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BRAZIL:
Changing a City
Name to Facilitate Web Searches
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS) - "It's
like advertising one product and
selling another," Brazilian city
councillor Djalma Pastorello
summed up in favour of his
proposal to change the name of
his city, Foz do Iguaçu, so as
not to confuse people searching
for it on the Internet.
The Social Democratic councillor
is convinced that as "Foz do
Iguassu" - replacing the "ç"
with a double s - his town would
attract many more tourists, and
overcome a problem that
militates against spreading the
word about its magnificent local
beauty spots. The falls on the
river that gives the city its
name, for example, include 275
waterfalls extending into
Brazilian and Argentine
territory.
Since website names do not
accept letters with a cedilla -
a hook under certain letters as
a diacritical mark to modify
pronunciation - the town's
online address is http://www.fozdoiguacu.pr.gov.br.
In a search for "Iguassu", a
name used by several private
English-language websites -
English being the dominant
language on the Internet - 30
percent of the results
mistakenly flag Puerto Iguazú,
the neighbouring Argentine town,
he pointed out.
Because of this, Pastorello has
submitted a draft law to change
the official name of the city,
replacing the "ç" with "ss". The
city council approved the law on
Oct. 19 by eight votes to four;
two councillors were absent.
However, the measure has
provoked a strong negative
reaction from local institutions
and residents.
Mayor Paulo Mac Donald Ghisi
then decided to hold a "popular
consultation", a kind of
informal referendum with voting
in schools, on the sidewalks,
and at other public places.
Eighty-nine percent of the 3,000
people who had voted up to Nov.
8 wanted to retain the "ç."
Pastorello told IPS that this is
a manoeuvre that the mayor is
using to justify his likely veto
of the draft law, although the
city council could overrule the
veto.
"We want to schedule the
modification (of the name) for
Jun. 10, the city's
anniversary," he added.
According to Pastorello, his
proposal is basically about
"rescuing the historic name used
when the city was founded in
1914." Iguassu was changed to
Iguaçu in the 1940s, in
fulfilment of an agreement
between the Brazilian and
Portuguese Academies of Letters,
which established Portuguese
spelling using ç and j for words
originating from indigenous
languages, which had previously
been written with double s and
g.
Iguaçú, or Iguazú as it is
spelled in Spanish, is of
Tupi-Guarani origin. This is the
main indigenous language in
Brazil and Paraguay, and is also
spoken in Argentina and Bolivia.
The meaning of Iguaçu in the
original language is "great
water."
But the linguistic agreement
should not have altered proper
names such as place names, said
Pastorello, who also noted that
the state of Sergipe in
northeastern Brazil, and some
cities like Pirassununga ("where
the fish make a noise," in
Tupi-Guarani), kept their old
spelling.
"I am against the change on
cultural grounds, as a matter of
national identity," linguist
Edna Camille, a professor at the
Pontifical Catholic University
of Sao Paulo, declared to IPS.
"It is important to keep in
touch with one's origins when
technological changes cause us
to lose so much, like the music
recorded on old albums which
cannot be listened to any more,
because record players have
disappeared and the record
companies have no commercial
incentive to re-record them in
digital format," she argued.
"And what would happen to the
historical record, the
literature, the books printed
with the word Iguaçu?" she
asked.
Pastorello explained that there
would be no problem since the
law is not retroactive, which
means that nothing in the past
would be altered. Only new
documents, vehicle number plates
and texts would adopt the new
spelling, which would be phased
in gradually. What would happen
is that there would be two place
names, separated in time by a
date.
But those opposed to the change,
like Luiz Eduardo Cheida, the
environment secretary for the
state of Parana, where Foz do
Iguaçu is located, see yet
another possible confusion that
would also have a negative
effect on tourism. That is
because other geographical
features, like the river and the
waterfalls, would continue to be
called Iguaçu, since the city
council has no power to change
those names.
All this debate is unnecessary,
because the Internet itself
already provides the solution,
according to Carlos Afonso, an
activist. The system already
recognises the cedilla, and
domain names with ç are accepted
in Brazil, explained Afonso, an
information technology expert
who forms part of the Brazilian
Internet management committee,
where he represents civil
society,
Thus, the mayor's office has the
right to register both Foz do
Iguaçu and Foz do Iguazú as its
Internet domain names, with the
suffix .gov.br. Access would be
possible using either domain
name, as well as by entering
Iguacu without the cedilla, as
at present, Afonso told IPS.
Nevertheless, the cedilla
remains an obstacle on the
Internet. Many French websites
are also identified by
incomplete names: even the
French Academy (http://www.academie-francaise.fr)
is registered without its proper
cedilla or accent.
Of the 191 countries that belong
to the United Nations, 146 do
not use the cedilla in their
national languages, Pastorello
observed.
Foz do Iguaçu, a town of
approximately 300,000 located on
the Triple Frontier with
Argentina and Paraguay, is sixth
in rank among Brazilian cities
for the number of tourists it
attracts: close to one million
per year. It is vital to
increase the influx of tourists
in order to overcome the social
crisis that the town is
experiencing, with more than
20,000 people unemployed, the
city councillor said.
The local economy is dependent
on tourism, having experienced
the cyclical rise and fall of
maté (a natural herbal
stimulant) plantations, timber,
construction of the Itaipú
hydropower plant, and trade in
the neighbouring Paraguayan town
of Ciudad del Este, where
thousands of Brazilians buy
goods cheaply for re-sale in
their faraway home towns,
Pastorello explained.
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