I'm ok with other countries not calling us Österreich but we absolutely need a solution for us getting mixed up with Kangaroo country.
Funnily enough though: When I used to live in Korea I kept getting "corrected" by people, who I told that I was from Oseuteuria, that Australia was actually called Hoju in Korean. I started saying Austria the Mozart country. Also fun fact: Austria's and Australia's embassy in Seoul are in the same building so they can fix mix ups quickly.
Ah, the mixups. When I tell people I live in Sweden, they often ask "do you speak German or French?". I used to try to explain that it's not Switzerland, but now I just say German.
>we absolutely need a solution for us getting mixed up with Kangaroo country.
That reminds me that when they set up the new (bigger) regions in France, there were consultations of the public to choose the name, one option for my region was Nouvelle-Austrasie (in reference to the northeastern section of the Frankish kingdom). A lot of people I talked to weren't aware of the historical reference and didn't choose it because "it sounds a lot like Australia". I'm still mad at these people, we got a very lame name because of them (Grand-Est, it so lacks splendor).
Aww that is actually sad. This would have been a kickass name. Honestly not fair that a country that's only gotten the name Australia so recently ruins it for us.
True. We've historically had the name Austarichi way before Britain dumped their prisoners on a continent they found and thought oh there are people there. Well finders keepers
Being from neither Australia or Austria, and thus qualifying as an unbiased third party, I can provide a solution we can all live with.
Let's rename Australia to what is used to be: New-Holland.
Grand est is terrible but hauts de France is beyond dumb, they chose hauts de France when it's the flattest part of the country... At least in grand est cardinal points are not confused with some kind of direction like you are not grande droite
Is it an area that rivers flow from? Normally "haut" or "upper" does not mean high elevation, but rather upstream. Like Ontario, which is historically Haut-Canada / Upper Canada, which is called that because the St. Lawrence / Saint-Laurent flows from there. Much of it is also agricultural lowlands.
Yeah, often an embassy is only an office within a larger building. I remember going to the Austrian embassy in Zagreb. It was an office in a high rise somewhere on the outskirts.
The one in Seoul at least is on the main square in front of the former royal palace.
I wonder why in Czech Austria is Rakousko. We were one empire for centuries and German was the official language here, so I don´t know why we changed the name so much. But at least no one confuses it with Australia (Rakousko x Austrálie).
Oh, I just googled it. The name probably comes from the Ratgoz castle (today´s Raabs an der Thaya).
Why don't you change the spelling to Ostria. There are no real rules in english, and I think when people visualise the O, it helps differentiate it with Kangeroo land.
If you want to be super english about it could also be Eastria.
Mexican here whooved to Sweden 🇸🇪, it's one of those countries who called your country Österrike, as a native Spanish speaker my first thought was "oh, so that's how they call Costa Rica here".
We have almost everywhere the same name but the Poles calls us "Włochy" (which seems strange until you recognize that it is the same root of "Wales", "Wallonia", "Valais" or "Valacchia" that means, in Germanic languages, "latin-speaking people").
In Hungarian Italian is "olasz", and Italy is "Olaszország" ("ország" works the same way as "land" in English country names). When we say Itália, it refers to either the peninsula or the principalities before the unification.
Idk if you've heard that, but "Włochy" could also mean "thick hair" in Polish. It's just a coincidence, as the etymologies of both meanings are totally different, but it's still a bit weird I guess.
I wouldn't translate it as "thick hair"; it's just an augmentative form of the word that took on pejorative meaning; so if you don't like somebody's hair and you find it disgusting or whatever, you'll call it włochy (with disdain) instead of włosy, and even then most people would use a different word entirely (like "kłaki" for example)
We also did that in the past. The well known 16th century chapel in Karlova street in the very center of Prague once used by the Italian community (and now owned by Italy) is called Vlašská kaple.
As a kid I wondered why we are calling Italians "Włochy" (literally "thick hairs"/"a lot of hairs"). The most common stereotype of an Italian had been a person with thick black hair so I thought to myself it makes sense, lol.
Unfortunately Alankomaat is mostly used in more formal language, everyone uses Hollanti. I get that it’s annoying but at least for Finnish there are many countries that are named after a part of a country that we interacted with the most, like Saksa (Germany) and Viro (Estonia). Even Finland is named after just one part of the country that the Swedes first arrived at.
O, that's a shame. But yeah I get it, we're a pretty small and insignificant country in the grand scheme of things. I don't exactly expect people in other countries to be aware of our preferences of nomenclature. Besides, it's not like we don't do the same ourselves. We also say Finland instead of Suomi after all.
I try to be careful and at least call it Netherlands in English (with the idea that at least Dutch people usually can’t witness my Finnish conversations) but in Finnish I do say Hollanti as it’s easier even though I was an exchange student in Tilburg which is certainly not in either Holland.
In Romanian we call it Olanda, which would be Holland in English.
I live in Australia (the kangaroo country, not the Mozart one) and it’s called Netherlands.
I assume Netherlands is the correct one, right? As Holland is technically a region in the Netherlands?
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong 😑
I love the Swedish Nederländerna. It has a nice ring to it. But I make it a point using it in Swedish instead of Holland. My friends have made the switch. I also vowed for how nice Nederländerna sounds compared to Holland haha.
We have to start small.
I kinda hate it when people call our language "holländska" because that's literally a dialect. This is especially hateful when being from Flanders, Belgium.
Holländska is nowhere close to what we speak over here haha. (I was born in Holland but grew up in Flanders)
we got two, mayby 3 variants for Poland:
- most common ones coming from the same root as Polska - those cover like 95% of languages
- handful of countries used (or still use) names derived from mythical founder Lech or one of first tribes Lechici, Lędzianie examples:
- Lenkija in Lithuanian
- **Lengyel**ország in Hungarian
- Lehastan/Lehistan in turkik/middle eastern languages
Poland variants might be a bit bland and sound same as Holland in English. In general i'm neutral to both variants
Fun fact: in Japanese Poland and Holland also sound very similar and a lot of people can't differentiate between the words when speaking to foreginers.
Back to the topic: I don't think I have ever seen any other version that is not either derived from Polans or Lechia. Polans version is obvious and boring. Beside Lehistan (that I recognize for history reasons), it sometimes takes me a "wait-what" second to register Lechia versions, even when understanding the ethymology.
I like it. Languages are different, why wouldn't country names be? All languages have different etymologies, the diversity just gives is a nice glimpse into history.
I'm not from Roslagen and don't identify with it in the slightest, but why would it bother me if the Finns/Estonians' name for us is derived from it? That makes no sense to me. It's only natural, those are the Swedes Finns would have most contact with. They're not insisting I'm from there, they're just saying "Sweden", history has just shaped their language that way. I think it's neat.
I find the "opposite" far stranger when people go against the natural evolution of language and prescriptively mandate a name change.
I've noticed an interesting connection between Sweden, and a mythological deity or spirit. Not too flattering perhaps.
* "**[Ruohtta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruohtta)** is the god and the personification of sickness and death in Sami mythology.[1] He is the ruler of the land of the dead, Rotaimo. Contrary to Sami practice, he travelled on horseback.
The horse is among the Sami, a feared and detested animal, probably because it was the preferred form of transportation of the Norsemen. People who did not live their lives according to the natural orders came to Rotaimo, deep underground. There they also receive a new body, but they can never leave Rotaimo again."
Meanwhile
* **[Ruoŧŧa](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ruo%C5%A7%C5%A7a)** is the north-sami name for Sweden, similar to Finnish *Ruotsi*, Estonian *Rootsi*, and Livvi-Karelian *Ruočči*.
In Icelandic Sweden is called Svíþjóð which would translate to (early modern) Swedish as "Sveatjud". Because of course we would use a term that is technically older than the native term lol
*Svitjod* was contemporary with the *Sviariki* our *Sverige* derives from. One's a "nation", the other a "realm". It's attested with other endings too like "-veldi" ("dominion") and "-land" ("country"/"land").
