I made this word up, but the real Japanese word for Deutschland is no better.
ドイッチュラント(doicchuranto)
They call the country ドイツ(doitsu), but sometimes they use the full word too 😂
This is actually because a lot of sounds from other languages don't exist in Japanese, so many countries are referred to by the closest approximation the language allows for. See also Ireland (Airurando), Spain (Supein), Portugal (Porutogaru), Mexico (Mekushiko), Brazil (Burajiru)...
Japanese is the most beautiful and the most ugly language in the world at the same time.
Beautiful when pronouncing wago, ugly when pronouncing gairago. Kango is mid
Better than how Chinese imported a bunch of European country names [first syllable of their name] + guo (國 = country) so you got faguo (France), deguo (Germany), and my personal favourite yingguo (UK, but named after England). Some are transliterations and a bit better (like Xibanya for Spain) but then there’s the Netherlands aka Helan.
I think character + country is a better way to name countries in Chinese. 英格兰 sounds similar to "England" in Mandarin, but in Cantonese it's less similar. In some dialects/languages it can be not similar at all.
英国 will always make sense because you already associate 英 with UK, so that's it.
Same with names. Yes, Zhōngcūn doesn't sound anything like Nakamura, but it has the same meaning as Nakamura. It means "village in the middle" even if you pronounce it differently.
My problem with 英國 (and 荷蘭) are just that they’re clearly naming the UK and Netherlands after England and Holland. It’s pretty common substitution anyway and an objectively reasonable mistake for the era, but it’s funny to me that they later realized “ah shit now we need a name for actual England” (英格蘭)
Would not at all surprise me if that’s the same scoop with the Netherlands. Like how we call them Dutch because originally “Dutch” was just any Germanic continental Europeans, but the Dutch were the vast majority of the ones interacting with Britain.
Would not at all surprise me if that’s the same scoop with the Netherlands. Like how we call them Dutch because originally “Dutch” was just any Germanic continental Europeans, but the Dutch were the vast majority of the ones interacting with Britain.
(/uj) 英格蘭/英吉利 came first, 英國 and the other names like 法國、德國 are all contractions. There are more proper names for the UK and the Netherlands, 聯合王國 and 尼德蘭 (Nídélán), but 英國 and 荷蘭 are easier to say and the habit is hard to change. Even in the US, I remember my 9th grade geography teacher said Holland instead of the Netherlands cause I guess that's what she grew up with.
this is it, and theyre right tbh.
As long as the change is somewhat natural or it's just being adapted to fit another language model it's really not an issue
but English, language of the colonizing british, has a lovely habit of making up entirely new names for countries as though the british were trying to make new names entirely, which is a very colonizer thing to do.
Deutschland = native (i think)
Doitsurando = adapted to be writable/speakable in standard japanese
Germany = "we didnt like your name so we made a new one"
Not Deutschland. The Gauls lived in the parts of Germany around the Rhine though, as well as Belgium and France, and would have used the root word for germania.
UK didn’t invent shit in this case.
you've inspired me to do a lil research and this is what i found!
100-44BC - Julias Ceasar's lifetime! He decided to give the people living across the rhine Germania
500-1050AD - This is the period of Old High German, one of the early forms of the german language. Notice it exists about 550 years **after** the death of Julias. This is where the word *diutisc* comes from. It was used to distinguish german speakers from latin speakers (romans)
1866-1871AD - Germany as we know it is born. They give themselves the name *Deutschland*, which is derived from the word *diutisc* above.
the germans were given the name germans by julias ceasar as the leader of the romans. romans fucking hated germans. 550 years after he dies, the germans decide on a new word to call themselves. around **1,300 years later** the nations are unified into what we now know as Germany. they called it *Deutschland*.
This means that yes, the germans DID call themself deutsch from the very start of the country, and not only that, but they were calling themself something other than german since before they even became a unified countries. the fact that we call germany germany is kinda fucked up when you look into it, considering it was essentially the name given to them by their oppressors, and after FINALLY achieving their own nation and officially having their own chosen name, english speakers turn around and say "nah that names dumb we're gonna keep using the name you hate"
You have successfully made me learn that it's even more fucked up than I thought that we call germany germany instead of deutschland.
You’re conveniently ignoring the fact that no fewer than two German tribes - the Angles and the Saxons, completely conquered England and could have chosen a different name for Germany in the language in that period of Old High German, and nah they stuck with Germania.
And also conveniently ignoring that there’s a 500+ year gap between the first instance of a predecessor of Deutsch and the development of the word Germania.
