Lexbuzz Edition #45: The Country That Took Back Its Name
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Hello, Word Lovers!
Sometimes, a name sticks simply because outsiders found it easier to say. That’s what happened to a tiny island nation in the Pacific.
For more than two centuries, the island on the map has carried a name its own people do not use. Nauru is how “Naoero” sounded to visitors who found it hard to say, and the version stuck.
This past Tuesday, the country’s president asked the United Nations General Assembly to use its own name instead: Naoero. The spelling changes, the pronunciation changes, and the word for a citizen changes with them.
🌀 Weekly Word Wonder: ENDONYM
Pronunciation: /en-duh-nim/
Part of speech: Noun
Definition: The name a people uses for itself, its country, or its language, as opposed to the name outsiders use for it.
Origin: Endonym was assembled in English from two Greek elements: endo-, "within", and -onym, from onoma, "a name". Its opposite, exonym, names the version applied from outside, and is the older of the two words in English. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest evidence for endonym comes from 1970, when the term belonged mainly to geographers and linguists.
Usage:
- The country’s endonym is different from the name most of the world uses.
- The endonym is often rooted in the local language and culture.
📖 What's Special?
The legal work was finished months earlier. Parliament passed the constitutional amendment on 12 May, with all sixteen members present voting for it, and the government informed the United Nations on 26 June. A referendum was set aside, on the argument that Naoero is not a new name seeking approval; it already stands on the national coat of arms. "Nauru is how our name sounded to those who found it hard to say," President David Adeang told the assembly, "but it is not the name our people used among ourselves." The new name is spoken Now-ero, not Now-roo, its code is to change from NRU to NRO, and its people will be known as dei-Naoero rather than Nauruan.
More about Naoero...
The island has been named from outside before. On 8 November 1798, the British captain John Fearn, aboard the ship Hunter, sighted it and wrote "Pleasant Island" on his chart; Germany annexed the island in 1888. That name and Nauru are both exonyms. The language carries its own name as well: dorerin Naoero.
🧩 Community Puzzle
Jumbled Letters: Unscramble these words.
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LAASI (An assumed name a person uses in daily life) →
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RMKONIE (A casual name for a person or thing) →
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SNIOREMM (A name or label that is wrong or unsuitable) →
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YMDUPENOS (A false name that a writer publishes under) →
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TTEIL (The name of a complete work, such as a book, film or play) →
Last Week's Answers (Edition #44)
Jumbled Letters
- EISONMLOG — NEOLOGISM (a newly coined word or expression)
- YOLMTGOYE — ETYMOLOGY (the study of the origin of words)
- SAGLSOYR — GLOSSARY (a list of terms with explanations)
- IXLECNO — LEXICON (the vocabulary of a language or person)
- ROFOP — PROOF (evidence establishing a fact)
Until next week, keep playing.
— The Lexulous Team
