Letters From Iwo Jima was awesome, but guess what? The famous island of Japanese defeat is no longer called Iwo Jima. Locals, who were evacuated from the island right before its invasion, lobbied to have it changed back to its prewar name, IWO TO, because it doesn't remind them of bloodshed and defeat on their home turf. Makes sense. Anyway, "to" is the same character as "jima," and both mean island. So this seems to be a perfectly legitimate request to me.
New maps will reflect this change starting September 1st.
Interesting!
I just found this elsewhere:
"FUN LINGUISTIC FACT: Iwo Jima is officially referred to as Iô Tô (both words rhyme with "toe") in Japanese. The name "Iwo Jima" was applied by Americans: the "w" is an artifact from the wacky prewar Japanese writing system, and the use of "jima" instead of "tô" is a transliteration error similar to calling Mount Fuji "Fujiyama" when it should be called "Fuji-san." The thing is, the American usage became so common that it started to eclipse the Japanese usage, until the Geographic Society officially decided in 2007 that "Iô Tô" should be the name used on maps."
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Iwo%20Jima
Posted by: van | June 29, 2007 at 12:30 AM