Nobody knows what Germania was called by the Germanii, the tribes which lived there migrated -
Often - into Roman territory and settled.
true, spanish never does this. very common to hear something like 'viajé a ราชอาณาจักรไทย hace dos meses'. usually with perfect native pronunciation in speaking and convincing handwriting if written down. sometimes even calligraphy
Depends on the accent. In some regions *ll* i actually pronounced like a /ʎ/, and in Rioplatense Spanish, it's famously pronounced as /ʃ/ or /ʒ/. But it's true that "iu" isn't an ideal spelling either. It was just the closest thing I could think of within Spanish orthography.
Especially Korean doesn't do it. Especially with Egypt, Greece, and India. But If that person thinks Hangook is South Korea, they probably don't speak Korean.
Probably! Even just nominalizing ethnic or national adjectivals makes us uncomfy so it’s pretty easy to invent a new slur that we will feel weird about immediately. Like I know people who refuse to say “Dane” in favour of “Danish person” lmao
Hanguk doesnt mean "South Korea" it just means "Korea". "South Korea" would be "Nam Han" if you are South Korean or ""Nam Choson" if you are from North Korea.
Ah thanks, that makes sense. So if you asked someone from South Korea where they’re from, they would never say 한국? Or would they say that, but that would just mean somewhere on the peninsula without distinguishing North vs. South?
(My in-laws are Korean, so I want to make sure I get this right. Fortunately I don’t think I’ve made this mistake talking to them, but I want to avoid sounding dumb in the future!)
Edit: fixed typo
Edit2: If I, as an American, wanted to ask someone if they grew up in Korea, what name would I use?
They would just say 한국. Hypothetically this could mean they are from anywhere in the peninsula but obviously in practice, its gonna mean someone from South Korea 99% of the time bc North Koreans don't have the right to travel freely and there are (IIRC) only around a hundred thousand North Koreans living outside of North Korea. 남한 (Nam Han, ie South Korea) for the most part is only used to disambiguate in contexts where it would be unclear which side you are talking about, or where emphasis is required.
>If I, as an American, wanted to ask someone if they grew up in Korea, what name would I use?
한국, saying 남한 wouldn't provoke offense or anything, but it will just be taken as assumed.
Yeah that made me a bit suspicious because in Mandarin they are called Hanguo 韓國 (south) and Chaoxian 朝鮮 (north) but afaik no one else uses that convention.
Also idk what Koreans call all those European countries, but I can tell you their Mandarin names are as bad or worse than their English ones.
Especially hilarious to do this with Korean where, for example
Germany is called Dokil.
"Hellas" is called Geuriseu.
America is called Miguk.
France is called peurangseu.
Australia is called hoju.
Ok, Dokil has to have something to do with Deutschland, Geuriseu and Peurangseu are transliterations of Greece and France, Miguk is like Meiguo, but WTF is Hoju????
Ju means state, like a nation state, eg the State of Ohio is called OhaioJu in Korean.
The Ho is a shortening of Australia's original name in Korean, 濠斯太剌利亞 /Hosataerallia /호사태할리아.
Dont ask me why the chose a character that's pronounced like [ho] instead of one pronounced as just [o], or just [a] because I dont know. Perhaps theres been some pronunciation shifts since the name was chosen, or perhaps the name was chosen by Chinese or Japanese speakers and the character 濠 doesn't or didnt have an [h] sound in it in their language.
just like how english is the only language to have ever changed over time or get altered by the influence of invading countries, unlike every other language on earth which sprung into existence exactly as we hear it today
i feel like words and names are a bit different and it always feels a bit fucked up when someone changes a significant name.
like, *Nihon* is the name of a country cared for deeply by millions of people for example. They spend hundreds of years cherishing their land and culture and encompassing everything their culture has created and pieced together, honoring it all under the name *Nihon*
Then one day a bunch of random people show up and ask where they are, and instead of accepting the name given, they say "oh thats kinda dumb lol youre Japan now"
i've always wondered, but never looked up the etymology. i think the idea of it being an absolute *butchering* of England is just funnier than whatever the truth is.
[we hebben een serieus probleem](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRDqHOD8zJh7OVhFxkjg61mgWC-Rv3BVPTU9h5LnN3QQLrppFqfW_kEFWs&s=10)
You can get Nederland back when you come back with a real language.
Kind of a weird thing to get so upset about when the names of countries in languages from countries far away are always kinda weird. China is called 중국 jungguk in Korean because they're right next to each other. The US called it China because of their relatively disconnected history. Besides, we can't exactly start calling one country "middle kingdom" just because that's what they were known as in ancient history. Yeah, the status quo is weird, but I don't know how it could be any way else.
It is not far from reality.
In the early days of the CCP, when Li Lishan tried to recruit miners in Anyuan to join his communist bloc, he found that one of the strategies is to join a local secret society. This secret society was well respected by the miners because they basically worked like a trade union, negotiating with the mine bosses to improve miners' pay and living conditions.
