h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Changing names from one (native) language to another (colonial) is quite common during history. Sometimes you can even see that within the same ethnically and language wise uniform country.

Here in the Far North, where the majority language is not official, six minority languages incl. sign language, are official. Three in the parts of the country where they traditionally are spoken. Three of the minority languages without distinct geographical distribution can be used in contact with official authorities anywhere, as far as I know. These laws are quite new, from 1999 I think.

Practically this means that in the Northern parts of the country you find dual names on maps, road signs and such. In the Northwest Swedish and Sáme-giella, in the Northeast Swedish and Meänkieli - the kind of Finnish spoken in the Northeast. However it's not unusual that the Swedish names are Swedified or Finnified versions of the names in Sáme-giella and thus clearly reminding or their origin.

The hatchlings' paternal grandfather is a native Meänkieli speaker and was beaten if he spoke anything but Swedish in school in the late 20-ies/ early 30-ies. He never bothered to transmit any knowledge of his maternal tongue to his children. He never learned Swedish properly in spite of spending almost all of his adult life in the South.

Language loss saddens me. I've effectively lost the language of my early childhood; swamped by English, I can only mumble a few basic phrases of Estonian these days. I haven't had anything like a conversation in Estonian for more than 20 years now, and as the older generation has died I may never have any reason to do so again. (Of course, I could go and visit Hati, but even then she'd have to re-teach me the language.) Mum's a complete bilingual, but I note that she speaks English even with her cousins these days.

The Kaurna language of the Adelaide Plains is very nearly extinct, even if Kaurna children are being taught the language alongside English. It may be that the only way the language can survive at any level is through double-naming.

Another note like that, from the Coachella Valley. There is a small desert town named 'Bombay Beach' on the east shore of the Salton Sea, off Hwy 111. It originally got its name because of its proximity to the Chocolate Mts. bombing range, where the B-17s and B-29s practiced their bombing missions during the 2nd World War. 'Bomb Bay' beach was the location that the bombers were typically overflying when they opened the doors of the bomb bay on the underside of the airplane as they were going in on practice bombing runs, and so spectators gathered there.

Replying to post 33, Ivan...
I was reading some stuff about the Treaty of Waitangi today and found this quote, which explains a lot and confirms some of our speculation:

"With all due respect to British humanitarianism, one reason why New
Zealand settlers did not treat the Maori as their Australian
counterparts did the Aborigines was that, when they tried, they got
killed."
British gov report 1843

Yes, that does explain a lot. The Maori fought back... There was no unified and consistent Aboriginal resistance, for lots of reasons, but the Maori had something closer to a united front.