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91-639: 5°11′41″S 12°7′48″E  /  5.19472°S 12.13000°E  / -5.19472; 12.13000 This article related to a river in the Republic of the Congo is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to a river in Angola

182-650: A constitutional referendum in October resulted in a changed constitution that allowed him to run during the 2016 presidential election . He won the election believed by some to be fraudulent. After violent protests in the capital, Sassou attacked the Pool region where the Ninja rebels of the civil war used to be based, in what was believed to be a distraction. This led to a revival of the Ninja rebels who launched attacks against

273-700: A pejorative way. For example, Romani people often prefer that term to exonyms such as Gypsy (from the name of Egypt ), and the French term bohémien , bohème (from the name of Bohemia ). People may also avoid exonyms for reasons of historical sensitivity, as in the case of German names for Polish and Czech places that, at one time, had been ethnically or politically German (e.g. Danzig/ Gdańsk , Auschwitz/ Oświęcim and Karlsbad/ Karlovy Vary ); and Russian names for non-Russian locations that were subsequently renamed or had their spelling changed (e.g. Kiev/ Kyiv ). In recent years, geographers have sought to reduce

364-726: A 3-year SDR 69.5m (US$ 100m) enhanced structural adjustment facility (ESAF) and was on the verge of announcing a renewed annual agreement when civil war broke out in Congo in 1997. Congo's democratic progress was derailed in 1997 when Lissouba and Sassou started to fight for power in the civil war . As presidential elections scheduled for July 1997 approached, tensions between the Lissouba and Sassou camps mounted. On 5 June, President Lissouba's government forces surrounded Sassou's compound in Brazzaville, and Sassou ordered members of his private militia (known as "Cobras") to resist. Thus began

455-563: A 4-month conflict that destroyed or damaged some of Brazzaville and caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths. In October, the Angolan government began an invasion of Congo to install Sassou in power and the Lissouba government fell. After that, Sassou declared himself president. In the elections in 2002 , Sassou won with almost 90% of the vote cast. His 2 main rivals, Lissouba and Bernard Kolelas, were prevented from competing. A remaining rival, André Milongo advised his supporters to boycott

546-677: A different writing system. For instance, Deutschland is the endonym for the country that is also known by the exonyms Germany and Germania in English and Italian , respectively, Alemania and Allemagne in Spanish and French , respectively, Niemcy in Polish , Saksa and Saksamaa in Finnish and Estonian . The terms autonym , endonym , exonym and xenonym are formed by adding specific prefixes to

637-513: A government characterized by budget problems and "overstaffing". Petroleum extraction has supplanted forestry as the mainstay of the economy. In 2008, the oil sector accounted for 65% of the GDP , 85% of government revenue, and 92% of exports. The country has untapped mineral wealth. In the 1980s, rising oil revenues enabled the government to finance larger-scale development projects. GDP grew an average of 5% annually. The government has mortgaged

728-773: A halt in June 1997 when civil war erupted. When Sassou Nguesso returned to power in October 1997, he publicly expressed interest in moving forward on economic reforms and privatization and in renewing cooperation with international financial institutions. Economic progress was "badly hurt" by slumping oil prices and the resumption of armed conflict in December 1998, which "worsened" the republic's budget deficit. The administration presides over an "uneasy internal peace" and faces "difficult" economic problems of stimulating recovery and reducing poverty, with record-high oil prices since 2003. Natural gas and diamonds are other exports, while Congo

819-772: A local legislature after the adoption of the 1946 constitution that established the Fourth Republic . Following the revision of the French constitution that established the Fifth Republic in 1958, AEF dissolved into its constituent parts, each of which became an autonomous colony within the French Community . During these reforms, Middle Congo became known as the Republic of the Congo in 1958 and published its first constitution in 1959. Antagonism between

910-559: A neutral name may be preferred so as to not offend anyone. Thus, an exonym such as Brussels in English could be used instead of favoring either one of the local names ( Dutch / Flemish : Brussel ; French : Bruxelles ). Other difficulties with endonyms have to do with pronunciation, spelling, and word category . The endonym may include sounds and spellings that are highly unfamiliar to speakers of other languages, making appropriate usage difficult if not impossible for an outsider. Over

1001-580: A new investment code intended to attract foreign capital. The country also adopted a new investment code intended to attract foreign capital. Despite these success, Congo’s investment climate has challenges, offering few meaningful incentives for new investors. Economic reform efforts continued with the support of international organizations, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund . The reform program came to