After joining the secret society, he started giving martial art lessons to miners for free, and in exchange the miners had to attend a discuss group afterwards.
Many young miners become his disciples. When people in Anyuan asked where they learned the martial art from, they replied "Our master (師傅) is from Li Ling (Li Lishan's hometown) but our founding grandmaster (祖師) is from the land far far away. One must sail across the seven seas to see him. The grandmaster must be more than one hundred years old by now. His name is grandmaster Ma, the bearded elder"
On May day of the same year, Li Lishan and his disciples hold a parade with banners calling for worker's rights and at the same time showed off their martial arts. They also carried a palanquin with a picture of their founding grandmaster Ma.
(Source, Anyuan: mining china's revolutionary tradition by Elizabeth Perry)
Lmao. They are so close to calling all languages “incorrect” that once they realize that French, German, Spanish, Swahili, basically every fucking language on earth, has a different name for different places.
English bad because *Latin borrowing, Latin borrowing, Latin borrowing, Persian->Greek->Latin borrowing, Portuguese borrowings with like five intermediaries each*.
Also I think you'll find that Kemet is wrongly called "Masr" in Arabic.
It’s the Korean reading of 中国, like how these other languages read 中国 (same word in all languages, just pronounced differently) as
Chuugoku in Japanese
Jungguk in Korean
Trung Quốc in Vietnamese
Zunggwok in Cantonese
Tiong-kok in Hokkien
Tson-qoq in Shanghainese
But they argue the correct name for the country is another languages name. Then they give examples of other countries in their native languages, defeating his original point.
Hmm I wonder why Germany is called “Moral Country” and America is called “Beautiful Country” in Chinese, or why France is called “Buddha Country” and Russia called “Dew Country” in Japanese? /s
/uj "Joseon" is the name of the dynasty that reigned over the Korean peninsula for many centuries and it was how pretty much every korean called their country until around the end of WWII, when the cold war dick-measuring contest started and the peninsula got divided.
Long story short, the North decided to stick with the name they had been using for centuries meanwhile the south decided to adopt another name that had been quite trendy among independence movements during Japanese occupation, "Hanguk" (literally just Han country). Nowadays, people in NK call themselves Joseon and SK "Nam Joseon" (South Joseon) and similarly SK calls themselves "Hanguk" and NK "Bukhan" (North Han)
Hanguk is also short for daehanminguk, which is derived from daehanjaeguk or the Korean Empire. People at the time still called it Joseon though since the Japanese colonised Korea less then two decades after the Korean Empire was established.
Choson is also the first name of Korea, it was originally the name of the First Nation founded at Asadal by Dangun Wanggeom (mythically) before Yi Song Kye decided to reuse it when he launched a coup against the King of Koryo
Happy Cake Day!
And cause of North Korea's, Oopsies Sorry I mean Choseon's long-standing isolationism, Korean is not mutually intelligible between the two countries
Many North Korean defectors have trouble understanding South Korean Korean at first
Scholars did find a 38% difference in everyday words between the two dialects.
North Korean uses Russian loan words and South Korea uses English loan words.
Writing is mostly the same. Pronunciation and lexicon have diverged. Spelling on only handful of words has diverged, reflecting the divergence in pronunciation. Example, the North Korean word for woman is 녀자, (nyoja) while in SK the word is 여자 (yoja).
This is unironically a political debate in Spain. Catalan and Galician nationalists, and sympathizers all over the country, argue (or even think it should be assumed) that Galician and Catalan toponyms should NEVER be translated into Spanish, even if they have a very established and widely used translation, as it is imperialistic and disrespectul. Of course, they still say Londres, Nueva York, Varsovia, China, Pekín, Japón and hundreds of other translated international toponyms.
Jungguk is 100000% Korean based off of its etymology and sound profile. Its also an exonym, and dont pretend other names in korean aren't exonyms as a whole either.
China's endonym is zhōngguó, they put up a good effort though.
Fun fact of the day Egypt is the evolution of Aígyptos around Greek/Roman occupation (332 BCE) which is older than Misr and became popular around the 7th century CE. You can often tell how countries were introduced to Egypt based on whether their word is more similar to Aígyptos (I.e Yegiptos, Egipto, Egypt) or Misr (I.e Misir, Mysyr, Mitzrayim) Both were foreign names for Kemet meaning black sand which is why Egyptian religion is called Kemetic Polythesim or Kemitism.
Side note, I think switching to try and refer to people as they refer to themselves is awesome (well, as close as we can get because, you know, phonology). I also get that this is probably colored by colonialism. But every language contains exonyms. Come on.
