Chapter XXIII: Appendix: II

THE SPELLING OF PROPER NAMES.

In dealing with foreign names, the English author of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries pursued one unfailing method. In the case of European personal names, if he could find an English equivalent, he used that, and if not, he resorted to a Latin form, boldly rendering Emil by Æmilius, for instance. Sometimes he even applied this method to surnames, as the forms Thuanus and Montisquius, found for De Thou and Montesquieu in the ‘Book of Martyrs,’ will testify. As an example of a foreign Christian name replaced by its English equivalent, we need only recall that of the famous Don John of Austria. Mr Carlyon is, therefore, only following the custom of his time when he renders Sebastiaõ, Francisco, and Deodoro as Sebastian, Francis, and Theodorus. In the same way Madam Heliodora’s real name was Françoise Marie Louise Anne Aimée (or Amantine) Héliodore, and her father’s Gaspard Dieudonné. With regard to names of places, the case was different. It was only occasionally that an English form could be used, as with Gascoign for Gascogne (a closer approximation than our own Gascony), and St Thomas for San Thomé. The effort of the writer seems generally to have been to make the names look as English as possible. Hence we have Dhilly for Delhi, and Geminy for Jumna. He had a marked objection to the letters _b_ and _k_, and a fondness for _v_, _x_, and _z_. _J_ and _sh_ he often replaced by _ch_ or _s_. Indian personal names come under the same category, for which reason I have left them to the last. Here, as with the place-names, our author’s spelling was strictly phonetic, in so far as he could make it so. Loll Duss, Cogia Bux, and Rum Cunder are recognisable as Lal Das, Khoja Baksh, and Ram Chanda; but Madda Gi is not easy to interpret as Madhoji, and the modern spelling of Vincaly I have not been able to discover. Eusoff is Yusuf. What adds to the difficulty of identifying these Eastern names is that in many cases the chronicler adopted them from a Portuguese or Dutch predecessor, who had left his own mark upon them in the shape of a previous modification of the spelling in accordance with his national taste. I have thought it better in all cases to leave the names in the text in their original form (and so also with a few misspelt English and Indian words), merely explaining in a note those about which there might be some doubt, thus retaining the quaint effect.