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1092-591: A portion of its petroleum earnings, contributing to a "shortage of revenues". On 12 January 1994, the devaluation of Franc Zone currencies by 50% resulted in an inflation of 46% in 1994, and inflation has subsided since. Between 1994-96, the economy underwent a difficult transition. The Congo took a number of measures to liberalize its economy, including reforming the tax, investment, labor, timber, and hydrocarbon codes. In 2002-03, Congo privatized parastatals, primarily banks, telecommunications, and transportation monopolies, to help improve and unreliable infrastructure. By

1183-594: A range of smaller parties. Sassou's regime has seen corruption revelations, with attempts to censor them. One French investigation found over 110 bank accounts and dozens of "lavish properties" in France. Sassou denounced embezzlement investigations as "racist" and "colonial". Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso, son of Denis Sassou Nguesso, has been named in association with the Panama Papers . On 27 March 2015, Sassou Nguesso announced that his government would hold

1274-433: A referendum on changing the country's 2002 constitution to allow him to run for a third consecutive term in office. On 25 October, the government held a referendum on allowing Sassou Nguesso to run in the next election. The government claimed that the proposal was approved by 92% of voters, with 72% of eligible voters participating. The opposition who boycotted the referendum said that the government's statistics were false and

1365-627: A relationship some refer to as slavery. The Congolese Human Rights Observatory says that the Pygmies are treated as property in the same way as pets. On 30 December 2010, the Congolese parliament adopted a law to promote and protect the rights of indigenous peoples. This law is "the first" of its kind in Africa. The economy is a mixture of village agriculture and handicrafts, an industrial sector based mainly on petroleum , support services, and

1456-612: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Republic of the Congo Congo , officially the Republic of the Congo or Congo Republic , also known as Congo-Brazzaville , is a country located on the western coast of Central Africa to the west of the Congo River . It is bordered to the west by Gabon , to the northwest by Cameroon , to the northeast by the Central African Republic , to

1547-822: Is from June to August, while in the majority of the country, the wet season has 2 rainfall maxima: 1 in March–May and another in September–November. In 2006–07, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society studied gorillas in "heavily forested" regions centered on the Ouesso District of the Sangha Region . They suggest a population on the order of 125,000 western lowland gorillas whose isolation from humans has been mostly preserved by "inhospitable" swamps. The government of

1638-468: Is most commonly used. The changes to Hanyu Pinyin were not only financially costly but were unpopular with the locals, who opined that the Hanyu Pinyin versions were too difficult for non-Chinese or non-Mandarin speakers to pronounce. The government eventually stopped the changes by the 1990s, which has led to some place names within a locality having differing spellings. For example, Nee Soon Road and

1729-718: Is not its Dutch exonym. Old place names that have become outdated after renaming may afterward still be used as historicisms . For example, even today one would talk about the Siege of Leningrad , not the Siege of St. Petersburg because at that time (1941–1944) the city was called Leningrad. Likewise, one would say that Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg in 1724, not in Kaliningrad ( Калининград ), as it has been called since 1946. Likewise, Istanbul (Turkish: İstanbul )

1820-563: Is now spelled Xinyi . However, districts like Tamsui and even Taipei itself are not spelled according to Hanyu Pinyin spelling rules. As a matter of fact, most names of Taiwanese cities are still spelled using Chinese postal romanization , including Taipei , Taichung , Taitung , Keelung , and Kaohsiung . During the 1980s, the Singapore Government encouraged the use of Hanyu Pinyin spelling for place names, especially those with Teochew, Hokkien or Cantonese names, as part of

1911-549: Is still called Constantinople ( Κωνσταντινούπολη ) in Greek, although the name was changed in Turkish to dissociate the city from its Greek past between 1923 and 1930 (the name Istanbul itself derives from a Medieval Greek phrase ). Prior to Constantinople , the city was known in Greek as Byzantion ( Greek : Βυζάντιον , Latin : Byzantium ), named after its mythical founder, Byzas . Following independence from

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2002-572: Is the human tendency towards neighbours to "be pejorative rather than complimentary, especially where there is a real or fancied difference in cultural level between the ingroup and the outgroup ." For example, Matisoff notes, Khang "an opprobrious term indicating mixed race or parentage" is the Palaung name for Jingpo people and the Jingpo name for Chin people ; both the Jingpo and Burmese use

