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Concept
Endonym and exonym
Summary
An endonym (also known as autonym) is a common, native name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate themselves, their homeland, or their language.
An exonym (also known as xenonym) is an established, non-native name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language or dialect, meaning that it is used only outside the particular place inhabited by the group or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words, or from non-systematic attempts at transcribing into a different writing system.
For instance, Deutschland is the endonym for the country that is also known by the exonym Germany in English, Alemania in Spanish and Niemcy in Polish.
The terms autonym, endonym, exonym and xenonym are formed by adding specific prefixes to the Greek root word ónoma (ὄνομα, 'name'), from Proto-Indo-European .
The prefixes added to these terms are also derived from Greek:
endonym: éndon (ἔνδον, 'within');
exonym: éxō (ἔξω, 'outside');
autonym: autós (αὐτός, 'self'); and
xenonym: xénos (ξένος, 'foreign').
The terms autonym and xenonym also have different applications, thus leaving endonym and exonym as the preferred forms.
Marcel Aurousseau, an Australian geographer, first used the term exonym in his work The Rendering of Geographical Names (1957). The term endonym was subsequently devised as a retronymic antonym for the term exonym.
Endonyms and exonyms can be divided in three main categories:
endonyms and exonyms of place names (toponyms),
endonyms and exonyms of human names (anthroponyms), including names of ethnic groups (ethnonyms), localised populations (demonyms), and individuals (personal names),
endonyms and exonyms of language names (glossonyms).
Official source
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