WORLD BRIEFING | ASIA; Japan: Battle of Iwo What?

[RSS Bot]

Japan changes name of island of Iwo Jima, site of one of World War II's most horrific battles, to its prewar name at urging of its original inhabitants; they want to reclaim identity that has been hijacked by high-profile movies like Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers; name Iwo Jima was mispronunciation by Japanese Naval officers of Iwo To; photo (S)...

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[temujin77]

To the Japanese, I see it as rather moot point. The writing did not change, therefore it is *not* a re-naming. It is simply a change in pronunciation. For example, there is a city called Newark in New Jersey, and we read the word like "new-wurk". If for some unknown reason, the Newark city council decided to officially read the word as "new-ark", should it really generate that much attention?

To the Americans, though, I see why the change is being mis-labeled as "re-naming". We phonetically translate Japanese into English, so a change in pronunciation is almost like a re-naming to us. I for one do not think we should change the name of the battle to Battle of Ioto (Iwoto). For example, when Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd in 1961, we never changed the name of the big battle that took place there. So why is Battle of Iwo Jima name an issue now?