After becoming completely enveloped by the story Into Thin Air, I forced myself to stop one third of the way through. The book, although very factual and date based, was easy and interesting to read, partly because I do share the passion of climbing and extreme sports. While I was reading in the first part of the book where Jon Krakauer was talking about the countries that share the vast mountain that is Everest, and how they tend to disagree on the certain aspects involving it, I began to wonder... who established a name that was accepted by everyone? What a feat that would be to name the tallest mountain in the word.
"As it happened, Tibetans who lived to the north of the great mountain already had a more mellifluous name for it, Jomolungma, which translates to "goddess, mother of the world," and Nepalis who resided to the south reportedly called the peak Deva-dhunga, "Seat of God". (16)
Now, how the name Everest came to be is a simple story, the surveyor, Waugh, wanted to name the mountain after her predecessor who was surveyor general, Sir George Everest. But, coming to that conclusion was the difficult part. Waugh originally wanted to name the mountain a native name, but finding out who called the mountain what when Nepal and Tibet weren't allowing foreigners within their territories made it hard. Also there didn't seem to be one set name that anyone called the mountain, there was Deodungha, meaning "holy mountain" in Darjeeling, for Nepal it was known as Sagarmatha, and in Tibet as Chomolungma. Waugh came to the conclusion that there were too many names to choose from and not one of them was used more than the others (according to Mt. Everest dates and facts).
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