On Wednesday, January 19, 2022 at 1:42:17 PM UTC-8, Frank Berger wrote:
> On 1/19/2022 4:30 PM, number_six wrote:
> > On Wednesday, January 19, 2022 at 5:19:39 AM UTC-8, Frank Berger
> >>
> >> When considering changing the name from Begun, it's hard to imagine how they came up with Berger. Of course, there is no one to ask.
> >
> > Like that big band standard "Berger the Begun"?
> LOL!
>
> My father used to say we were the past participle of Menachem Begin.
>
Good one. To add on, Begin is irregular verb, since in one case it conjugates to "Irgun"!

On 1/19/2022 5:52 PM, Bob Harper wrote:
> On 1/19/22 1:07 AM, Andrew Clarke wrote:
> (snip)
>> Maybe they changed the pronunciation after the USA entered the First World War? In South Australia, there were a considerable number of German Lutheran immigrants, and although there was no Lake Wobegon there were several towns with German names that changed them to more English ones during that conflict. Petersburg, then an important railway town, became Peterborough for example, although there are no longer any trains in South Australia outside the Adelaide area, apart from the Sydney-Perth 'Indian Pacific' that runs through Peterborough without stopping, and the Adelaide-Darwin "The Ghan" which doesn't go through Peterborough at all.
>
> My wife is from North Central Wisconsin, and is of 100% German extraction (Pomerania and northern Bavaria). The cemetery near her home contains a number of headstones from before WW I, which list dates as 'Geb.' (born) and 'Gestorb.' (died). Those deaths postdating WW I read 'Born' and 'Died', and are anglicized; König became King, and her last name changed from Bergmann to Bergman.True lots of other places, I suspect.
>
> Bob Harper

Interesting. I had great-grandparent named Koenigsfest (King's festival, I guess), who emigrated to the U.S. from Latvia around 1920. 3 of the Koenigsfest children changed their name to King and the fourth to Koenig. Much of the Latvian Jewish community had "originated" in East Prussia. From what I understand, they were proud of their German heritage. They were totally secular. My great great grandmother came over as well. I have been told her tombstone is entirely in German. I have not seen it.

On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 10:23:02 AM UTC+11, Frank Berger wrote:
> On 1/19/2022 5:26 PM, Andy Evans wrote:
> > On Wednesday, 19 January 2022 at 22:01:22 UTC, Frank Berger wrote:
> >> Would you trust Europeans to pronounce Quoque or Aquebooque? How do you think the French would pronounce Boise?
> >
> > The French would pronounce it "bwazay" meaning "wooded".
> >
> Only if the final e had an accent aigu. Otherwise Bwazz.
> > I have to be honest and say that the English were one of the worst nations for distorting native names. Calcutta for Kolkata , Peking for Beijing, etc etc.
> >
> The ruled everything. They could do whatever they wanted. And since they were and are insufferably ethnocentric and had no respect for the natives they dominated they saw no need for accuracy. I don't know if any of that is true. I'm trolling our local anglophile.
> > But since Jesus himself was a notorious name changer, I guess we had a role model......
> >
> > "Your name is Simon? Right, I shall call you Peter...."
> >
> God himself changed Jacob to Israel. You have been one-upped.

There are quite a few Indians who still say Bombay, Calcutta and Bangalore. They do this because they think that the present Indian federal government should have better things to do with its time than fiddling about with the names of cities.
It amuses me when Indians tell me that Bombay 'is what the British called it". It's actually a corruption of what the Portuguese called it, Bom Bahia (Beautiful Bay) and was a purely British creation in that there was nothing there before. Mumbai is the name in Marathi.

Ditto Kolkata. This was originally three villages on the Hoogly River: the present city was essentially a British creation. Kolkata is its name in Bengali.

Meanwhile the situation for India's minority Moslems and Christians is getting less and less tolerable. Never mind, the ruling Hindu nationalist party and some of its extreme supporters can always blame British 'divide and rule' for the resulting violence and murder. They usually do.

Andrew Clarke
Canberra