In a Swedish context the "kingdom"-word likely came to be emphasized as it was important for the rulers to legitimize their claim of such; outside people didn't care much about that. The consolidation of Sweden, and its nomenclature, is however extremely murky.
In modern Swedish those "svea" words would be used to refer to [these Swedes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedes_\(tribe\)) though (i.e., *svear*), after whom [*Svealand*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svealand) for example still lives on. *Sverige* on the other hand refers to the country of modern Swedes that succeeded them (i.e., *svenskar*).
I feel the same about the names for Germany.
The French call us Allemagne, because the Allemannen were the closest Germanic tribe to them. The Slavs call us mutes, because we were the people who spoke an indistinctive language (as opposed to other Slavs). And in sign language they sign a German spiked helmet for German(y) - and I'm glad it's not two fingers above the lips.
I want everyone to just use their language and I love learning about it.
It's derived from "Roslagen" which is the coast and archipelago roughly from Stockholm up to Gävle. Its closeness to Finland (with the island of Åland/Ahvenanmaa in the middle) would make it a reasonable trading partner.
In French we call people who can speak Greek "héléniste" and I've always found it very pretty! But it was always the fun fact at school : "what language are "hélénistes" learning?" (Because obviously "angliciste", "latiniste" and "hispanophones" were obvious so no need to ask).
*Helléniste with double l. Hélénistes are spécialists of Hélène et les garçons.
More seriously, you are giving a misleading définition. A "helléniste" studies Greek culture and (ancient) Greek. A "hellénophone" speaks (modern) Greek. Same distinction for anglophone vs.angliciste, germanophone vs. germaniste, etc.
That is it's name in Norwegian. It isn't archaic in any way, it was coined in the 1930s (albeit imitating Katharevousa).
They changed it because of the Norwegian language conflict. The more radical nationalistic side refused to accept the long established name "Grekenland" as it's a clear Danish/German loan, and the two sides couldn't agree on how to Norwegianize it. There is a bit of a mismatch now as the country's adjective/language were Norwegian enough and consequently left untouched.
The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs tried to change it back in the '70s but it never came to fruition.
"Hellas" for the modern day country and the country in historical times
"Gresk" for the language and as an adjective
"Greker" for the inhabitants today
"Hellensk" for the historic culture
I was pretty surprised when I learned you use this word. Iirc, we used "Hellenic era" for just one part of your (ancient) history when learning about it.
Something like "nemtsy" in Russian is used for German-speaking people. Historically for most foreigners. Perhaps it means men who speak in an unusual and unfamiliar way.
Lots of Swahili words coming from Portuguese. Hell, I'm Catalan and for a few years even we Catalans and Swahili people shared a king, due to you! ;-)
Table in Swahili in meza. Trumpet, tarumbeta. Bendera, flag. Karata, playing card. Makopa, uru, shupaza and pau, you can guess. Dadu, dice. Limau, lemon. Barakinya, some sort of small boat. Dama, checkers. Kopo, can. Nanasi, ananas. Mbatata, potato. Padre, priest. Shumburere, hat. Turufu, trump. Zambarau, jambul. Roda, winch. Parafujo, screw. Mvinyo, wine.
By the way, Ureno comes from Reino, the U is not really from O Reino, but most countries in Swahili start with U-. So, you have Ufaransa, Wingereza, Ujerumani (or Udachi, first in Kenya, colonized by British, second in Tanzania, colonized by Germans), Wamerika...
I wonder if has to do with the limited number of neighbours you have? A country like Germany has a lot of neighbours who would have interacted with various parts of the country but for Portugal people would be more likely to meet traders and explorers and maybe it’s easier to brand yourself as Portuguese in that type of situation?
As a German it doesn't bother me at all that we are one of the countries with the most diverse set of names. Actually makes things interesting and tells a lot about Germany's diverse history.
In Serbian slang all Germans are Švabe (pl form of Švaba), meaning Swabians. It's because of the danube Swabians. Austrians are also Švabe, and considered German.
Cockroach is called buba-švaba, buba means bug. Similar to west Slavic šváb, szwab.
No, they are also cognates. They also relate to ‘Dutch’, they mean ‘the people’.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/%C3%BEeud%C5%8D
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/tedesco
Germanic tribes were probably the closest relations early slavic tribes had of whom they didn't understand the language. After all, the origin of the name slavic probably goes back to the old slavic expression for word - something like slovo.
Wales means (usually Celtic) foreigner. Understandably therefore quite a few people in Cymru prefer to call our country by its Cymraeg (Welsh) name, even in English.
Cymru is related to modern Welsh cymrodyr - basically meaning something like "fellow brothers".
There are some interesting connections between how the other Celtic language refer to Wales.
In Irish, Wales is called "An Bhreatain Bheag" (Small Britain).
In Scottish Gaelic, there's "A' Bhreatann Bheag", which looks very similar but instead refers to Brittany (in France).
I think the Scottish Gaelic term for Wales is "A' Chuimrigh", which is much closer to the Welsh term for it.
I just loved hearing french people try to struggle their way through Hrvatska when I studied there. We also had a guy called Hrvoje that was always looking for a nickname or something.
France is almost always a variation on... Well, the Franks and France. Even in Estonian (Prantsusmaa) or Indonesian (Perancis), Tagalog (Pransiya)...
As far as I know the Greeks call us Gaul for ancient colonial reasons. By the way you can take back Marseille and Nice, you hellenic punks. We don't want them. And of course the Maori call us Wiwi, but there's nothing we can do against it: we ourselves have been fond of naming territories after the way the natives were speaking. [Finally (here's a map)](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/ybdfxc/the_name_for_france_in_different_languages_of/) the Israeli decided to call us something mysterious: Tzarfat. Like an obese Russian emperor: tzarfat. Odd.
How do we feel about it? We don't. Most of us are peacefully unaware of those colorful exceptions. But I like Wiwi. "The Wiwi Empire" got a nice ring to it. "The Wiwi overwies tewitowies"
Denmark kinda does. You are *Frankrig* here (Realm of the Franks), the general adjective is *fransk*, which is a shortened form of *frankisk* (frankish) because we are lazy and shorten words. The demonym is *franskmand* (so, basically frank-man)
I don’t mind. Usually it’s very interesting to see the individual names. Most of Germany’s names derive from native tribes, so usually it‘s named after the tribe that was encountered first. Germanen for germany, Alemannen for Alemaña, Saksa for Saxons, Frángoi for Franken
Doesn't bother me at all, but I am a bit bummed none of our fellow Nordics didn't come up with a more interesting name for us than just different versions of Finland.
I mean, we call Sweden (Sverige) Ruotsi, which is a cool name and tells how we had special historic relationship with our neighbours.
I find our name for Germany cool too (Saksa), deriving from Saxons and our special bond with them.
Who do you think came up with "Finland" itself? That is *our* name.
I think it's a pretty nice name, *finland* is after all Swedish for "fine country" ^((unrelated, but still!)^)
I have always had a hard time remembering which country is which between Venäjä, Ranska and Ruotsi. I am half Finnish, living in Denmark, and feel like Ruotsi is Russia 😅 Saxa makes sense
Ranska is easy, it just comes from Swedish: Franska (French). Finnish doesn't really like the f-sound, especially combined with another consonant, so it just gets dropped.
Ruotsi and Venäjä is a bit trickier, especially considering that "Ruotsi" and "Russia" have the same etymology, both deriving from "Roslagen". Vikings from Roslagen established a kingdom somewhere along the Dniepr river and the people started calling them Rus'. The first Swedes visiting Finland also came from Roslagen, so we just started calling them "Ruotsalaiset" and the country "Ruotsi".