English speakers do it way more, because of the soft power of the language.
Everyone does it, English speakers do it by far the most, in my fairly broad experience of language communities, and are the most resistant to suggestions that they should change.
Nihon にほん/Japan
Not just limited to countries either.
Ananas/pineapple
Football/soccer
Americans/English super arrogant with their naming preexisting terms
This has always upset me about English. Mexica, the name of the "Aztecs" that they gave themselves. It's not that hard, hell - English does this with other language's words all the time.
If Jungguk is the correct name for China then why do they call it Zhongguo in China? Are they stupid?
\\uj I think the poster believes that it's OK to do phonetic change, but not semantic change. So "Doitsurando" is OK, but "Germany" isn't
The Doitsurando fucking killed me. Greetings, a diseased Duitsurandoer.
I made this word up, but the real Japanese word for Deutschland is no better. ドイッチュラント(doicchuranto) They call the country ドイツ(doitsu), but sometimes they use the full word too 😂
This is actually because a lot of sounds from other languages don't exist in Japanese, so many countries are referred to by the closest approximation the language allows for. See also Ireland (Airurando), Spain (Supein), Portugal (Porutogaru), Mexico (Mekushiko), Brazil (Burajiru)...
Japanese is the most beautiful and the most ugly language in the world at the same time. Beautiful when pronouncing wago, ugly when pronouncing gairago. Kango is mid
Oranda for the Netherlands because dumbfuck portuguese can't pronounce the H and don't know what our country is even called
Same with the Br*t*sh Who the fuck says Holland fr??
They call Mexico by a transliteration of the English pronunciation of its name
Better than how Chinese imported a bunch of European country names [first syllable of their name] + guo (國 = country) so you got faguo (France), deguo (Germany), and my personal favourite yingguo (UK, but named after England). Some are transliterations and a bit better (like Xibanya for Spain) but then there’s the Netherlands aka Helan.
I think character + country is a better way to name countries in Chinese. 英格兰 sounds similar to "England" in Mandarin, but in Cantonese it's less similar. In some dialects/languages it can be not similar at all. 英国 will always make sense because you already associate 英 with UK, so that's it. Same with names. Yes, Zhōngcūn doesn't sound anything like Nakamura, but it has the same meaning as Nakamura. It means "village in the middle" even if you pronounce it differently.
My problem with 英國 (and 荷蘭) are just that they’re clearly naming the UK and Netherlands after England and Holland. It’s pretty common substitution anyway and an objectively reasonable mistake for the era, but it’s funny to me that they later realized “ah shit now we need a name for actual England” (英格蘭)
I am gonna make a wild guess and assume that the sailors from the British Empire called themselves English and that's that 😂😂
Would not at all surprise me if that’s the same scoop with the Netherlands. Like how we call them Dutch because originally “Dutch” was just any Germanic continental Europeans, but the Dutch were the vast majority of the ones interacting with Britain.
Would not at all surprise me if that’s the same scoop with the Netherlands. Like how we call them Dutch because originally “Dutch” was just any Germanic continental Europeans, but the Dutch were the vast majority of the ones interacting with Britain.
Dutch means Deutsch 😎
(/uj) 英格蘭/英吉利 came first, 英國 and the other names like 法國、德國 are all contractions. There are more proper names for the UK and the Netherlands, 聯合王國 and 尼德蘭 (Nídélán), but 英國 and 荷蘭 are easier to say and the habit is hard to change. Even in the US, I remember my 9th grade geography teacher said Holland instead of the Netherlands cause I guess that's what she grew up with.
In Chinese it’s Deguo.
Do Chinese people care that English speakers call their country "China"? I thought it was a non-issue.
It is not an issue 😂
"India" is just a very long series of phonetic changes from "Hindustan" by that logic
It is, but it's still an exonym
this is it, and theyre right tbh. As long as the change is somewhat natural or it's just being adapted to fit another language model it's really not an issue but English, language of the colonizing british, has a lovely habit of making up entirely new names for countries as though the british were trying to make new names entirely, which is a very colonizer thing to do. Deutschland = native (i think) Doitsurando = adapted to be writable/speakable in standard japanese Germany = "we didnt like your name so we made a new one"
Germany comes from Latin, where it was called Germania, which was borrowed from the Gallic languages.
what did the germans call it?
