To add insult to injury, what they call it, Deutschland, sounds like what we should call Netherlands
As someone from Czech Republic, I am not surprised. There are sometimes huge differences between country names in czech and English. And the closer the country is, the bigger the difference.
For the German speaking countries eng - ger - cze:
- Germany - Deutschland - Německo
- Austria - Österreich - Rakousko
- Switzerland - Sweiz - Švýcarsko
Other examples (eng - cze):
- Czech - Česko
- Slovakia - Slovensko
- Slovenia - Slovinsko
- Greece - Řecko
- Georgia - Gruzie
- Spain - Španělsko
- Greenland - Grónsko
- Hungary - Maďarsko
- Croatia - Chorvatsko
In the Netherlands, we don’t call out country The Netherlands.
We call it: “Nederland”. Completely different.
But the Americans seem to think you are Duits.
Same with Denmark = Danmark
I know. It’s a shocking difference. We call you guys Holland for some reason, though and every non-european I’ve ever met keeps thinking we are the same country. I was asked to say something in Dutch once and just looked blankly at the person.
Just wait til’ you hear about what they call Japan in Japan.
Nihon-koku or Nippon-koku
I have another mindblowing fact for you: in Germany, the v is an f and the w is a v.
And s is z, z is c
Too far.
Oh yeah? This symbol = ß that looks deceptively like a mangled B is the double S in German.
Don’t get me started on their states. My favourite is Mecklenburg-Vorpommern because it sounds like a curse word you’d yell out in pain after stepping on a Lego.
Also umlauts.
Which might seem confusing but I wish English used accents/umlauts to show pronounciation because that would do a lot to unfuck the spelling of this powerful but bastard of a language.
Oh for sure. I do have to admit, though, that I very much enjoy when Americans use umlauts in inappropriate ways. And as a Dane I have feel special joy when they replace their o’s with ø in an attempt to make words look hardcore, cool and Nordic.
That, my friend, is endlessly entertaining to me and will never not be funny.
I remember that one album by Twenty One Pilots where literally every o was replaced with and ø on the cover and I was friggin crying and hyperventilating the first time I saw it. I haven’t listened to any of the songs. They may go really hard and be masterpieces, but to me I can never take that album seriously. They really thought that ø is just a cooler looking o and not its own letter with a very distinct sound that, in the context of English would make every word sound like it’s being spoken by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The v is an f in the beginning of the word and a v in the middle of a word.
I love how we all just keep adding to the clusterfuck that is the German language. ❤️
Likewise, Germans feel betrayed when they find out that you don’t call your country Deppendorf
But we are not a village
A metropolis in size can still be a village in spirit.
Deppenmetropole*
There isn’t called there when you are there. It’s called here there.
Same same but different
What’s Germany? You mean Německo?
You mean Niemcy?
No, he meant Allemagne
Clearly he meant Tyskland!
I’m a Newfoundlander. My sister felt betrayed when she found out that what we call turnips, most people call rutabegas
I could have sworn rutabagas were a different vegetable…
They are, I can buy both at the local grocery. Turnips are white, rutabaga are a yellowish color.
I’ve never heard the word rutabega, it’s what we’d call a swede in the UK
Wait until you find out that Kanada isn’t called Kanada in Kanada.
Americans are slowly learning about the rest of the world.
Better late than never.
America was originally just the name of South America, then the English lazily coined the term “North America”.
Entire nations: You cannot keep “America” for yourself. There is history, maps, books, the independence of other countries in the region called for the liberation of “America” (e.g. Simón Bolívar “the liberator of America”; “America for the Americans”; Sentimientos de la Nación: “America is free and independent of Spain and all other nations, governments, or monarchies”).
The U.S. of A.: Yeah… No. I’m America now. There’s no other “America” because there’s only North America and South America, 🤷🏼♂️ don’t you know? And the land is The Americas because it’s two in one. Duh. Erasure? I call it freedom! 🇺🇸🦅
Mostly found out as we feverishly seek out escape routes.
The amazing thing is, people don’t refer to their home country by a two letter acronym.
(Sees car with CH sticker drive by…)
UK has entered the chat
In Denmark we refer to the UK as England. If it’s more official we call them Storbritannien but no one calls them that in everyday speech. It’s just England.
I know it’s not the point.
But spitting on Scotland and Northern Ireland like that is a bit harsh.
And the country of Georgia isn’t called Georgia either!
And lets not even get into named country’s in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Wait till you find out that Germans have different words for all the other things we have words for, too!
Seriously though, the names of countries are just words. There’s no reason to expect them to be the same in different languages.
No… I have a name. Someone talking to me in a different language doesn’t make my name different. It’s intuitive to think country names are the same.
Countries aren’t people though. And depending on language and context, this does happen, and used to happen even more. Finns might refer to a David as Taavi in Finnish. John Cabot’s name in Italian was Giovanni.
Never said we shouldn’t be translating the names of countries, only that there is a reason to think we shouldn’t. Because the comment I was replying to said “There’s no reason to expect them to be the same in different languages.”
Other languages use different characters or might not even be able to pronounce the name as they don’t have the sounds. It might be simple to think that, doesn’t make it correct.
But they specifically said “There’s no reason to expect them to be the same in different languages.” Which there absolutely IS a reason to expect that.