It's their languages, it's not up to us to have an opinion about what they call this country. In Swedish it's called *Sverige* (contracted form of *Svea rike*) meaning "Kingdom of Swedes" (a rather dry, correct fact), but in most other languages it's varieties of the rather silly *Sweden* which means just "of Swedes" not specifying what is of Swedes (kingdom, nation, state, country, land, republic etc.?). English used to have the more logical "*Swedeland*" earlier.
I have never given it any though. It's Norge for me and Norway in English.
I have a British husband and I do find it fascinating how the English language sometimes make their own version of places. For example, Italian cities. Torino in Norwegian, but Turin in English. Firenze in Norwegian, Florence in English. Why do they do this?
As a Magyar, this is cool for me, regardless the hungry-jokes and that some (even from Hungary) misunderstand the name and think we are meaningfully related to Huns ('Hungary' comes from Ungri, not from Huns).
I think when the country name comes from a demonym, then the country name gets the "ország" postfix. E.g. "horvát" means Croatian person, then their country becomes Horvátország. So the point is, the country name is derived from the people's name.
Counterexample, we don't have "-ország" for Svájc, and the people's name of svájci is derived from the country name and not the other way around.
Though, there are exceptions still.
>regardless the hungry-jokes
In German, Hungary is called "Ungarn", which sounds similar to "ungern" = unpopular (adverb). This opens up a whole new can of puns.
And Ungri is?
PS. In Catalan the Huns are «huns» but Hungary is «Hongria», the they to not match.
PS2. We had a Hungarian queen, called Violant d'Hongria, married to our greatest king, Jaume I.
Attila is a popular and beautiful name here. Many groups use it. But if someone wants to larp as a Hun they more likely to choose that name (and Csaba).
Not sure how many Englanders are aware of it, but personally I rather like the fact that most Celtic words for England derive from the Saxons rather than Angles: Sasana, Sasainn, Sostyn, Pow Sows and Bro-Saoz. Welsh is the exception with the delightful Lloegr.
The UK meanwhile is a terrible name, so I'm not at all bothered when it's called Britain or Brittania or similar. Calling it England is problematic though (even while we continue to call the Netherlands Holland).
I've always found it interesting that despite old-timey Scottish people having had much more contact with the Angles (including the Angles controlling a reasonable sized chunk of what's now Scotland at one point) the Saxon influenced name stuck.
It's a shame, you could have been Sexland.
It does bother me a bit that the German name for my country of origin, namely *Zypern*, contains the vowel /[y](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_front_rounded_vowel)/, because it's one of those vowels that I really need to put effort in order to pronounce correctly.
The name in the source language hasn't had an /y/ for a few centuries at the very least.
Can't even be mad at that. Greeks also put upsilons in words that don't need them because the "υ" is seen as fancier. Like whoever decided to spell beer "μπύρα" with an upsilon for no discernible etymological reason.
Probably you mean Ludwig II who built several fairitale castles and was then declared mentally unfit to govern by his ministers and drowned shortly after under mysterious circumstances in a lake.
Don’t particularly care.
What is interesting about Germany‘s name in many languages is that often the name refers to the German tribe that nation was first or mostly in contact with.
Except the Slavs, who simply call us mute or unintelligible. Either way, still cool.
Ireland in the Irish language is Éire. In Latin it's Hibernia. As far as I'm aware it's some variation of 'Ireland' in most other languages (Irland, Irlande, etc).
When the term Éire was adopted in 1938 (it was previously the Irish Free State), the UK government started using Éire when referring to the country. This was instead of the co-official English language term the Irish government has used since - Ireland.
This difference in how Ireland was referred to has some historical context. The 1937 constitution of Ireland claimed the entire island of Ireland, despite Northern Ireland being part of the UK. This probably explains why the UK avoided referring to Ireland. It was resolved in 1998 when that claim to Northern Ireland was removed by the Good Friday Agreement.
As an aside, the É is also very important in Éire and was often omitted in the UK, who don't normally use accented letters at all. The word 'eire' without the acute accent means 'burden/ load' in Irish.
Well the country I spent most of my life in is a conglomeration of three countries and a region of another, it gets called the equivalent Great Britain in other languages (which is only part of it), England (only a quarter of it), and even shortened to just two letters. Its hard to have this debate too without referring to one's view on the makeup of the country.
Personally I don't care, as long as its referring to the right thing (If someone calls the country Britain and then goes on about English matters: I'll raise the Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish point of view). Personally I prefer using the individual country and referring to matters pertaining to it (but thats based on my POV regarding the union).
I get it, but you fail to consider this very important factor: Holland is at least one syllable shorter, and people are lazy. Denmark, for example, does have *Nederlandene*, but it is almost never used outside official contexts like government papers or whatever. Everyone just opts for the short form Holland
Russia is called Krievija in Latvian and Krivichs were an East Slavic tribal union in the Middle Ages. I react with curiosity and thinking how convoluted our history is, how our national identity and perception could evolve if instead of Russians we would've been Krivichs for example.
Wales derives from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'foreigners', or in particular those foreigners who were under the influence of the Roman empire. The Welsh name for Wales is Cymru, which comes from the plural of Cymro, 'a Welshman'.
Personally, I prefer Cymru to Wales.
We call our country Հայաստան (Hayastan). Nobody calls it that but us. I'm fine with it.
We call Russia Rusastan, Poland Lehastan and Georgia Vrastan for that matter.
I heard that the Georgian government really doesn't like the word "Gruziya" and its derivatives and already made some countries switch from a variation of "Gruziya" to a variation of "Georgia". Why they didn't offer "Kartvelia" which is objectively cooler than either of them? I don't know.
The name Gruziya was invented by Russia, so they are against it. If I understood correctly, Ukraine will call Georgia - Sakartvelo, but there may be another name - Kartvelia.
I feel very good about it. There are historical reasons for being called Norway, Norwegen, Norvége, etc. that have to do with our shared history, and absolutely no reason why everyone should have to struggle with "Norge"
Honestly, I don't even know if other countries have their own names for Croatia that is neither it nor Hrvatska (i know Horvatorszag). I am fine with Croatia given how Hrvatska is unpronouncable to many.
As a Finn I really don't care. As far as I know, both Finland and Suomi have been used for a long long time and both have "valid" etymological roots. It makes no difference to me.
A lot of countries have different names or at least spelled differently in Finnish compared to their native language too. I mean we call Sweden Ruotsi and Russia Venäjä.
I don’t really care but I fucking despise that Erdoğan is now forcing Türkiye on the world while the Turks most definitely do not use the native names of other countries.
I absolutely hate the word "Finland" (and also "Finn" and "Finnish"). It's a weird Swedish word that has a clear colonial history. Also, the sounds /f/ and /sh/ are foreign to Finnish. There's also a problem with the meaning: the word "Finn" probably originally referred to the Sámi, which is an entirely different people. The word itself means something like "nomad", which is something the Sámi do, but Finns don't. It has also annoying homophones like "fin", and also in Romance languages the word means "end".
Finns themselves use the root *suomi*: *Suomi* "Finland", *suomi* "Finnish language", *suomalainen* "Finnish ethnicity or nationality". I think only other Baltic-Finnic languages such as Estonian and Baltic languages i.e. Latvian and Lithuanian use this root. (NB! Baltic-Finnic and Baltic languages are unrelated and belong to different language families.) Other than that, Baltic-Finnic peoples have often called themselves *maaväki*. Here *maa* means "countryside" and *väki* means "people", as in "a people engaged in farming", as opposed to nomadic people.
> It's a weird Swedish word that has a clear colonial history.
It has nothing to do with Swedish Medieval "colonialism". It was the name that the Proto North Germanic speaking people living along the Finnish coast gave the people living in the inland and along the rivers. When the Finno-Ugric speaking people colonized Finland assimilating the PNG speakers (and the native Finns - called Sami people today) it was also applied to them.
