Mumbai

(Marathi: मुंबई, transl: Mumbaī, IPA: )— formerly Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. The city proper is the second most populous city in the world with approximately 14 million people and, along with the neighbouring suburbs of Navi Mumbai and Thane, Mumbai forms the world's 4th largest urban agglomeration with around 19 million people. Mumbai lies on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour. Mumbai's port handles over half of India's maritime cargo.Harvnb: 2006

Mumbai is the commercial and entertainment centre of India, generating 5% of India's GDP and accounting for 25% of industrial output, 40% of maritime trade, and 70% of capital transactions to India's economy. Mumbai is home to important financial institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange of India and the corporate headquarters of many Indian companies and numerous multinational corporations. The city also houses India's Hindi film and television industry, known as Bollywood. Mumbai's business opportunities, as well as its potential to offer a better standard of living, attract migrants from all over India and, in turn, make the city a potpourri of many communities and cultures.

Etymology

The name Mumbai is an eponym, etymologically derived from Mumba or Maha-Amba—the name of the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi—and Aai, "mother" in Marathi. The former name Bombay had its origins in the 16th century when the Portuguese arrived in the area and called it by various names, which finally took the written form Bombaim, still common in current Portuguese use. After the British gained possession in the 17th century, it was believed to be anglicised to Bombay from the Portuguese Bombaim, although it was known as Mumbai or Mambai to Marathi and Gujarati-speakers, and as Bambai in Hindi, Persian and Urdu. It is sometimes still referred to by its older names, like Kakamuchee and Galajunkja. The name was officially changed to its Marathi pronunciation of Mumbai in 1996.

Other sources have a different origin for the Portuguese toponym Bombaim. José Pedro Machado's Dicionário Onomástico Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa ("Portuguese Dictionary of Onomastics and Etymology") mentions what is probably the first Portuguese reference to the place, dated from 1516, as Benamajambu or Tena-Maiambu, pointing out that "MAIAMBU"' seems to refer to Mumba-Devi, the Hindu goddess after which the place is named in Marathi (Mumbai). In that same century, the spelling seems to have evolved to Mombayn (1525) and then Mombaim (1563). The final form Bombaim appears later in the 16th century, as recorded by Gaspar Correia in his Lendas da Índia ("Legends of India"). J.P. Machado seems to reject the "Bom Bahia" hypothesis, asserting that Portuguese records mentioning the presence of a bay at the place led the English to assume that the noun (bahia, "bay") was an integral part of the Portuguese toponym, hence the English version Bombay, adapted from Portuguese.