Not Deutschland. The Gauls lived in the parts of Germany around the Rhine though, as well as Belgium and France, and would have used the root word for germania. UK didn’t invent shit in this case.
you've inspired me to do a lil research and this is what i found! 100-44BC - Julias Ceasar's lifetime! He decided to give the people living across the rhine Germania 500-1050AD - This is the period of Old High German, one of the early forms of the german language. Notice it exists about 550 years **after** the death of Julias. This is where the word *diutisc* comes from. It was used to distinguish german speakers from latin speakers (romans) 1866-1871AD - Germany as we know it is born. They give themselves the name *Deutschland*, which is derived from the word *diutisc* above. the germans were given the name germans by julias ceasar as the leader of the romans. romans fucking hated germans. 550 years after he dies, the germans decide on a new word to call themselves. around **1,300 years later** the nations are unified into what we now know as Germany. they called it *Deutschland*. This means that yes, the germans DID call themself deutsch from the very start of the country, and not only that, but they were calling themself something other than german since before they even became a unified countries. the fact that we call germany germany is kinda fucked up when you look into it, considering it was essentially the name given to them by their oppressors, and after FINALLY achieving their own nation and officially having their own chosen name, english speakers turn around and say "nah that names dumb we're gonna keep using the name you hate" You have successfully made me learn that it's even more fucked up than I thought that we call germany germany instead of deutschland.
You’re conveniently ignoring the fact that no fewer than two German tribes - the Angles and the Saxons, completely conquered England and could have chosen a different name for Germany in the language in that period of Old High German, and nah they stuck with Germania. And also conveniently ignoring that there’s a 500+ year gap between the first instance of a predecessor of Deutsch and the development of the word Germania. Nobody knows what Germania was called by the Germanii, the tribes which lived there migrated - Often - into Roman territory and settled.
This is such a chronically online take
idk it seems pretty fair to have the take "we should respect the names people give themselves"
-5 Social Credit Points
What? They call China Jungkook? No way 😧
Omg chingoose did jungkook oppar.. name china? Maybe because junggug oppar was so big, put corea and khina on the map!
r/kpoopheads is leaking..
They call India RM
Wrong, Deutschland's true name is Alemania (the same mania as WrestleMania)
I think they even have an Ale Mania every october called octoberfest
🤲 👑 🤲
LMAO
Isn't oktoberfest in September? Or something like that but not October
Stupid english call England England instead of [Albania](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion) as the Romans wanted.
Ne, Deitschlånd
Na, its Německo
Saksa is Saksa!
No, it's dutchland or tyskland
Yep, just English does this. And only English. Every other language is perfect.
true, spanish never does this. very common to hear something like 'viajé a ราชอาณาจักรไทย hace dos meses'. usually with perfect native pronunciation in speaking and convincing handwriting if written down. sometimes even calligraphy
In Spanish they correctly say "Doichland", "Súomi" and "Di Iunaited Steits of América".
It is "Di Llunitated Estetes of America" I think
Depends on the accent. In some regions *ll* i actually pronounced like a /ʎ/, and in Rioplatense Spanish, it's famously pronounced as /ʃ/ or /ʒ/. But it's true that "iu" isn't an ideal spelling either. It was just the closest thing I could think of within Spanish orthography.
rioplatense is peak
I have definitely heard /ʒuˈnatɛd.ɛsˈtets/ before lmao
Catalan representation love to see it.
As a Spanish language learner, sometimes it sounds like that when someone is speaking to me. Either that or a motorcycle being revved.
Especially Korean doesn't do it. Especially with Egypt, Greece, and India. But If that person thinks Hangook is South Korea, they probably don't speak Korean.
That is an unfortunate misspelling of Hanguk
What's so unfortunate about my transliteration which you confuse with misspelling?
The latter half of it is used as a slur against Koreans in English; it's like choosing to spell 'Nigeria' with two 'g's
TIL a new slur to add to my arsenal
wait a minute... does this mean that i can invent slurs in english by doubling letters in the spelling of nationalities? 🤔
fucking englla 🤬🏴👎
Probably! Even just nominalizing ethnic or national adjectivals makes us uncomfy so it’s pretty easy to invent a new slur that we will feel weird about immediately. Like I know people who refuse to say “Dane” in favour of “Danish person” lmao
You should probably look up the etymology for the slur against Koreans. The transliteration is fine.
And Spain. And Finland. And Hungary. And Albania.
Out of curiosity, what do you mean about Korea? I thought “Hanguk” was the name for the country? Or at least *a* name.
Hanguk doesnt mean "South Korea" it just means "Korea". "South Korea" would be "Nam Han" if you are South Korean or ""Nam Choson" if you are from North Korea.
Ah thanks, that makes sense. So if you asked someone from South Korea where they’re from, they would never say 한국? Or would they say that, but that would just mean somewhere on the peninsula without distinguishing North vs. South? (My in-laws are Korean, so I want to make sure I get this right. Fortunately I don’t think I’ve made this mistake talking to them, but I want to avoid sounding dumb in the future!) Edit: fixed typo Edit2: If I, as an American, wanted to ask someone if they grew up in Korea, what name would I use?