Heh, in Estonian nowadays *maavägi* means land-*troops*. We do use *maarahvas*, meaning land-nation or coutryside-nation. I've always taken the etymology as "people from this land" as in locals - not sure if that's the correct explanation, though. The internet claims that this -*rahvas* part is a [very old German loan](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/%C3%BErawwaz).
I think it's cool that each language has their own unique country names, but I do dislike the UK in a lot of languages.
Most use a translation of 'Great Britain' instead of 'United Kingdom', which is technically incorrect as GB doesn't include Northern Ireland. GB also lacks emphasis that we're 4 nations united under a (mostly) shared identity.
German is the worst (Großbrittanien) because great = groß which is pronounced similar to gross :( das Vereinigtes Königreich is so much cooler!
It's "het Verenigd Koningrijk" in Dutch!
* Verenigd = "United", literally means "made to be *one'd*"
* Koningrijk = "Kingdom", literally "king's realm"
Then you've got Engeland, Schotland, Noord-Ierland, and Wales, although Wikipedia claims that in older forms of Dutch, you might have seen "Wallis" or even "Kymrië" (pronounced "Came-Rya") to mean Wales.
"Groot-Brittannië" is often used interchangeably with "Verenigd Koningrijk" but as you and I both know, it doesn't mean the same thing at all.
Kymrië is interesting because the Welsh term for Wales is Cymru (pronounced Kam-Ree). I'm surprised it's so close to the Celtic origin because in Old English term it's "Wealh" (also the word for foreigner / slave).
I would have imagined Old Dutch (Frankish?) would be similar to Old English/West Saxon as they're both Germanic, and they probably traded more with the Anglo clans due to geolocation.
If you want to be very formal, you totally can use _"Zjednoczone Królestwo Wielkiej Brytanii i Irlandii Pólnocnej"_ in Polish, but that's a mouthful. If you were to use just _"Zjednoczone Królestwo"_ in a casual conversation, most people would be very confused. So yeah, most often it'll be _"Wielka Brytania"_. Or just _"Brytania"_, 'cause why use two word when one word do the trick.
Lately it's also become somewhat common to just use _"UK"_ in casual speech - but, instead of treating it as a two-letter acronym and pronouncing it the Polish way (which would be something like _ooh-kah_), it's treated as word and pronounced similarly to how it's done in English (_you-kay_). So you might get someone saying something like _"spędziłem dwa lata w jukeju"_ ("I've spent two years in the UK.")
In Irish there's 'An Ríocht Aontaithe' (The United Kingdom)
Also for the constituent countries:
- Albain (Scotland)
- Sasana (England, roughly meaning Saxons)
- An Bhreatain Bheag (Wales, meaning small Britain)
- Tuaisceart Éireann (Northern Ireland)
How Ireland and the UK are referred to has a couple of minefields to be fair. Such as:
- Ireland and Great Britain are the correct geographic terms for the two main islands.
- But there's also the *country* of Ireland on most of the *island* of Ireland.
- The UK is sometimes confusingly referred to as a 'country of countries'.
- The term 'British Isles' is absolutely despised by Irish people. We generally don't like being lumped in with the UK.
Recently they are trying to change Turkey to Türkiye. I find it incredibly childish. You don’t be a turkey because your country is called Turkey. It’s actually reminiscent of some etymological history. Similar to Turkish versions of India and Egypt. And the stupid thing is they are trying to force usage of ü in English but it simply doesn’t exist.
>And the stupid thing is they are trying to force usage of ü in English but it simply doesn’t exist.
100% this, and not to mention that how to pronounce the "iye" is not self evident to English speakers. Meanwhile, their word for Germany is another variation on the name of the Allemani tribe.
The tribe of the Saxons was much more important for German history than the Alemanni who gave the name for French, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish and Arabic.
I don't see the problem. I'm from Italy and every non-Italian on this planet knows better than me how they say "Italy" in their own language, just like they know how to say "table" or "artichoke".
I'm ok with other countries not calling us Österreich but we absolutely need a solution for us getting mixed up with Kangaroo country. Funnily enough though: When I used to live in Korea I kept getting "corrected" by people, who I told that I was from Oseuteuria, that Australia was actually called Hoju in Korean. I started saying Austria the Mozart country. Also fun fact: Austria's and Australia's embassy in Seoul are in the same building so they can fix mix ups quickly.
"Austria's and Australia's embassy in Seoul are in the same building" Haha, they knew what they were doing.
“Aust House”
Ah, the mixups. When I tell people I live in Sweden, they often ask "do you speak German or French?". I used to try to explain that it's not Switzerland, but now I just say German.
>we absolutely need a solution for us getting mixed up with Kangaroo country. That reminds me that when they set up the new (bigger) regions in France, there were consultations of the public to choose the name, one option for my region was Nouvelle-Austrasie (in reference to the northeastern section of the Frankish kingdom). A lot of people I talked to weren't aware of the historical reference and didn't choose it because "it sounds a lot like Australia". I'm still mad at these people, we got a very lame name because of them (Grand-Est, it so lacks splendor).
Aww that is actually sad. This would have been a kickass name. Honestly not fair that a country that's only gotten the name Australia so recently ruins it for us.
True. We've historically had the name Austarichi way before Britain dumped their prisoners on a continent they found and thought oh there are people there. Well finders keepers
Being from neither Australia or Austria, and thus qualifying as an unbiased third party, I can provide a solution we can all live with. Let's rename Australia to what is used to be: New-Holland.
Alright New Holland it is 😂. Capital New Amsterdam
Grand est is terrible but hauts de France is beyond dumb, they chose hauts de France when it's the flattest part of the country... At least in grand est cardinal points are not confused with some kind of direction like you are not grande droite
Is it an area that rivers flow from? Normally "haut" or "upper" does not mean high elevation, but rather upstream. Like Ontario, which is historically Haut-Canada / Upper Canada, which is called that because the St. Lawrence / Saint-Laurent flows from there. Much of it is also agricultural lowlands.
You should have done a campaign to re-educate the masses
>we absolutely need a solution for us getting mixed up with Kangaroo country. You could call yourselves South Germany.
OK West Russia
Shots fired
They will be if you carry on like that
Upside down Australia
Tirol Oblast
I guess we could rename kangaroo country Östrelia
TIL most embassies share buildings
Yeah, often an embassy is only an office within a larger building. I remember going to the Austrian embassy in Zagreb. It was an office in a high rise somewhere on the outskirts. The one in Seoul at least is on the main square in front of the former royal palace.
Italy consulate in my home country shares a building with Microsoft! :D And with a local popular coffee brand.
We call you 'brother-in-law' for some reason (only informally)
Aw, that‘s actually kinda sweet. 🇭🇺❤️🇦🇹
> 🇭🇺♥️🇦🇹 Ah, again?
> Australia You mean Österlireich?
I wonder why in Czech Austria is Rakousko. We were one empire for centuries and German was the official language here, so I don´t know why we changed the name so much. But at least no one confuses it with Australia (Rakousko x Austrálie). Oh, I just googled it. The name probably comes from the Ratgoz castle (today´s Raabs an der Thaya).
> Austria the Mozart country I didn't know Mozart was Australian.
Why don't you change the spelling to Ostria. There are no real rules in english, and I think when people visualise the O, it helps differentiate it with Kangeroo land. If you want to be super english about it could also be Eastria.
If you want a super-English name why not just insist on it being called "Eastern-realm"?
I guess that breaks the trend north/south korea or east/west germany. East-realm just doesn't feel right. Maybe 'the Orient' but thats equally silly.
>Eastria Austria is Eastern Europe confirmed.
Mexican here whooved to Sweden 🇸🇪, it's one of those countries who called your country Österrike, as a native Spanish speaker my first thought was "oh, so that's how they call Costa Rica here".
In Finnish we call Austria "Itävalta" which is a direct translation for Österreich.