Expectations end where knowledge begins, I guess.
Never said it was correct to not translate country names. Only that there is a reason to think they wouldn’t be.
You’d still expect to call them something similar to what they call themselves as best as another language can, but nope!
My name is said differently in different languages, I’d expect nothing different
Your name is your name. Things like Jack versus Jacques or Matthew versus Mateo exist, but those aren’t your name.
It gets interesting when you hear how the Chinese call countries.
Oh, it’s all interesting IMO!
I’ve always wanted to make a map that used the native names for countries instead of their English/American names.
Most of them are fairly expected. That Finland tho…
Etkos puhu suomeä? :)
valitettavasti en :(
I do watch a lot of Hydraulic Press Channel though so i at least have an ear for Finglish :)
Looks like they specifically chose the official English names for countries even when the indigenous name is also official.
They explain the methodology - where there is more than one official name, the name in the language with the most speakers in that country is used.
That’s certainly a decision.
How would you pick along multiple official names in different languages?
I mean it’s mostly a criticism of whoever suggested this map as a way to see country names in the language of the country, rather than just English.
But it’s also kind of a pointless map as it’s not useful to an English speaker but it doesn’t commit to teaching you indigenous place names either.
I think it’s so funny that almost all languages have some variation of the name “Hungary”, except in Hungarian, where it’s called “Magyarország”.
I believe the languages of some neighbouring countries such as Turkey resemble Magyarország more closely :)
and Japan is is not Japan in Japan.
NaNi-ppon?
Bimmer
It’s interesting how countries have names that we just don’t use. To be fair, the UK calls it Germany, too, at least the BBC does. And not just their .com (American) site, which still uses English rather than American English (e.g. honour instead of “honor,” centre instead of “center,” and other minor spelling differences… to stranger ones like manoeuvre vs “maneuver” and so on), so that tells me they call Deutschland “Germany” in the UK as well. Even the English Wikipedia (which covers English and American English) says the official name of the country is “The Federal Republic of Germany”.
We call Turkiye “Turkey”, I guess because the name of the bird is more familiar and easier to type?
What we call Japan, people who live there say Nihon (or Nippon). But what they write is 日本, but I don’t know how to make my keyboard (or computer) produce those symbols without copying and pasting them. It’s easy to remember these symbols. One looks like a skyscraper (like in Tokyo) and the other looks like clouds around the peak of Mt Fuji, together representing the manmade and natural beauty of the country. It might be coincidence that those glyphs look like that, though.
Let’s take it a step further, shall we? So we were talking about countries that call themselves something other than what you (I’m assuming American) call them. There are companies that do it, too, but other than having extra words and symbols at the end, it’s mostly pronunciation… and I only have two examples. There may be more. The first one is Nokia, which people try to pronounce like it’s Korean or Japanese. It’s not, it’s Finnish (from Finland, one of the places Vikings come from). That’s why they’re so sturdy. It’s not just a meme. Anyway, while it’s fine for you to call it “No-kia,” like you’re saying you don’t drive a Kia, the Finns pronounce it “Knock-ya.” Like, throw a Nokia at you and “knock-ya” TF out!
Going back to Japan, the Japanese language is made up of glyphs which represent the syllables that make up the spoken language. Japanese is both simpler and more complex than you might think. So 日本 means Nihon, or Ni and Hon. Maybe you see where this is going… Hon isn’t pronounced like it rhymes with Don, it instead rhymes with “bone.” So to say 日本, you say “Ni” (knee) “hon” (hone). Those are the sounds represented by those glyphs. Now say “Honda.” You probably said it wrong. 本田 is pronounced “Hon” (hone) “da” (duh). Of course, if you say “Hone-duh” to car guys, they’ll look at you like you’re a fool, because no one outside of Japan pronounces it that way, even at the dealer. And you won’t score home field points by going to the dealer and pronouncing it correctly. (Of course, when they speak to leadership in Japan, if they ever do, you bet your ass they’re saying it right. But outside of Japanese corporate, they’re pronouncing it the way you always have.)
Does any of this even matter? No, not really. It’s trivia, which means it’s fun to know but not exactly useful to know, in most situations. German people will likely tell you they are German, not that they are Deutsch. Then again, Germans are far nicer than their rough language would imply (you can thank Rammstein for making you think it’s rough in the first place, especially if you’re Gen X or Millennial). They would just as soon you say hello as hallo (German for hello), though I will almost always use “auf widersehen” over goodbye, because goodbye sounds more formal. “Auf widersehen” translates to “Until next time.” Compare that with the Japanese “さようなら” (sayonara), which means “farewell.” Three languages, the other two translate to “goodbye,” but they all actually mean different things. This is why learning some of your more common phrases in other languages helps. I’d much rather say “auf widersehen” to someone I’m going to see again tomorrow rather than “goodbye.” And as much as I’d love to tell my boss さようなら… well, it’s just not the appropriate parting phrase.
日 is sun and 本 is origin (in this case), which lines up with the western moniker for Japan as the land of the rising sun.
Also I’d say that goodbye is a decent enough translation for sayonara. I can’t remember the last time I said goodbye in English (instead of bye or see you), and seems almost as formal and final as farewell, which seems almost outdated at this point. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually used that in my entire life.