2093-600: Is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate themselves, their place of origin, 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 primarily 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

2184-656: The Beijing dialect , became the official romanization method for Mandarin in the 1970s. As the Mandarin pronunciation does not perfectly map to an English phoneme , English speakers using either romanization will not pronounce the names correctly if standard English pronunciation is used. Nonetheless, many older English speakers still refer to the cities by their older English names, and even today they are often used in their traditional associations, such as Peking duck , Peking opera , and Peking University . As for Nanjing,

2275-464: The Congo River . Massamba-Débat's regime invited some hundred Cuban army troops into the country to train his party's militia units. These troops helped his government survive a coup d'état in 1966 led by paratroopers loyal to future President Marien Ngouabi . Massamba-Débat's regime ended with a bloodless coup in September 1968 . Marien Ngouabi, who had participated in the coup, assumed

2366-618: The Congo River . It included various kingdoms such as Mpemba Kasi and Vunda . To its west across the Congo River was a confederation of three small states; Vungu (its leader), Kakongo , and Ngoyo . Some Bantu kingdoms—including those of the Kongo , the Loango , and the Teke —built trade links leading into the Congo Basin . The Portuguese explorer , Diogo Cão reached the mouth of

2457-606: The Greek root word ónoma ( ὄνομα , 'name'), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃nómn̥ . The prefixes added to these terms are also derived from Greek: 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). Endonyms and exonyms can be divided in three main categories: As it pertains to geographical features ,

2548-452: The Gulf of Guinea , providing the country with a degree of prosperity, with political and economic instability in some areas, and unequal distribution of oil revenue nationwide. Its economy is dependent on the oil sector and economic growth has slowed since the post-2015 drop in oil prices . Christianity is the most widely professed faith in the country. According to the 2024 rendition of

2639-635: The Latin Brattius or Braccius , both meaning literally " arm ". Bantu-speaking peoples who founded tribes during the Bantu expansions , mostly displaced and absorbed the earlier inhabitants of the region, the Pygmy people, about 1500   BC. The Bakongo , a Bantu ethnic group that occupied parts of what later became Angola, Gabon, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formed

2730-868: The Mbochis (who favored Jacques Opangault ) and the Laris and Kongos (who favored Fulbert Youlou , the first black mayor elected in French Equatorial Africa) resulted in a series of riots in Brazzaville in February 1959, which the French Army subdued. Elections took place in April 1959. By the time the Congo became independent in August 1960, Opangault, the former opponent of Youlou, agreed to serve under him. Youlou, an avid anti-communist, became

2821-539: The Nazi occupation of France during World War II , Brazzaville functioned as the symbolic capital of Free France between 1940 and 1943. The Brazzaville Conference of 1944 heralded a period of reform in French colonial policy. Congo "benefited" from the postwar expansion of colonial administrative and infrastructure spending as a result of its central geographic location within AEF and the federal capital at Brazzaville. It had

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2912-526: The Roman Empire applied the word " Walha " to foreigners they encountered and this evolved in West Germanic languages as a generic name for speakers of Celtic and later (as Celts became increasingly romanised) Romance languages; thence: During the late 20th century, the use of exonyms often became controversial. Groups often prefer that outsiders avoid exonyms where they have come to be used in

3003-557: The Singapore Armed Forces base Nee Soon Camp are both located in Yishun but retained the old spelling. Matisoff wrote, "A group's autonym is often egocentric, equating the name of the people with 'mankind in general,' or the name of the language with 'human speech'." In Basque , the term erdara/erdera is used for speakers of any language other than Basque (usually Spanish or French). Many millennia earlier,

3094-514: The Slavs are describing Germanic people as "mutes"—in contrast to themselves, "the speaking ones". The most common names of several Indigenous American tribes derive from pejorative exonyms. The name " Apache " most likely derives from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". The name " Sioux ", an abbreviated form of Nadouessioux , most likely derived from a Proto-Algonquian term, * -a·towe· ('foreign-speaking). The name " Comanche " comes from

3185-547: The Speak Mandarin Campaign to promote Mandarin and discourage the use of dialects. For example, the area of Nee Soon, named after Teochew -Peranakan businessman Lim Nee Soon (Hanyu Pinyin: Lín Yìshùn) became Yishun and the neighbourhood schools and places established following the change used the Hanyu Pinyin spelling. In contrast, Hougang is the Hanyu Pinyin spelling but the Hokkien pronunciation au-kang

