Tug of war erupts over difficult-to-pronounce Blackfoot street names
原始发布日期： 2016-03-04 发布者：李方字变大 字变小
Fearing its meaning will be lost in translation, a city councillor says he’ll fight for the English version of a proposed Blackfoot name for the Paskapoo Slopes development. Ward Sutherland said he’s fine with four streets of the Trinity Development at 16 Ave. and Sarcee Trail being named in the Blackfoot language. But he said a Calgary Planning Commission (CPC) recommendation to drop the name Medicine Hill for the entire project — endorsed by Blackfoot elders — for the Blackfoot translation Aiss ka pooma, is pointlessly tongue-twisting. “This is going beyond politically-correct,” said Sutherland adding he’ll move to have the name Medicine Hill restored when it comes before council on Monday. “It’s totally against the policy that names be easily pronounced.” 
Medicine Hill denotes a place of renewal, with its springs acting as a natural filtering system and foothills transitioning into mountains. Sutherland said colleagues confronted with the name weren’t even able to guess the first letter of the name, pronounced “esga-booma.” “If that’s the case, how could you even find it on Google or anything?” said Sutherland, who’s of Metis background. But others, like Linda Nesset of the group Save the Slopes, have argued the least the city can do after green-lighting the development she opposed is to give it a fully Blackfoot name. “We feel it better reflects the history and geographical features of the area and is also easy to pronounce,” she said in a Jan. 12 letter to the CPC. “How can Calgary truly honour the Blackfoot culture when they go only half the distance?” She also said it’s inconsistent to call the development Medicine Hill while the streets are given Blackfoot names. The street names proposed are Saatoohtsi, Na’a, Piita and Natooyii which respectively translate to west, mother earth, eagle and sacred. They’re pronounced sa-toosh, na-i, Be-da and natow-yay. Naming the development in Blackfoot means the city is serious in respecting their tradition, said Jyoti Gondek, a member of the CPC which voted 7-2 in favour of adopting the name Aiss ka pooma. “If our goal is to demonstrate respect for cultural process-naming, then it stands to reason we should have a Blackfoot name, not the English translation,” she wrote in a Jan. 14 decision. BKaufmann@postmedia.com on Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn (摘自Calgary Herald) 0403网编辑注：我们注意到有些新闻互相矛盾。新闻主要来自于摘录和编译；我们尽量给读者提供全面的信息。新闻并不反映0403网的立场。0403网不对读者阅读新闻后的任何决定和结果负责。 |