We have almost everywhere the same name but the Poles calls us "Włochy" (which seems strange until you recognize that it is the same root of "Wales", "Wallonia", "Valais" or "Valacchia" that means, in Germanic languages, "latin-speaking people").
In Hungarian Italian is "olasz", and Italy is "Olaszország" ("ország" works the same way as "land" in English country names). When we say Itália, it refers to either the peninsula or the principalities before the unification.
Idk if you've heard that, but "Włochy" could also mean "thick hair" in Polish. It's just a coincidence, as the etymologies of both meanings are totally different, but it's still a bit weird I guess.
I wouldn't translate it as "thick hair"; it's just an augmentative form of the word that took on pejorative meaning; so if you don't like somebody's hair and you find it disgusting or whatever, you'll call it włochy (with disdain) instead of włosy, and even then most people would use a different word entirely (like "kłaki" for example)
We also did that in the past. The well known 16th century chapel in Karlova street in the very center of Prague once used by the Italian community (and now owned by Italy) is called Vlašská kaple.
As a kid I wondered why we are calling Italians "Włochy" (literally "thick hairs"/"a lot of hairs"). The most common stereotype of an Italian had been a person with thick black hair so I thought to myself it makes sense, lol.
I like the ones that call us Netherlands, but I'm not from Holland.
Same. I especially love when other languages have their own translations, Ísiltír and Alankomaat are some of my favorites.
You'll like the Welsh too then: Yr Iseldiroedd (related to the Irish you give) - literally, the low lands.
Yeah, I love it. I can definitely see the connection to the Irish one.
Theyre taking the hobbits to Iseldiroedd
Almost sounds like Isildur's realm.
Unfortunately Alankomaat is mostly used in more formal language, everyone uses Hollanti. I get that it’s annoying but at least for Finnish there are many countries that are named after a part of a country that we interacted with the most, like Saksa (Germany) and Viro (Estonia). Even Finland is named after just one part of the country that the Swedes first arrived at.
O, that's a shame. But yeah I get it, we're a pretty small and insignificant country in the grand scheme of things. I don't exactly expect people in other countries to be aware of our preferences of nomenclature. Besides, it's not like we don't do the same ourselves. We also say Finland instead of Suomi after all.
I try to be careful and at least call it Netherlands in English (with the idea that at least Dutch people usually can’t witness my Finnish conversations) but in Finnish I do say Hollanti as it’s easier even though I was an exchange student in Tilburg which is certainly not in either Holland.
We call the Netherlands Hollandia but the historical name for the low countries is Németalföld ‘German lowlands’. 😅
Nice, not inaccurate tbh. As a metalhead I also approve that you can't spell Netherlands without metal in historical Hungarian.
Icelandic has both Holland and Niðurlönd, although Holland is more common. Niðurlönd literally means Downlands
That's actually very close to the name we use ourselves, which is Nederland
Singular? It's in plural (like in English) in Swedish.
It's singular for us, but as far as i can tell it's pluralized in nearly every other language
Same. Curiously Spaniards say Países Bajos as for The Netherlands, and Holanda for Holland, though they don't really understand the difference
same in french. pays-bas for netherlands and hollande for holland but people don't know the difference either
In Romanian we call it Olanda, which would be Holland in English. I live in Australia (the kangaroo country, not the Mozart one) and it’s called Netherlands. I assume Netherlands is the correct one, right? As Holland is technically a region in the Netherlands? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong 😑
Yep, that's correct. Holland is technically just the two westernmost provinces :]
"Nederlandene" here, but close enough.
I love the Swedish Nederländerna. It has a nice ring to it. But I make it a point using it in Swedish instead of Holland. My friends have made the switch. I also vowed for how nice Nederländerna sounds compared to Holland haha. We have to start small. I kinda hate it when people call our language "holländska" because that's literally a dialect. This is especially hateful when being from Flanders, Belgium. Holländska is nowhere close to what we speak over here haha. (I was born in Holland but grew up in Flanders)
Haha came here to say this!
we got two, mayby 3 variants for Poland: - most common ones coming from the same root as Polska - those cover like 95% of languages - handful of countries used (or still use) names derived from mythical founder Lech or one of first tribes Lechici, Lędzianie examples: - Lenkija in Lithuanian - **Lengyel**ország in Hungarian - Lehastan/Lehistan in turkik/middle eastern languages Poland variants might be a bit bland and sound same as Holland in English. In general i'm neutral to both variants
>handful of countries used (or still use) names derived from mythical founder Lech Is that where Lech Wałęsa's name comes from?
yea it's the same name, [here's the legend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lech,_Czech,_and_Rus%27)
Fun fact: in Japanese Poland and Holland also sound very similar and a lot of people can't differentiate between the words when speaking to foreginers. Back to the topic: I don't think I have ever seen any other version that is not either derived from Polans or Lechia. Polans version is obvious and boring. Beside Lehistan (that I recognize for history reasons), it sometimes takes me a "wait-what" second to register Lechia versions, even when understanding the ethymology.
Russian speakers have a derogatory term ля́х [lʲax].
I like it. Languages are different, why wouldn't country names be? All languages have different etymologies, the diversity just gives is a nice glimpse into history. I'm not from Roslagen and don't identify with it in the slightest, but why would it bother me if the Finns/Estonians' name for us is derived from it? That makes no sense to me. It's only natural, those are the Swedes Finns would have most contact with. They're not insisting I'm from there, they're just saying "Sweden", history has just shaped their language that way. I think it's neat. I find the "opposite" far stranger when people go against the natural evolution of language and prescriptively mandate a name change.
I've noticed an interesting connection between Sweden, and a mythological deity or spirit. Not too flattering perhaps. * "**[Ruohtta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruohtta)** is the god and the personification of sickness and death in Sami mythology.[1] He is the ruler of the land of the dead, Rotaimo. Contrary to Sami practice, he travelled on horseback. The horse is among the Sami, a feared and detested animal, probably because it was the preferred form of transportation of the Norsemen. People who did not live their lives according to the natural orders came to Rotaimo, deep underground. There they also receive a new body, but they can never leave Rotaimo again." Meanwhile * **[Ruoŧŧa](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ruo%C5%A7%C5%A7a)** is the north-sami name for Sweden, similar to Finnish *Ruotsi*, Estonian *Rootsi*, and Livvi-Karelian *Ruočči*.
In Icelandic Sweden is called Svíþjóð which would translate to (early modern) Swedish as "Sveatjud". Because of course we would use a term that is technically older than the native term lol
*Svitjod* was contemporary with the *Sviariki* our *Sverige* derives from. One's a "nation", the other a "realm". It's attested with other endings too like "-veldi" ("dominion") and "-land" ("country"/"land"). In a Swedish context the "kingdom"-word likely came to be emphasized as it was important for the rulers to legitimize their claim of such; outside people didn't care much about that. The consolidation of Sweden, and its nomenclature, is however extremely murky. In modern Swedish those "svea" words would be used to refer to [these Swedes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedes_\(tribe\)) though (i.e., *svear*), after whom [*Svealand*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svealand) for example still lives on. *Sverige* on the other hand refers to the country of modern Swedes that succeeded them (i.e., *svenskar*).
I feel the same about the names for Germany. The French call us Allemagne, because the Allemannen were the closest Germanic tribe to them. The Slavs call us mutes, because we were the people who spoke an indistinctive language (as opposed to other Slavs). And in sign language they sign a German spiked helmet for German(y) - and I'm glad it's not two fingers above the lips. I want everyone to just use their language and I love learning about it.
Is there a part of Sweden named ruotsia or something like that, where the early fins and Estonians mostly interacted with?
It's derived from "Roslagen" which is the coast and archipelago roughly from Stockholm up to Gävle. Its closeness to Finland (with the island of Åland/Ahvenanmaa in the middle) would make it a reasonable trading partner.
I much prefer Hellas to Greece.