3276-541: The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names defines: For example, India , China , Egypt , and Germany are the English-language exonyms corresponding to the endonyms Bhārat ( भारत ), Zhōngguó ( 中国 ), Masr ( مَصر ), and Deutschland , respectively. There are also typonyms of specific features, for example hydronyms for bodies of water. In

3367-511: The Ute word kɨmantsi meaning "enemy, stranger". The Ancestral Puebloans are also known as the "Anasazi", a Navajo word meaning "ancient enemies", and contemporary Puebloans discourage the use of the exonym. Various Native-American autonyms are sometimes explained to English readers as having literal translations of "original people" or "normal people", with implicit contrast to other first nations as not original or not normal. Although

3458-598: The World Happiness Report , the Republic of the Congo is ranked 89th among 140 nations. It is named after the Congo River whose name is derived from Kongo , a Bantu kingdom which occupied its mouth around the time the Portuguese first arrived in 1483 or 1484. The kingdom's name derived from its people, the Bakongo , an endonym said to mean "hunters" ( Kongo : mukongo , nkongo ). During

3549-561: The "language". The term survives to this day in the Slavic languages (e.g. Ukrainian німці (nimtsi); Russian немцы (nemtsy), Slovene Nemčija), and was borrowed into Hungarian , Romanian , and Ottoman Turkish (in which case it referred specifically to Austria ). One of the more prominent theories regarding the origin of the term " Slav " suggests that it comes from the Slavic root slovo (hence " Slovakia " and " Slovenia " for example), meaning 'word' or 'speech'. In this context,

3640-716: The 1-party state. Following the presidential elections, fighting restarted in the Pool region between government forces and rebels led by Pastor Ntumi ; a peace treaty to end the conflict was signed in April 2003. Sassou won the following presidential election in July 2009 . According to the Congolese Observatory of Human Rights, a non-governmental organization, the election was marked by "very low" turnout and "fraud and irregularities". In March 2015, Sassou announced that he wanted to run for yet another term in office and

3731-433: The 16th century. In the late 19th century France colonised the region and incorporated it into French Equatorial Africa . The Republic of the Congo was established on 28 November 1958 and gained independence from France in 1960. It was a Marxist–Leninist state from 1969 to 1992, under the name People's Republic of the Congo (PRC). The country has had multi-party elections since 1992, but a democratically elected government

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3822-817: The Chinese word yeren ( 野人 ; 'wild men', 'savage', 'rustic people' ) as the name for Lisu people . As exonyms develop for places of significance for speakers of the language of the exonym, consequently, many European capitals have English exonyms, for example: In contrast, historically less-prominent capitals such as Ljubljana and Zagreb do not have English exonyms, but do have exonyms in languages spoken nearby, e.g. German : Laibach and Agram (the latter being obsolete); Italian : Lubiana and Zagabria . Madrid , Berlin , Oslo , and Amsterdam , with identical names in most major European languages , are exceptions. Some European cities might be considered partial exceptions, in that whilst

3913-516: The Congo in 1484. Commercial relationships grew between the inland Bantu kingdoms and European merchants who traded in commodities, manufactured goods, and people captured and enslaved in the hinterlands . After centuries as a central hub for transatlantic trade, direct European colonization of the Congo River delta began in the 19th century, subsequently eroding the power of the Bantu societies in

4004-651: The Greeks thought that all non-Greeks were uncultured and so called them " barbarians ", which eventually gave rise to the exonym " Berber ". Exonyms often describe others as "foreign-speaking", "non-speaking", or "nonsense-speaking". One example is the Slavic term for the Germans, nemtsi , possibly deriving from plural of nemy ("mute"); standard etymology has it that the Slavic peoples referred to their Germanic neighbors as "mutes" because they could not speak

4095-535: The Middle Congo, Gabon , Chad , and Oubangui-Chari (which later became the Central African Republic ). The French designated Brazzaville as the federal capital. Economic development during the first 50 years of colonial rule in Congo centered on natural resource extraction. Construction of the Congo–Ocean Railway following World War I has been estimated to have cost at least 14,000 lives. During