They would just say 한국. Hypothetically this could mean they are from anywhere in the peninsula but obviously in practice, its gonna mean someone from South Korea 99% of the time bc North Koreans don't have the right to travel freely and there are (IIRC) only around a hundred thousand North Koreans living outside of North Korea. 남한 (Nam Han, ie South Korea) for the most part is only used to disambiguate in contexts where it would be unclear which side you are talking about, or where emphasis is required. >If I, as an American, wanted to ask someone if they grew up in Korea, what name would I use? 한국, saying 남한 wouldn't provoke offense or anything, but it will just be taken as assumed.
Yeah that made me a bit suspicious because in Mandarin they are called Hanguo 韓國 (south) and Chaoxian 朝鮮 (north) but afaik no one else uses that convention. Also idk what Koreans call all those European countries, but I can tell you their Mandarin names are as bad or worse than their English ones.
That's the case in PRC Mandarin, but not in ROC Mandarin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names\_of\_Korea#Greater\_China.
I’m guessing those would be 北韓國 and 南韓國?
Especially hilarious to do this with Korean where, for example Germany is called Dokil. "Hellas" is called Geuriseu. America is called Miguk. France is called peurangseu. Australia is called hoju.
Actually, "France" is called P*rangseu.
Ok, Dokil has to have something to do with Deutschland, Geuriseu and Peurangseu are transliterations of Greece and France, Miguk is like Meiguo, but WTF is Hoju????
Ju means state, like a nation state, eg the State of Ohio is called OhaioJu in Korean. The Ho is a shortening of Australia's original name in Korean, 濠斯太剌利亞 /Hosataerallia /호사태할리아. Dont ask me why the chose a character that's pronounced like [ho] instead of one pronounced as just [o], or just [a] because I dont know. Perhaps theres been some pronunciation shifts since the name was chosen, or perhaps the name was chosen by Chinese or Japanese speakers and the character 濠 doesn't or didnt have an [h] sound in it in their language.
Korea be like: "Australia, I'm going to call you Homer Jr.... Your friends could call you Hoju"
Włochy🇮🇹 Kurwa!
just like how english is the only language to have ever changed over time or get altered by the influence of invading countries, unlike every other language on earth which sprung into existence exactly as we hear it today
Different languages having different words... Filthy...
Absolutely foul
Why did the chicken cross the road ? For fowl purposes !
i feel like words and names are a bit different and it always feels a bit fucked up when someone changes a significant name. like, *Nihon* is the name of a country cared for deeply by millions of people for example. They spend hundreds of years cherishing their land and culture and encompassing everything their culture has created and pieced together, honoring it all under the name *Nihon* Then one day a bunch of random people show up and ask where they are, and instead of accepting the name given, they say "oh thats kinda dumb lol youre Japan now"
yeah but "America" is wrongly called "Beautiful country" in Korea and "Rice country" in Japan, checkmate atheists
I'm still waiting to figure out what exactly an 'igirisu' is, though
it's short for キリギリス (not to be confused with キルギス, neighbor of our beloved ウズベキスタン).
i've always wondered, but never looked up the etymology. i think the idea of it being an absolute *butchering* of England is just funnier than whatever the truth is.
Tbh I haven't thought about it much so this was my thought as well
like actually actually or just jerk?
It's from Portuguese Ingles.
Deutschland is rightly called “Doicholandia” in Spanish
Same with Italian except it’s “Germania”
Same with Portuguese except it's "CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP GET PREGNANT GET PREGNANT GET PREGNANT."
Tesão
Tenzionne 🤌
Com licença, que porra é isso?
Um meme da deep web 👍
so true. america ❌ rice country 😍👍✅ かわいい ですね
Language😒 Language, Asia😁😁😁
America is wrongly called "Amerika" in German
In my conlang America is Murica
And we are all living in it - Rammstein
Popping in here to say that the constitution of India specifically mentions that India and Bharat are both acceptable names for the country.
But… but English BAD!!
That's great mate, but have you checked the constitution of Bharat to see if it says the same?
Kemet is wrongly called Masr in Arabic.
coptoids seething!! (pls don't kill me this is a joke)
Too late. I've already killed you.
*crying emoji being vaporized*
[I was thinking more like this.](https://youtu.be/dNQs_Bef_V8?si=134XYGg_tSVEFiNF)
How can we massacre the beautiful name of " Nederland " and call it " The Netherlands "
You mean the Pays-Bas?
Who is Bas and why does he have to pay
[we hebben een serieus probleem](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRDqHOD8zJh7OVhFxkjg61mgWC-Rv3BVPTU9h5LnN3QQLrppFqfW_kEFWs&s=10) You can get Nederland back when you come back with a real language.