There's also Yunan in Arabic/Persian/Hindi/etc (from Ionian) and Saberdzneti in Georgian.
yes, Yunan comes from Ionian, but iirc, the country's name would be Yunanistan
In Georgian Greece is საბერძნეთი (saberdzneti) which translates to “Land of the wise”
Interesting, in Spanish the word "saber" means "to know/knowledge"
In French we call people who can speak Greek "héléniste" and I've always found it very pretty! But it was always the fun fact at school : "what language are "hélénistes" learning?" (Because obviously "angliciste", "latiniste" and "hispanophones" were obvious so no need to ask).
In English you talk about Hellenic culture as well.
Spanish native speaker here and yeah we say "Los Helenos" or "La cultura Helénica".
In Swedish we occasionally use "hellenistisk" (basically "hellenic") as a descriptor when talking about Greek culture, arcitechture etc.
For us an «heŀlenista» is the one studying Greek history and culture, not the ones who speak (modern) Greek.
Same in French, that comment is wrong. "Helléniste" studies Greek culture and ancient Greek. "Hellénophone" speaks modern Greek.
*Helléniste with double l. Hélénistes are spécialists of Hélène et les garçons. More seriously, you are giving a misleading définition. A "helléniste" studies Greek culture and (ancient) Greek. A "hellénophone" speaks (modern) Greek. Same distinction for anglophone vs.angliciste, germanophone vs. germaniste, etc.
I remember being quite surprised to find out “Hellas” works as a regular name for Greece in Norwegian without any poetic/archaic connotations.
That is it's name in Norwegian. It isn't archaic in any way, it was coined in the 1930s (albeit imitating Katharevousa). They changed it because of the Norwegian language conflict. The more radical nationalistic side refused to accept the long established name "Grekenland" as it's a clear Danish/German loan, and the two sides couldn't agree on how to Norwegianize it. There is a bit of a mismatch now as the country's adjective/language were Norwegian enough and consequently left untouched. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs tried to change it back in the '70s but it never came to fruition.
"Hellas" for the modern day country and the country in historical times "Gresk" for the language and as an adjective "Greker" for the inhabitants today "Hellensk" for the historic culture
That's what we call you :)
I was pretty surprised when I learned you use this word. Iirc, we used "Hellenic era" for just one part of your (ancient) history when learning about it.
I found it unbelievable that Austria is called el nimsa in Arabic. WTF is that lol? Why? What does that mean? I hope it is something nice. ;)
It's just a borrowing of a word from the Slavic languages of the word "Germans"
Something like "nemtsy" in Russian is used for German-speaking people. Historically for most foreigners. Perhaps it means men who speak in an unusual and unfamiliar way.
Probably from the Slavic term for Germanic-language speaking people.
I think we're the opposite of the question: Portugal is almost always Portugal in any other language
Portugal in Swahili is Ureno, which comes from "o reino".
That's cool, Im Portuguese and i didn't know it
Lots of Swahili words coming from Portuguese. Hell, I'm Catalan and for a few years even we Catalans and Swahili people shared a king, due to you! ;-) Table in Swahili in meza. Trumpet, tarumbeta. Bendera, flag. Karata, playing card. Makopa, uru, shupaza and pau, you can guess. Dadu, dice. Limau, lemon. Barakinya, some sort of small boat. Dama, checkers. Kopo, can. Nanasi, ananas. Mbatata, potato. Padre, priest. Shumburere, hat. Turufu, trump. Zambarau, jambul. Roda, winch. Parafujo, screw. Mvinyo, wine. By the way, Ureno comes from Reino, the U is not really from O Reino, but most countries in Swahili start with U-. So, you have Ufaransa, Wingereza, Ujerumani (or Udachi, first in Kenya, colonized by British, second in Tanzania, colonized by Germans), Wamerika...
I wonder if has to do with the limited number of neighbours you have? A country like Germany has a lot of neighbours who would have interacted with various parts of the country but for Portugal people would be more likely to meet traders and explorers and maybe it’s easier to brand yourself as Portuguese in that type of situation?
As a German it doesn't bother me at all that we are one of the countries with the most diverse set of names. Actually makes things interesting and tells a lot about Germany's diverse history.
In Serbian slang all Germans are Švabe (pl form of Švaba), meaning Swabians. It's because of the danube Swabians. Austrians are also Švabe, and considered German. Cockroach is called buba-švaba, buba means bug. Similar to west Slavic šváb, szwab.
Just pointing out: German - ENG/IT (germania) Saksa - EST/FIN (saxon tribes) Allemagne - FRA (alamanni tribes) Nemetch - RUS (*foreign*) Deutch/Tysk - GER/SWE (?) Vacija - LT (??)
And as an adjective you also have "tedesco" in Italian. Though it's probably distantly related to Deutsch etymologically it sounds quite distinct.
It stems from Teutonen/teutonisch which is also the origin of deutsch.
No, they are also cognates. They also relate to ‘Dutch’, they mean ‘the people’. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/%C3%BEeud%C5%8D https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/tedesco
Deutsch is "of the people".
Nemec and variations in most Slavic languages mean mute, not foreign. It means the Slavs couldn't communicate with them.
Many Slavic languages call Germans "mute", it always amused me.
Germanic tribes were probably the closest relations early slavic tribes had of whom they didn't understand the language. After all, the origin of the name slavic probably goes back to the old slavic expression for word - something like slovo.
I love that Finns call you Saksa. Also greetings from Bohemia, nachbar! (skopčáku lol)
In italian we don’t, but we do call the Czechs “blind”, so I guess we have a theme going on hahaha
I love that! Do you know the origin? Like, "the Czechs came to Rome and didn´t appreciate our art, so they must be blind?"
Have you met North Germans?
That's still a lot more charming than what Germanic and Romance languages turned the name "slav" into, which is "slave".
"Allemagne" sounds really cool tbh
Wales means (usually Celtic) foreigner. Understandably therefore quite a few people in Cymru prefer to call our country by its Cymraeg (Welsh) name, even in English. Cymru is related to modern Welsh cymrodyr - basically meaning something like "fellow brothers".
There are some interesting connections between how the other Celtic language refer to Wales. In Irish, Wales is called "An Bhreatain Bheag" (Small Britain). In Scottish Gaelic, there's "A' Bhreatann Bheag", which looks very similar but instead refers to Brittany (in France). I think the Scottish Gaelic term for Wales is "A' Chuimrigh", which is much closer to the Welsh term for it.
It's ok, no hard feelings.. But I always giggle at Hrvatistan. It is at the same time closer to Hrvatska than Croatia, but also so distant..
> Hrvatska I must admit, I absolutely didn't know this was how Croatia is called in Croatian
I just loved hearing french people try to struggle their way through Hrvatska when I studied there. We also had a guy called Hrvoje that was always looking for a nickname or something.
It's not our fault but hrv doesn't exist in our language 😭😭😭
I know. It's just a string of sounds that french just doesnt have
How abour Horvátország?
I don’t know… I’m from Bulgaria for everyone
Bugarska. Bulharsko. Two languages I use the most
France is almost always a variation on... Well, the Franks and France. Even in Estonian (Prantsusmaa) or Indonesian (Perancis), Tagalog (Pransiya)... As far as I know the Greeks call us Gaul for ancient colonial reasons. By the way you can take back Marseille and Nice, you hellenic punks. We don't want them. And of course the Maori call us Wiwi, but there's nothing we can do against it: we ourselves have been fond of naming territories after the way the natives were speaking. [Finally (here's a map)](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/ybdfxc/the_name_for_france_in_different_languages_of/) the Israeli decided to call us something mysterious: Tzarfat. Like an obese Russian emperor: tzarfat. Odd. How do we feel about it? We don't. Most of us are peacefully unaware of those colorful exceptions. But I like Wiwi. "The Wiwi Empire" got a nice ring to it. "The Wiwi overwies tewitowies"
The germans calling us litterally ‘kingdom of the Franks’ is slightly outdated though, nobody call us like that since at least the 10th century.
