> I admit that there is apparently an 'arrogance' implicit in the fact that we say Florence instead of Firenze or Venice instead of Venezia
I have always considered an honor for a city having its name translated. Only countries and very important cities deserve this privilege. We, Spaniards, say “Londres”, “Nueva York” or “Moscú” but have no Spanish words for smaller cities on those countries.
Lots of cities in Spain are lately changing their official names to Catalonian, Basque or Galician names and we are living the, absurd IMO, debate about if everybody else should employ, as some nationalists insist, the new names instead of the older ones.
I have never used Beijing instead or Peking and I will continue using Bombay, I consider that a language shouldn’t be changed by political decisions.
Juan Maria.