The United States is wrongly called America in America.
love this comment in so many ways.
Also the United Kingdom is wrongly called a "united kingdom" in the United Kingdom
Only in the United States and Canada.
Isn’t it actually called The United States….. of America?
“America” is the whole continent (North America, Central America, South America). Add the “United States”part to get the name of the actual country.
Kind of a weird thing to get so upset about when the names of countries in languages from countries far away are always kinda weird. China is called 중국 jungguk in Korean because they're right next to each other. The US called it China because of their relatively disconnected history. Besides, we can't exactly start calling one country "middle kingdom" just because that's what they were known as in ancient history. Yeah, the status quo is weird, but I don't know how it could be any way else.
The correct name was the Celestial Empire. Now, it has become the People's Republic, one has to call it the Celestial People's Republic of China.
Sounds like a Wuxia socialist country
It is not far from reality. In the early days of the CCP, when Li Lishan tried to recruit miners in Anyuan to join his communist bloc, he found that one of the strategies is to join a local secret society. This secret society was well respected by the miners because they basically worked like a trade union, negotiating with the mine bosses to improve miners' pay and living conditions. After joining the secret society, he started giving martial art lessons to miners for free, and in exchange the miners had to attend a discuss group afterwards. Many young miners become his disciples. When people in Anyuan asked where they learned the martial art from, they replied "Our master (師傅) is from Li Ling (Li Lishan's hometown) but our founding grandmaster (祖師) is from the land far far away. One must sail across the seven seas to see him. The grandmaster must be more than one hundred years old by now. His name is grandmaster Ma, the bearded elder" On May day of the same year, Li Lishan and his disciples hold a parade with banners calling for worker's rights and at the same time showed off their martial arts. They also carried a palanquin with a picture of their founding grandmaster Ma. (Source, Anyuan: mining china's revolutionary tradition by Elizabeth Perry)
oooh the CPRC. ive updated my country rolodex, xiexie wo de pengyou
Even less likely to work in English 😂😂
Lmao. They are so close to calling all languages “incorrect” that once they realize that French, German, Spanish, Swahili, basically every fucking language on earth, has a different name for different places.
English bad because *Latin borrowing, Latin borrowing, Latin borrowing, Persian->Greek->Latin borrowing, Portuguese borrowings with like five intermediaries each*. Also I think you'll find that Kemet is wrongly called "Masr" in Arabic.
Jungguk is not the name of China.... zhongguo... anyone?
It’s the Korean reading of 中国, like how these other languages read 中国 (same word in all languages, just pronounced differently) as Chuugoku in Japanese Jungguk in Korean Trung Quốc in Vietnamese Zunggwok in Cantonese Tiong-kok in Hokkien Tson-qoq in Shanghainese
I guess the English reading is China, then.
The English reading of 秦 would be China, more accurately.
But they argue the correct name for the country is another languages name. Then they give examples of other countries in their native languages, defeating his original point.
Tson-qoq sounds like one of those totally-not-incest gay porn channels
They do say that in the last line that’s cut off, but this is right after they said Jungguk is the correct name
It actually reads very similar to the Cantonese pronunciation. Zunggwok.
That's because Cantonese is closer to Middle Chinese than Mandarin, and Viet/Korean/Japanese loanwords are mostly from Middle Chinese.
Virgin South Korea, occupied American puppet state: 폴란드(pollandeu) Chad North Korea, great leader communism: 뽈스까(ppolseukka)
/uj wouldn't Ελλάδα be more appropriate in this context than Ελλάς?
Yes είναι Ελλάδα!
Yep "Cheko" is absolutely fine, it's so close to Česká republika and totally not just Czechoslovakia cut in half, superior Koreans have done it again
Hmm I wonder why Germany is called “Moral Country” and America is called “Beautiful Country” in Chinese, or why France is called “Buddha Country” and Russia called “Dew Country” in Japanese? /s
Yeah Russia drinks that gamer fuel mountain dew
I mean its not incorrect, but calling exonyms wrong just lacks any nuance. Theres a history behind every one of those names, some good and some bad.
I would argue we call all the Western Hemisphere countries by their actual name. Its a hempisphere thing ppl
Germany is an obvious exception to that. Spain is 'Espana' in Spanish, which is closer, but still not the same.
Thats the eastern hemisphere bro
Most of Iberia is west of Greenwich
Das ist gut ja?
>Spain
pain
Its called china because thats where they make those ceramic plates and stuff
/uj The damage done by the English word "Dutch" is astounding.
Why even are north and south Korea so different tho I'm curious
They flipped a coin. South Korea got K-pop music. North Korea got Kim Jong Un.
