"Antananarivo is pronounced Tananarive, and for much of this century has been spelt that way as well. When the French took over Madagascar at the end of the last century (“colonised” is probably too kind a word for moving in on a country that was doing perfectly well for itself but which the French simply took a fancy to), they were impatient with the curious Malagasy habit of not bothering to pronounce the first and last syllables of place names. They decided, in their rational Gallic way, that if that was how the names were pronounced then they could damn well be spelt that way too. It would be rather as if someone had taken over England and told us that from now on we would be spelling Leicester “Lester” and liking it. We might be forced to spell it that way, but we wouldn’t like it, and neither did the Malagasy. As soon as they managed to divest themselves of French rule, in 1960, they promptly reinstated all the old spellings and just kept the cooking and the bureaucracy."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 4-5
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Last_Chance_to_See
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Last Chance to See
71 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Last Chance to See →
Related Quotes
"We tried serenely to point out that it actually said “Confirmed” on our tickets, but he explained that “Confirmed” di…"
"[Mark Carwardine]’s role, essentially, was to be the one who knew what he was talking about. My role, and one for whi…"
"The aye-aye is a nocturnal lemur. It is a very strange-looking creature that seems to have been assembled from bits o…"
"It [seeing an aye-aye] was the kind of moment about which it is hard not to feel completely dizzy. Why? Because, I re…"
"I’m always very sympathetic when I hear people complaining that all they ever get on television or radio chat shows i…"
"There is in Melbourne a man who probably knows more about poisonous snakes than anyone else on earth. His name is Dr.…"
"“The most poisonous spider is the Sydney funnel web. We get about five hundred people a year bitten by spiders. A lot…"
"“So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly, then?” I asked. He blinked at me as if I were stupid. “Well, …"
"We flew to Bali. David Attenborough has said that Bali is the most beautiful place in the world, but he must have bee…"
"The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong is that we can make up …"