ever used in the United States is now in very common usage regardless of what the Islamic Republic may want, a computer search by the Iran Times shows.
Two decades ago, “Arabian Gulf” was used less than 2 percent of the time in common English usage to refer to the Persian Gulf. Currently, however, English speakers are using “Arabian Gulf” more than 25 percent of the time when they refer to the Persian Gulf.
This is a stunning turn-around in common usage that most likely results from the fact that Americans have little contact with Iran these days and much more contact with Arabs who use the phrase “Arabian Gulf.”
The fading of “Persian Gulf” probably also reflects the growing political and economic isolation of the Islamic Republic, which actively fights against the term “Arabian Gulf,” but which is clearly not winning.
The term “Arabian Gulf” is still not the term most often used in English. Persian Gulf predominates. But Arabian Gulf is being used more often with every passing year. And if current trends continue, Arabian Gulf could very well surpass Persian Gulf in everyday use.
Using the Lexis-Nexis computer file, which contains stories from hundreds of English language newspapers and magazines from all English-speaking countries, the Iran Times queried on both terms and got the results shown in the box at the right.
In the first half of the ‘90s, “Persian Gulf” appeared 60 times for every use of the term “Arabian Gulf.” But thus far in 2010, “Persian Gulf” has outnumbered Arabian Gulf” only three-to-one. “Persian Gulf” still predominates but not by such an overwhelming margin as before.
The US oil industry once dealt heavily with both Iran and the Arab oil producers. Now, however, US oilmen only deal with Arabs and normally hear “Arabian Gulf.” Where once they were schooled to use one term in Iran and the other in the Arab world—and knew Persian Gulf as the proper term—now they hear and thus tend to use only one term.
With other international oil firms now withdrawing from Iran, the same is likely happening with their staffs.
The difference is more extreme with the US military. Before the Iranian revolution, many American military personnel served in Iran. Apart from small naval forces aboard ships in the Persian Gulf, virtually no American military men knew anything about the Arab world. And “Persian Gulf” was the only term they knew from maps.
But since 1990, more than a million U.S. troops have cycled through the Arab countries. And they come home saying the term they hear around them: “Arabian Gulf.” U.S. military maps all say “Persian Gulf,” but that isn’t the terminology used by the Arabs that American troops deal with. And that isn’t the term one hears American military officers using.
Thus, as long as American contact with the Arab world is high and the contact with Iran is minimal, as at present, the use of “Arabian Gulf” in the United States is likely to increase. The fact that the US government only uses the term “Persian Gulf” officially is irrelevant as a practical matter. Unlike in Germany, France and some other countries, there are no laws in the United States regulating spelling or usage. English is just another part of the free enterprise system.
The US Board on Geographic Names is a U.S. government agency that “is responsible by law for standardizing geographic name usage throughout the Federal government.” It uses Persian Gulf—but the Board’s mandate only extends to US government documents, not the private sector.
The National Geographic Society’s maps, which now say “Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf),” carry many such parenthetical alternative names. Most are obscure islands. Several Indian cities recently changed their names—for example, Bombay to Mumbai—and the National Geographic maps show the old name in parentheses.
Like the political dispute over the name of the Persian Gulf, Korea and Japan argue over the name of the sea between them. The National Geographic Society lists it as “Sea of Japan (East Sea),” giving the Japanese terminology preference.
A war was fought in the 1980s over islands in the South Atlantic that the National Geographic Society identifies as “Falkland Islands (Islas Mal-vinas).” The parenthetical term does not please Britain. That supports the Society’s argument that it doesn’t choose names to please lobbying groups, since Islas Malvinas—the Argentine term—draws negative reviews in Britain.
by Warren L. Nelson