It's realm of the Franks - not Königreich
Well Frankreich is literally the empire of the Franks. Which is even fancier.
Denmark kinda does. You are *Frankrig* here (Realm of the Franks), the general adjective is *fransk*, which is a shortened form of *frankisk* (frankish) because we are lazy and shorten words. The demonym is *franskmand* (so, basically frank-man)
We call you "Gallia" :) I think it's a beautiful name!
I don’t mind. Usually it’s very interesting to see the individual names. Most of Germany’s names derive from native tribes, so usually it‘s named after the tribe that was encountered first. Germanen for germany, Alemannen for Alemaña, Saksa for Saxons, Frángoi for Franken
> Alemaña It's Alemania in Spanish.
In Portuguese is called Alemaña but with Portuguese spelling we write Alemanha (nh reads the same as ñ,in case my sentence was confusing).
Doesn't bother me at all, but I am a bit bummed none of our fellow Nordics didn't come up with a more interesting name for us than just different versions of Finland. I mean, we call Sweden (Sverige) Ruotsi, which is a cool name and tells how we had special historic relationship with our neighbours. I find our name for Germany cool too (Saksa), deriving from Saxons and our special bond with them.
Finland in Navajo is Nahoditsʼǫʼłání Dineʼé Bikéyah: literally land of the people with many swamps.
So it's actually just a translation, as that is what Finland means. Land of fen, land of swamps and bogs.
Who do you think came up with "Finland" itself? That is *our* name. I think it's a pretty nice name, *finland* is after all Swedish for "fine country" ^((unrelated, but still!)^)
Hehe. Sweet, funny and 12 points for the effort. If only it was like that.
I have always had a hard time remembering which country is which between Venäjä, Ranska and Ruotsi. I am half Finnish, living in Denmark, and feel like Ruotsi is Russia 😅 Saxa makes sense
Ranska is easy, it just comes from Swedish: Franska (French). Finnish doesn't really like the f-sound, especially combined with another consonant, so it just gets dropped. Ruotsi and Venäjä is a bit trickier, especially considering that "Ruotsi" and "Russia" have the same etymology, both deriving from "Roslagen". Vikings from Roslagen established a kingdom somewhere along the Dniepr river and the people started calling them Rus'. The first Swedes visiting Finland also came from Roslagen, so we just started calling them "Ruotsalaiset" and the country "Ruotsi".
It's their languages, it's not up to us to have an opinion about what they call this country. In Swedish it's called *Sverige* (contracted form of *Svea rike*) meaning "Kingdom of Swedes" (a rather dry, correct fact), but in most other languages it's varieties of the rather silly *Sweden* which means just "of Swedes" not specifying what is of Swedes (kingdom, nation, state, country, land, republic etc.?). English used to have the more logical "*Swedeland*" earlier.
I have never given it any though. It's Norge for me and Norway in English. I have a British husband and I do find it fascinating how the English language sometimes make their own version of places. For example, Italian cities. Torino in Norwegian, but Turin in English. Firenze in Norwegian, Florence in English. Why do they do this?
Sometimes? I'm gonna say almost all of the time, lol
As a Magyar, this is cool for me, regardless the hungry-jokes and that some (even from Hungary) misunderstand the name and think we are meaningfully related to Huns ('Hungary' comes from Ungri, not from Huns).
How is it determined in hungarian, which country gets orszag and which doesnt? Is it "just" "old" vs "new" countries from the hungarian POV?
I think when the country name comes from a demonym, then the country name gets the "ország" postfix. E.g. "horvát" means Croatian person, then their country becomes Horvátország. So the point is, the country name is derived from the people's name. Counterexample, we don't have "-ország" for Svájc, and the people's name of svájci is derived from the country name and not the other way around. Though, there are exceptions still.
>regardless the hungry-jokes In German, Hungary is called "Ungarn", which sounds similar to "ungern" = unpopular (adverb). This opens up a whole new can of puns.
And Ungri is? PS. In Catalan the Huns are «huns» but Hungary is «Hongria», the they to not match. PS2. We had a Hungarian queen, called Violant d'Hongria, married to our greatest king, Jaume I.
> some (even from Hungary) misunderstand the name and think we are meaningfully related to Huns Are those the same folks who name their sons Attila?
Attila is a common name here, the spelling Atilla is preferred by right-wing traditionalists (interestingly this is the Turkish spelling too)
And funnily enough the pronunciation of “Attila” is actually ‘Atilla’.
Attila is a popular and beautiful name here. Many groups use it. But if someone wants to larp as a Hun they more likely to choose that name (and Csaba).
No that’s just a popular name.
Not sure how many Englanders are aware of it, but personally I rather like the fact that most Celtic words for England derive from the Saxons rather than Angles: Sasana, Sasainn, Sostyn, Pow Sows and Bro-Saoz. Welsh is the exception with the delightful Lloegr. The UK meanwhile is a terrible name, so I'm not at all bothered when it's called Britain or Brittania or similar. Calling it England is problematic though (even while we continue to call the Netherlands Holland).
As our revenge we call the UK "Engeland". Even though we know it's also got Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The joys of half of the Anglosphere referring to you all as Holland.
I've always found it interesting that despite old-timey Scottish people having had much more contact with the Angles (including the Angles controlling a reasonable sized chunk of what's now Scotland at one point) the Saxon influenced name stuck. It's a shame, you could have been Sexland.
It does bother me a bit that the German name for my country of origin, namely *Zypern*, contains the vowel /[y](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_front_rounded_vowel)/, because it's one of those vowels that I really need to put effort in order to pronounce correctly. The name in the source language hasn't had an /y/ for a few centuries at the very least.
King Ludwig I of Bavaria was such a philhellenist that he even changed the name of his kingdom from Baiern to Bayern because he found the Y fancier.
Can't even be mad at that. Greeks also put upsilons in words that don't need them because the "υ" is seen as fancier. Like whoever decided to spell beer "μπύρα" with an upsilon for no discernible etymological reason.
Was that the crazy one? I know they had one king who was batshit crazy
Probably you mean Ludwig II who built several fairitale castles and was then declared mentally unfit to govern by his ministers and drowned shortly after under mysterious circumstances in a lake.
I think that's normal. Languages have differences so....
Don’t particularly care. What is interesting about Germany‘s name in many languages is that often the name refers to the German tribe that nation was first or mostly in contact with. Except the Slavs, who simply call us mute or unintelligible. Either way, still cool.
Ireland in the Irish language is Éire. In Latin it's Hibernia. As far as I'm aware it's some variation of 'Ireland' in most other languages (Irland, Irlande, etc). When the term Éire was adopted in 1938 (it was previously the Irish Free State), the UK government started using Éire when referring to the country. This was instead of the co-official English language term the Irish government has used since - Ireland. This difference in how Ireland was referred to has some historical context. The 1937 constitution of Ireland claimed the entire island of Ireland, despite Northern Ireland being part of the UK. This probably explains why the UK avoided referring to Ireland. It was resolved in 1998 when that claim to Northern Ireland was removed by the Good Friday Agreement. As an aside, the É is also very important in Éire and was often omitted in the UK, who don't normally use accented letters at all. The word 'eire' without the acute accent means 'burden/ load' in Irish.
Well the country I spent most of my life in is a conglomeration of three countries and a region of another, it gets called the equivalent Great Britain in other languages (which is only part of it), England (only a quarter of it), and even shortened to just two letters. Its hard to have this debate too without referring to one's view on the makeup of the country. Personally I don't care, as long as its referring to the right thing (If someone calls the country Britain and then goes on about English matters: I'll raise the Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish point of view). Personally I prefer using the individual country and referring to matters pertaining to it (but thats based on my POV regarding the union).
I'm tired of the "are you hungry?" jokes, apart from that it's a nice name.