4186-651: The Party (CMP) was then named to head an interim government, with Joachim Yhombi-Opango serving as president. Two years later, Yhombi-Opango was forced from power, and Denis Sassou Nguesso became the new president. Sassou Nguesso aligned the country with the Eastern Bloc and signed a 20-year friendship pact with the Soviet Union. Over the years, Sassou had to rely more on political repression and less on patronage to maintain his dictatorship. The collapse of

4277-492: The Portuguese Colónia closely reflects the Latin original. In some cases, no standardised spelling is available, either because the language itself is unwritten (even unanalysed) or because there are competing non-standard spellings. Use of a misspelled endonym is perhaps more problematic than the respectful use of an existing exonym. Finally, an endonym may be a plural noun and may not naturally extend itself to adjectival usage in another language like English, which has

4368-419: The Province of Guangdong ( 广东 ; Guǎngdōng ). However, older English exonyms are sometimes used in certain contexts, for example: Peking (Beijing; duck , opera , etc.), Tsingtao (Qingdao), and Canton (Guangdong). In some cases the traditional English exonym is based on a local Chinese variety instead of Mandarin , in the case of Xiamen , where the name Amoy is closer to the Hokkien pronunciation. In

4459-467: The Republic is a semi-presidential system with an elected president who appoints the Council of Ministers, or Cabinet . The council, including the Prime Minister, is selected from the elected representatives in Parliament. Since the 1990s, the country has had a multi-party political system which is dominated by President Denis Sassou Nguesso . Sassou Nguesso is backed by his own Congolese Labour Party ( French : Parti Congolais du Travail ) as well as

4550-438: The Republic of the Congo grew by 6% in 2014 and is expected to have grown by 7.5% in 2015. In 2018, the Republic of the Congo joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries . Congo–Ocean Railway was built by forced laborers during the 1930s. Some colonial architectural heritage is preserved. Restoration of architectural works is underway in Brazzaville, for example, at the Basilica of Sainte-Anne du Congo, which

4641-402: The Russians used the village name of Chechen , medieval Europeans took the tribal name Tatar as emblematic for the whole Mongolic confederation (and then confused it with Tartarus , a word for Hell , to produce Tartar ), and the Magyar invaders were equated with the 500-years-earlier Hunnish invaders in the same territory, and were called Hungarians . The Germanic invaders of

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4732-411: The Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in the ending of Soviet aid to prop up the regime, and it abdicated power. Pascal Lissouba who became Congo's first elected president (1992–1997) during the period of multi-party democracy attempted to implement economic reforms with IMF backing to liberalize the economy. In the years 1993 and 1994 the first Congo Civil War in Congo occurred. In June 1996, IMF approved

4823-406: The UK in 1947, many regions and cities have been renamed in accordance with local languages, or to change the English spelling to more closely match the indigenous local name. The name Madras , now Chennai , may be a special case . When the city was first settled by English people , in the early 17th century, both names were in use. They possibly referred to different villages which were fused into

4914-399: The army in April 2016, leading 80,000 people to flee their homes. A ceasefire deal was signed in December 2017. In 2023, the Forest Massif of Odzala-Kokoua , for its savanna ecosystems and post-glacial recolonisation of forests, was listed as a natural UNESCO World Heritage Site . Natural landscapes range from the savanna plains in the North Niari flooded forests, to the Congo River, to

5005-429: The basis for ethnic affinities and rivalries among those countries. By the 13th century, there were three main confederations of states in the western Congo Basin. In the east were the Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza , considered to be the oldest and most powerful, which likely included Nsundi , Mbata , Mpangu , and possibly Kundi and Okanga . South of these was Mpemba which stretched from modern-day Angola to

5096-430: The case of Beijing , the adoption of the exonym by media outlets quickly gave rise to a hyperforeignised pronunciation, with the result that many English speakers actualize the j in Beijing as / ʒ / . One exception of Pinyin standardization in mainland China is the spelling of the province Shaanxi , which is the mixed Gwoyeu Romatzyh –Pinyin spelling of the province. That is because if Pinyin were used to spell

5187-409: The case of endonyms and exonyms of language names (glossonyms), Chinese , German , and Dutch , for example, are English-language exonyms for the languages that are endonymously known as Zhōngwén ( 中文 ), Deutsch , and Nederlands , respectively. By their relation to endonyms, all exonyms can be divided into three main categories: Sometimes, a place name may be unable to use many of

