The Declaration of Laura Frye

I always wanted my name attached to one of those inane math principles that states “when you multiply one by anything it stays the same” or “Adding zero doesn’t change the number” but those are all taken and I think I have come across a much more meaningful rule to tack my name onto.

The Declaration of Laura Frye

Henceforth all cities and countries shall be referred to by the whole world by the names used by their inhabitants.

It really doesn’t make sense for there to be different names for the same place, it hinders communication, makes buying tickets difficult, and is wholly unnecessary. Now sometimes I realize that the names are direct translations. We go from ‘United States’ to ‘Les Etats-Unis’ and ‘Los Etados Unidos’ which is a lesser crime, but it is particularly problematic when the names are nothing alike. Who decided to call ‘Grung-tep’ ‘Bangkok’? How did people get from ‘Misr’ to ‘Egypt’? Now these are rhetorical questions because I’m sure there is a fascinating historical linguistic reason, but that aside-- it’s dumb. It confuses everything. And as to which name should be universal, it seems only fair that the people who live there should get priority. This means ‘Nippon’ wins out over ‘Japan’. ‘Firenze’ beats ‘Florence’. ‘Deutschland’ topples ‘Germany’ (poor Deutschland, could Deutschland, Allemagne, and Germany sound more different?) The list is endless. It just seems rather arrogant to make up your own name for someone else’s country. If there’s one thing that should be universal it should be names of places. I’m sorry but people are just going to have to learn how to pronounce Al-Jeza’ir and Mexico (said properly). It is a basic courtesy and perhaps a small step toward increasing language skills. Here’s my contribution to navigation and communication: The Declaration of Laura Frye.