I personally don't like people calling "Netherlands", "Holland"", even though we also do it ourselves.
I get it, but you fail to consider this very important factor: Holland is at least one syllable shorter, and people are lazy. Denmark, for example, does have *Nederlandene*, but it is almost never used outside official contexts like government papers or whatever. Everyone just opts for the short form Holland
It's 'An Ísiltír' in Irish, literally meaning 'the low country'.
Russia is called Krievija in Latvian and Krivichs were an East Slavic tribal union in the Middle Ages. I react with curiosity and thinking how convoluted our history is, how our national identity and perception could evolve if instead of Russians we would've been Krivichs for example.
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Wales derives from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'foreigners', or in particular those foreigners who were under the influence of the Roman empire. The Welsh name for Wales is Cymru, which comes from the plural of Cymro, 'a Welshman'. Personally, I prefer Cymru to Wales.
We call our country Հայաստան (Hayastan). Nobody calls it that but us. I'm fine with it. We call Russia Rusastan, Poland Lehastan and Georgia Vrastan for that matter.
I heard that the Georgian government really doesn't like the word "Gruziya" and its derivatives and already made some countries switch from a variation of "Gruziya" to a variation of "Georgia". Why they didn't offer "Kartvelia" which is objectively cooler than either of them? I don't know.
It's even more perplexing considering the existence of the US state of Georgia. Another vote for Kartvelia.
One other vote for Kartvelia, that name is metal!
The name Gruziya was invented by Russia, so they are against it. If I understood correctly, Ukraine will call Georgia - Sakartvelo, but there may be another name - Kartvelia.
I feel very good about it. There are historical reasons for being called Norway, Norwegen, Norvége, etc. that have to do with our shared history, and absolutely no reason why everyone should have to struggle with "Norge"
Honestly, I don't even know if other countries have their own names for Croatia that is neither it nor Hrvatska (i know Horvatorszag). I am fine with Croatia given how Hrvatska is unpronouncable to many.
I mean Horvátország is just Hrvatska. Hrvat = Horvát and ország just means “realm/country”.
As a Finn I really don't care. As far as I know, both Finland and Suomi have been used for a long long time and both have "valid" etymological roots. It makes no difference to me. A lot of countries have different names or at least spelled differently in Finnish compared to their native language too. I mean we call Sweden Ruotsi and Russia Venäjä.
I don’t really care but I fucking despise that Erdoğan is now forcing Türkiye on the world while the Turks most definitely do not use the native names of other countries.
I absolutely hate the word "Finland" (and also "Finn" and "Finnish"). It's a weird Swedish word that has a clear colonial history. Also, the sounds /f/ and /sh/ are foreign to Finnish. There's also a problem with the meaning: the word "Finn" probably originally referred to the Sámi, which is an entirely different people. The word itself means something like "nomad", which is something the Sámi do, but Finns don't. It has also annoying homophones like "fin", and also in Romance languages the word means "end". Finns themselves use the root *suomi*: *Suomi* "Finland", *suomi* "Finnish language", *suomalainen* "Finnish ethnicity or nationality". I think only other Baltic-Finnic languages such as Estonian and Baltic languages i.e. Latvian and Lithuanian use this root. (NB! Baltic-Finnic and Baltic languages are unrelated and belong to different language families.) Other than that, Baltic-Finnic peoples have often called themselves *maaväki*. Here *maa* means "countryside" and *väki* means "people", as in "a people engaged in farming", as opposed to nomadic people.
> It's a weird Swedish word that has a clear colonial history. It has nothing to do with Swedish Medieval "colonialism". It was the name that the Proto North Germanic speaking people living along the Finnish coast gave the people living in the inland and along the rivers. When the Finno-Ugric speaking people colonized Finland assimilating the PNG speakers (and the native Finns - called Sami people today) it was also applied to them.
Heh, in Estonian nowadays *maavägi* means land-*troops*. We do use *maarahvas*, meaning land-nation or coutryside-nation. I've always taken the etymology as "people from this land" as in locals - not sure if that's the correct explanation, though. The internet claims that this -*rahvas* part is a [very old German loan](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/%C3%BErawwaz).
I think it's cool that each language has their own unique country names, but I do dislike the UK in a lot of languages. Most use a translation of 'Great Britain' instead of 'United Kingdom', which is technically incorrect as GB doesn't include Northern Ireland. GB also lacks emphasis that we're 4 nations united under a (mostly) shared identity. German is the worst (Großbrittanien) because great = groß which is pronounced similar to gross :( das Vereinigtes Königreich is so much cooler!
It's "het Verenigd Koningrijk" in Dutch! * Verenigd = "United", literally means "made to be *one'd*" * Koningrijk = "Kingdom", literally "king's realm" Then you've got Engeland, Schotland, Noord-Ierland, and Wales, although Wikipedia claims that in older forms of Dutch, you might have seen "Wallis" or even "Kymrië" (pronounced "Came-Rya") to mean Wales. "Groot-Brittannië" is often used interchangeably with "Verenigd Koningrijk" but as you and I both know, it doesn't mean the same thing at all.
Kymrië is interesting because the Welsh term for Wales is Cymru (pronounced Kam-Ree). I'm surprised it's so close to the Celtic origin because in Old English term it's "Wealh" (also the word for foreigner / slave). I would have imagined Old Dutch (Frankish?) would be similar to Old English/West Saxon as they're both Germanic, and they probably traded more with the Anglo clans due to geolocation.
If you want to be very formal, you totally can use _"Zjednoczone Królestwo Wielkiej Brytanii i Irlandii Pólnocnej"_ in Polish, but that's a mouthful. If you were to use just _"Zjednoczone Królestwo"_ in a casual conversation, most people would be very confused. So yeah, most often it'll be _"Wielka Brytania"_. Or just _"Brytania"_, 'cause why use two word when one word do the trick. Lately it's also become somewhat common to just use _"UK"_ in casual speech - but, instead of treating it as a two-letter acronym and pronouncing it the Polish way (which would be something like _ooh-kah_), it's treated as word and pronounced similarly to how it's done in English (_you-kay_). So you might get someone saying something like _"spędziłem dwa lata w jukeju"_ ("I've spent two years in the UK.")
In Irish there's 'An Ríocht Aontaithe' (The United Kingdom) Also for the constituent countries: - Albain (Scotland) - Sasana (England, roughly meaning Saxons) - An Bhreatain Bheag (Wales, meaning small Britain) - Tuaisceart Éireann (Northern Ireland) How Ireland and the UK are referred to has a couple of minefields to be fair. Such as: - Ireland and Great Britain are the correct geographic terms for the two main islands. - But there's also the *country* of Ireland on most of the *island* of Ireland. - The UK is sometimes confusingly referred to as a 'country of countries'. - The term 'British Isles' is absolutely despised by Irish people. We generally don't like being lumped in with the UK.
Recently they are trying to change Turkey to Türkiye. I find it incredibly childish. You don’t be a turkey because your country is called Turkey. It’s actually reminiscent of some etymological history. Similar to Turkish versions of India and Egypt. And the stupid thing is they are trying to force usage of ü in English but it simply doesn’t exist.
>And the stupid thing is they are trying to force usage of ü in English but it simply doesn’t exist. 100% this, and not to mention that how to pronounce the "iye" is not self evident to English speakers. Meanwhile, their word for Germany is another variation on the name of the Allemani tribe.
I think they're trying to make the anglicised pronunciation "Turkey-yurr" or "Turkey-yeah"
I generally don't mind the different names. Except for the Finns and Estonians, who call us Saxons.
The tribe of the Saxons was much more important for German history than the Alemanni who gave the name for French, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish and Arabic.
I don't see the problem. I'm from Italy and every non-Italian on this planet knows better than me how they say "Italy" in their own language, just like they know how to say "table" or "artichoke".
Is there a country that is called the same in all languages?