5278-402: The country and installed a civilian provisional government headed by Alphonse Massamba-Débat . Under the 1963 constitution, Massamba-Débat was elected president for a five-year term. During Massamba-Débat's term in office , the regime adopted " scientific socialism " as the country's constitutional ideology. In 1964, Congo sent an official team with a single athlete at the Olympic Games for

5369-406: The country is located on the Equator, the climate is more consistent year-round, with the average day temperature a humid 24 °C (75 °F) and nights generally between 16 °C (61 °F) and 21 °C (70 °F). The average yearly rainfall ranges from 1,100 millimetres (43 in) in the Niari Valley in the south to over 2,000 millimetres (79 in) in central parts. The dry season

5460-429: The country. The Kongo are the largest ethnic group and form roughly half of the population. The most significant subgroups of the Kongo are Laari , in Brazzaville and Pool regions, and the Vili , around Pointe-Noire and along the Atlantic coast. The second largest group is the Teke , who live to the north of Brazzaville, with 16.9% of the population. Mbochi live in the north, east and in Brazzaville and form 13.1% of

5551-406: The elections and then withdrew from the race. A constitution , agreed upon by referendum in January 2002 , granted the president new powers, extended his term to 7 years and introduced a new bicameral assembly. International observers took issue with the organization of the presidential election and the constitutional referendum, both of which were reminiscent in their organization of Congo's era of

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5642-488: The end of 1996 Congo had made progress in various areas targeted for reform. It made great strides toward macroeconomic stabilization through improving public finances and restructuring external debt. This change was accompanied by improvements in the structure of expenditures, with a reduction in personnel expenditures. Before June 1997, Congo and the United States ratified a bilateral investment treaty designed to facilitate and protect foreign investment. The country also adopted

5733-760: The endonym Nederland is singular, while all the aforementioned translations except Irish are plural. Exonyms can also be divided into native and borrowed, e.g., from a third language. For example, the Slovene exonyms Dunaj ( Vienna ) and Benetke ( Venice ) are native, but the Avar name of Paris, Париж ( Parizh ) is borrowed from Russian Париж ( Parizh ), which comes from Polish Paryż , which comes from Italian Parigi . A substantial proportion of English-language exonyms for places in continental Europe are borrowed (or adapted) from French; for example: Many exonyms result from adaptations of an endonym into another language, mediated by differences in phonetics, while others may result from translation of

5824-404: The endonym, or as a reflection of the specific relationship an outsider group has with a local place or geographical feature. According to James Matisoff , who introduced the term autonym into linguistics , exonyms can also arise from the "egocentric" tendency of in-groups to identify themselves with "mankind in general", producing an endonym that out groups would not use, while another source

5915-410: The first President of the Republic of the Congo. Since the political tension was so high in Pointe-Noire , Youlou moved the capital to Brazzaville. The Republic of the Congo became fully independent from France on 15 August 1960. Youlou ruled as the country's first president until labor elements and rival political parties instigated a 3-day uprising that ousted him. The Congolese military took over

6006-534: The first time in its history. In 1965, Congo established relations with the Soviet Union , the People's Republic of China , North Korea , and North Vietnam . Under his presidency, the Congo began to industrialize . Some large production units with large workforces were built: the textile factory of Kinsoundi, the palm groves of Etoumbi, the match factory of Bétou , the shipyards of Yoro, etc. Health centers were created as well as school groups (colleges and elementary school). The country's school enrollment rate became

6097-436: The government for support and subsistence. Before the 1997 war, about 9,000 Europeans and other non-Africans lived in Congo, most of whom were French ; a fraction of this number remains. Around 300 American immigrants reside in the Congo. According to a 2011–12 survey, the total fertility rate was 5.1 children born per woman, with 4.5 in urban areas and 6.5 in rural areas. Ethnologue recognizes 62 spoken languages in

6188-435: The highest in Black Africa. On the night of February 14 to 15, 1965, 3 public officials of the Republic of the Congo were kidnapped: Lazare Matsocota  [ fr ] (prosecutor of the Republic), Joseph Pouabou  [ fr ] (President of the Supreme Court), and Anselme Massouémé  [ fr ] (director of the Congolese Information Agency). The bodies of 2 of these men were later found, mutilated, by

6279-436: The historical event called the Nanking Massacre (1937) uses the city's older name because that was the name of the city at the time of occurrence. Likewise, many Korean cities like Busan and Incheon (formerly Pusan and Inchǒn respectively) also underwent changes in spelling due to changes in romanization, even though the Korean pronunciations have largely stayed the same. Exonyms and endonyms must not be confused with

