Page 21 - Encyclopedia Of World History

How to Spell It and How to Say It:

100 Important People, Places,

and Terms in World History

alph Waldo Emerson once said, “A foolish con- clopedia of World History’s article on Ibn Battuta (and
Rsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Each who is a leading expert on Battuta)—spells the name
time Berkshire Publishing Group sets to work on cre- without the final “h,” while M-W spells it “Battutah.” In
ating an encyclopedia, we review our guidelines on another case, the West African town of Timbuktu is so
how we will present the names and terms that have well known by that spelling that we opted for it in pref-
changed in the course of history or through language erence to M-W’s preferred “Tomboctou.”
alterations. We strive for consistency, though not the Finally, there is the matter of using diacritical
foolish kind against which Emerson warned. marks—accent marks, ayns (‘) and hamzas (’), and
Languages and geographic terms evolve regularly, other markings—that provide phonetic distinctions to
and sometimes staying current means that we can’t be words from other languages. The use of diacritics is
completely consistent. Adding to the challenge is the always a big question for a publisher on international
fact that words in languages not based on the Latin topics. We—and the scholars we work with—tend to
alphabet (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew) prefer to use various marks, from European-language
must be transliterated—spelled in the language of accent graves to Japanese macrons and Arabic ums and
another alphabet or “romanized” into English. And ahs. But we have found that they can distract, and even
even within a language, transliteration systems change. intimidate, the general reader, so our policy has gen-
Many people who grew up knowing the Wade-Giles erally been to minimize their use. In time, as U.S. stu-
system of Chinese romanization (with such spellings as dents become more comfortable with non-English
Peking and Mao Tse-tung) had to become accustomed forms and as we publish for global audiences, we will
to seeing words using the pinyan romanization system be able to make greater use of these marks, which are
introduced in the 1950s (with new spellings such as designed to be helpful to the reader.
Beijing and Mao Zedong). That said, we thought it would be useful (and fun)
By and large, we look to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate to provide a listing of the “Top 100” terms—suggested
Dictionary, 11th Edition (known as M-W 11), as our by our editors—that have alternate spellings and names.
spelling authority, with Merriam-Webster’s Biographical We’ve also listed pronunciations for non-English
Dictionary and M-W’s Geographic Dictionary for terms names and terms. (The syllable in capital letters is the
not in M-W 11. However, sometimes we overrule accented one; note, however, that Chinese and other
Merriam-Webster for a compelling reason. For example, languages do not necessarily stress syllables as is done
historian Ross Dunn—who wrote the Berkshire Ency- in English.)

xxv