remote tropical islands in the East China Sea.<\/p>\n

One of the most cited examples is a 1970s feud over Cyprus that played out in a United Nations forum. It started after Turkey occupied the northern part of the Mediterranean island, and replaced Greek names for villages with Turkish ones.<\/p>\n

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In a letter to the U.N. conference on geographic names, Cyprus accused Turkey of committing \u201call kinds of unprecedented atrocities\u201d against the Greek population, according to retired Israeli cartographer Naftali Kadmon, who reviewed the official documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey demonstrate that geographical names can constitute explosive items or, in popular terms, hot potatoes,\u201d he wrote in a 2004 article for The Cartographic Journal in Britain.<\/p>\n

The Turkish Federated State of Cyprus, which Kadmon noted was not recognized by the U.N., responded in kind, saying, \u201cThe wilful and unjustified change of names has been a political pastime of the Greek Cypriot leaders for a long number of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study of geographic names is known as toponymy, and those who specialize in it say it\u2019s more than an academic pursuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a sense, naming expresses ownership, because it implies both comprehension and the legitimacy of the namer\u2019s historical and cultural legacy,\u201d professor Dan Montello wrote in a 2010 posting on the University of California, Santa Barbara, geology department\u2019s website. \u201cHence, colonizers and claimants to territory usually change toponyms, and the original owners usually change them back if and when they get a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City in 1976 after the North defeated the South and its American allies in the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

Since 1984, it\u2019s been Burkina Faso, not Upper Volta, or Haute-Volta, as its former French rulers dubbed the West African state.<\/p>\n

In India, part of Britain\u2019s former empire, Bombay became Mumbai in 1995, and the southern city of Madras was renamed Chennai the following year.<\/p>\n

Politicians sometimes make these changes to stir national or ethnic pride, and some in Mumbai still feel uncomfortable with the name change, which was carried out by a nativist party that rose to power after stoking deadly anti-Muslim riots in the city, said Naresh Fernandes, the author of \u201cCity Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the bloody circumstances in which the name was changed, the word Mumbai now smells to me of gloating triumphalism, and I always call the city Bombay,\u201d said Fernandes, who covered the name change as a reporter for The Associated Press in 1995.<\/p>\n

East Asian waters are dotted with islands claimed by more than one country, putting even the names of the seas in dispute.<\/p>\n

South Korea gained a victory this year when the U.S. state of Virginia, pressured by Korean Americans, agreed that new school textbooks should note that the Sea of Japan is also known as the East Sea, the name it prefers for the waters between the two countries.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Philippines, locked in disputes with China over several islands and reefs, proclaimed in 2012 that part of the South China Sea would henceforth be called the West\u00a0Philippine\u00a0Sea.<\/p>\n

For Japan, it was the act of naming the 158 islands last week that mattered, not the actual names. Now most of the 500 islands used to define the extent of Japan\u2019s territorial waters have been named.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a rather unique mega-naming gambit to lay claim to uninhabited islands, reflecting Tokyo\u2019s concern that Beijing might name and claim for itself,\u201d said Jeff Kingston, a professor of contemporary Japan at Temple University\u2019s campus in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Most of the islands are tiny outcroppings whose one requirement is that their highest point remains above water at high tide. About half of them had names used by fishermen and others, and the government adopted those as the official ones. The others, mainly in more remote waters, were given generic directional names such as Southeast Small Island, indicating their location relative to other geographic features.<\/p>\n

The exercise has brought to light some unusual names. An island off the Pacific coast in western Japan is called Soviet Island, though it is nowhere near Russia. The island, which sits about 500 metres (yards) offshore, is a popular fishing ground. Toshio Horitani, an official in Susami, the nearest town, described it as the size of a living room, and said people can stand on it when the water is calm.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no record of how it got its name.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe people meant it\u2019s so far away, like (the) Soviet (Union), because it\u2019s the furthest from the shore,\u201d said Horitani, who has been fielding calls from journalists asking about the name\u2019s origins.<\/p>\n

Name changes can cause diplomatic angst. The then-military government changed Burma to Myanmar in 1989, but the U.S. still refers to it in official documents as Burma, a name preferred by some in the\u00a0Southeast Asiancountry\u2019s opposition. On a visit in late 2012, President Barack Obama used \u201cMyanmar\u201d when talking to the president, but \u201cBurma\u201d in a meeting with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve said we recognize that different people call this country by different names,\u201d U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters afterward. \u201cOur view is that is something we can continue to discuss.\u201d<\/p>\n

As elsewhere in the world, the debate goes on.<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Jim Gomez in Manila,\u00a0Philippines, and Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this story.<\/p>\n

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<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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