6370-657: The letters when transliterated into an exonym because of the corresponding language's lack of common sounds. Māori , having only one liquid consonant , is an example of this here. London (originally Latin : Londinium ), for example, is known by the cognate exonyms: An example of a translated exonym is the name for the Netherlands ( Nederland in Dutch) used, respectively, in German ( Niederlande ), French ( Pays-Bas ), Italian ( Paesi Bassi ), Spanish ( Países Bajos ), Irish ( An Ísiltír ), Portuguese ( Países Baixos ) and Romanian ( Țările de Jos ), all of which mean " Low Countries ". However,

6461-678: The north, and Cabinda ( Angola ) to the southwest. It has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean. The southwest is a coastal plain for which the primary drainage is the Kouilou-Niari River ; the interior of the country consists of a central plateau between 2 basins to the south and north. Forests are under increasing exploitation pressure. Congo had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.89/10, ranking it 12th globally out of 172 countries. Congo lies within 4 terrestrial ecoregions: Atlantic Equatorial coastal forests , Northwestern Congolian lowland forests , Western Congolian swamp forests , and Western Congolian forest–savanna mosaic . Since

6552-434: The number of exonyms were over-optimistic and not possible to realise in an intended way. The reason would appear to be that many exonyms have become common words in a language and can be seen as part of the language's cultural heritage. In some situations, the use of exonyms can be preferred. For instance, in multilingual cities such as Brussels , which is known for its linguistic tensions between Dutch- and French-speakers,

6643-664: The period when France colonised it, it was known as the French Congo or Middle Congo . The Republic of the Congo , or simply Congo , is a distinct country from the Democratic Republic of the Congo , also known as DR Congo . Brazzaville 's name derives from the colony's founder, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazzà , an Italian nobleman whose title referred to the town of Brazzacco, in the Italian comune of Moruzzo in Friuli Venezia Giulia , whose name derived from

6734-502: The population. Pygmies make up 2% of Congo's population. Religion in the Republic of the Congo by the Association of Religion Data Archives (2015) According to CIA World Factbook, the people of the Republic of the Congo are largely a mix of Catholics (33.1%), Awakening Lutherans (22.3%), and other Protestants (19.9%) as of 2007. Followers of Islam make up 1.6%; this is primarily due to an influx of foreign workers into

6825-676: The presidency on 31 December 1968. One year later, Ngouabi proclaimed the Congo Africa's first "people's republic", the People's Republic of the Congo , and announced the decision of the National Revolutionary Movement to change its name to the Congolese Labour Party (PCT). He survived an attempted coup in 1972 and was assassinated on 18 March   1977. An 11-member Military Committee of

6916-557: The pronunciation for several names of Chinese cities such as Beijing and Nanjing has not changed for quite some time while in Mandarin Chinese (although the prestige dialect shifted from Nanjing dialect to Beijing dialect during the 19th century), they were called Peking and Nanking in English due to the older Chinese postal romanization convention, based largely on the Nanjing dialect . Pinyin , based largely on

7007-520: The propensity to use the adjectives for describing culture and language. Sometimes the government of a country tries to endorse the use of an endonym instead of traditional exonyms outside the country: Following the 1979 declaration of Hanyu Pinyin spelling as the standard romanisation of Chinese , many Chinese endonyms have successfully replaced English exonyms, especially city and most provincial names in mainland China , for example: Beijing ( 北京 ; Běijīng ), Qingdao ( 青岛 ; Qīngdǎo ), and

7098-474: The province, it would be indistinguishable from its neighboring province Shanxi , where the pronunciations of the two provinces only differ by tones, which are usually not written down when used in English. In Taiwan, however, the standardization of Hanyu Pinyin has only seen mixed results. In Taipei , most (but not all) street and district names shifted to Hanyu Pinyin. For example, the Sinyi District

7189-503: The region. The area north of the Congo River came under French sovereignty in 1880 as a result of Pierre de Brazza 's treaty with King Makoko of the Bateke . After the death of Makoko, his widow Queen Ngalifourou upheld the terms of the treaty and became an ally to the colonizers. This Congo Colony became known first as French Congo , then as Middle Congo in 1903. In 1908, France organized French Equatorial Africa (AEF), comprising

