Who invented poona?

Answer 1

The word "Poona" is an English transcription of the Marathi colloquially pronounced word "Puna" (not to be pronounced as "Punaa", but with short vowel 'a', the indo-Germanic shwa). Since the English accent generally falls on the beginning of the word, the syllable "Pu" got elongated and "na"(shwa) was shortened, which came closer to the original Marathi "na". But there is a written form of the same word as "Pune", which is being consistently used in the written texts since the 17th century. The British rulers as per their colonial habit invented their own names for the foreign cities like Munich(originally: Muenchen), Paris(original pronunciation: Paaree), They also named several Indian cities as per their linguistic convenience like Bombay(Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata), Madras (Chennai), Delhi (Dilli).

Commensurate wih present trend of Indianising the names of Indian cities, one reverts to the original names or writing forms.

Prof. Dr. Pramod Talgeri

Former Vice-Chancellor

Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages(CIEFL, now EFLU)

Hyderabad