7280-563: The results of geographical renaming as in the case of Saint Petersburg , which became Petrograd ( Петроград ) in 1914, Leningrad ( Ленинград ) in 1924, and again Saint Petersburg ( Санкт-Петербург , Sankt-Peterbúrg ) in 1991. In this case, although Saint Petersburg has a Dutch etymology, it was never a Dutch exonym for the city between 1914 and 1991, just as Nieuw Amsterdam , the Dutch name of New York City until 1664,

7371-535: The rugged mountains and forests of Mayombe , and 170 km of beaches along the Atlantic coast. Congo is located in the central-western part of sub-Saharan Africa , along the Equator , lying between latitudes 4°N and 5°S , and longitudes 11° and 19°E . To the south and east of it is the Democratic Republic of the Congo . It is bounded by Gabon to the west, Cameroon and the Central African Republic to

7462-566: The southeast by the Democratic Republic of the Congo , to the south by the Angolan exclave of Cabinda , and to the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. The region was dominated by Bantu -speaking tribes at least 3,000 years ago, who built trade links leading into the Congo River basin. From the 13th century the present day territory was dominated by a confederation led by Vungu which included Kakongo and Ngoyo . Loango emerged in

7553-475: The spelling is the same across languages, the pronunciation can differ. For example, the city of Paris is spelled the same way in French and English, but the French pronunciation [ paʁi ] is different from the English pronunciation [ ˈpærɪs ]. For places considered to be of lesser significance, attempts to reproduce local names have been made in English since the time of the Crusades . Livorno , for instance,

7644-477: The urban centers. Public expenditure of the GDP was less in 2002–05 than in 1991. Public education is theoretically free and mandatory for under-16-year-olds, and in practice, expenses exist. In 2005 net primary enrollment rate was 44%, a drop from 79% in 1991. Endonym and exonym 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

7735-710: The use of exonyms to avoid this kind of problem. For example, it is now common for Spanish speakers to refer to the Turkish capital as Ankara rather than use the Spanish exonym Angora . Another example, it is now common for Italian speakers to refer to some African states as Mauritius and Seychelles rather than use the Italian exonyms Maurizio and Seicelle . According to the United Nations Statistics Division : Time has, however, shown that initial ambitious attempts to rapidly decrease

7826-421: The vote was a fake one. The election raised questions and was accompanied by civil unrest and police shootings of protesters; at least 18 people were killed by security forces during opposition rallies leading up to the referendum held in October. It is divided into 12 départements (departments). Departments are divided into communes and districts. These are: Some Pygmies belong from birth to Bantus in

7917-540: The years, the endonym may have undergone phonetic changes, either in the original language or the borrowing language, thus changing an endonym into an exonym, as in the case of Paris , where the s was formerly pronounced in French. Another example is the endonym for the German city of Cologne , where the Latin original of Colonia has evolved into Köln in German, while the Italian and Spanish exonym Colonia or

8008-527: Was Leghorn because it was an Italian port essential to English merchants and, by the 18th century, to the British Navy ; not far away, Rapallo , a minor port on the same sea, never received an exonym. In earlier times, the name of the first tribe or village encountered became the exonym for the whole people beyond. Thus, the Romans used the tribal names Graecus (Greek) and Germanus (Germanic),

8099-538: Was completed in 2011. Its population is concentrated in the southwestern portion, leaving the areas of tropical jungle in the north virtually uninhabited. 70% of its total population lives in urban areas, namely in Brazzaville , Pointe-Noire , or one of the cities or villages lining the 534-kilometre (332 mi), railway which connects the two cities. In rural areas, industrial and commercial activity has declined in some years, leaving rural economies dependent on

8190-770: Was excluded from the Kimberley Process in 2004 amid allegations that most of its diamond exports were, in fact, being smuggled out of the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo ; it was re-admitted to the group in 2007. The Republic of the Congo has untapped base metal, gold, iron, and phosphate deposits. It is a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The Congolese government signed an agreement in 2009 to lease 200,000 hectares of land to South African farmers to reduce its dependence on imports. The GDP of

8281-753: Was ousted in the 1997 Republic of the Congo Civil War . President Denis Sassou Nguesso , who first came to power in 1979, ruled until 1992 and then again since after his reinstatement. The Republic of the Congo is a member of the African Union , the United Nations , La Francophonie , the Economic Community of Central African States , and the Non-Aligned Movement . It has become the 4th-largest oil producer in

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