Who needs k Pop when you can have the GLORIOUS LEADER #🤴
/uj "Joseon" is the name of the dynasty that reigned over the Korean peninsula for many centuries and it was how pretty much every korean called their country until around the end of WWII, when the cold war dick-measuring contest started and the peninsula got divided. Long story short, the North decided to stick with the name they had been using for centuries meanwhile the south decided to adopt another name that had been quite trendy among independence movements during Japanese occupation, "Hanguk" (literally just Han country). Nowadays, people in NK call themselves Joseon and SK "Nam Joseon" (South Joseon) and similarly SK calls themselves "Hanguk" and NK "Bukhan" (North Han)
Hanguk is also short for daehanminguk, which is derived from daehanjaeguk or the Korean Empire. People at the time still called it Joseon though since the Japanese colonised Korea less then two decades after the Korean Empire was established.
Choson is also the first name of Korea, it was originally the name of the First Nation founded at Asadal by Dangun Wanggeom (mythically) before Yi Song Kye decided to reuse it when he launched a coup against the King of Koryo
Happy Cake Day! And cause of North Korea's, Oopsies Sorry I mean Choseon's long-standing isolationism, Korean is not mutually intelligible between the two countries Many North Korean defectors have trouble understanding South Korean Korean at first
Scholars did find a 38% difference in everyday words between the two dialects. North Korean uses Russian loan words and South Korea uses English loan words.
They are mutually intelligible tho, its only somewhat difficult to understand each other. It's not like they need interpreters to talk to each other
That's true! I mostly meant things like slang and loan words, I should have specified
Are they written the same and pronunciation has changed or are both different?
Writing is mostly the same. Pronunciation and lexicon have diverged. Spelling on only handful of words has diverged, reflecting the divergence in pronunciation. Example, the North Korean word for woman is 녀자, (nyoja) while in SK the word is 여자 (yoja).
they have different official names iirc. North Korea still uses "Joseon" as a toponym.
INGUUUURLAND is wrongly called "England" in American
Tbh I’ve always wondered why languages give countries different names like this though 🤔
This is unironically a political debate in Spain. Catalan and Galician nationalists, and sympathizers all over the country, argue (or even think it should be assumed) that Galician and Catalan toponyms should NEVER be translated into Spanish, even if they have a very established and widely used translation, as it is imperialistic and disrespectul. Of course, they still say Londres, Nueva York, Varsovia, China, Pekín, Japón and hundreds of other translated international toponyms.
uh, its clearly Cathay.
Because everyone should be named after BTS oppars 😍😍 jungle book is great leader of jungkokland 🛐🛐
I agree. English should've also been a Sino-Xenic language. Writing English with Chinese characters would've been so cool.
[If English was written like Chinese](https://www.zompist.com/yingzi/yingzi.htm)
How does one even go this long without learning how exonyms work
It's totally not like the korean words for some of the other countries they list are loanwords from english. That would be crazy.
Jungguk is 100000% Korean based off of its etymology and sound profile. Its also an exonym, and dont pretend other names in korean aren't exonyms as a whole either. China's endonym is zhōngguó, they put up a good effort though.
Its true, the english language is made to confuse you. especially when looking back in history its almost impossible to figure out what is where.
It's almost like we speak different languages or something.
omg in chinese they wrongly call america meiguo. i mean cant you get it right? total sadness
I cannot read Hangul so I can only imagine that 미국 is pronounced exactly as /juˈnaɪtɪd steɪts ʌv əˈmɛrəkə/
Nobody tell them about exonyms
Actually, Hellas isn’t even the right word. Greece is called “ellinika” in Greek
Who’s gonna tell them most languages do this
Why do Koreans wrongly not refer to their country as Korea? Are they stupid?
Off topic but "The hellenic republic" sounds so much cooler than "Greece" which just sounds like the musical grease 💀🙏
So the German Government and Media lately switched over to using more Autonymes, which sucks, why say Belarus, when Weißrussland is such a banger.
I was born in Polska, but I was in Rossiya, Sverige, Deutschland and Danmark. I want to travel to Nippon and zhoungguo in the nearest future.
AH EXONYM
Isn't the USA "wrongly" called Miguk in Korea...?
Fun fact of the day Egypt is the evolution of Aígyptos around Greek/Roman occupation (332 BCE) which is older than Misr and became popular around the 7th century CE. You can often tell how countries were introduced to Egypt based on whether their word is more similar to Aígyptos (I.e Yegiptos, Egipto, Egypt) or Misr (I.e Misir, Mysyr, Mitzrayim) Both were foreign names for Kemet meaning black sand which is why Egyptian religion is called Kemetic Polythesim or Kemitism.
mom found the exonym drawer
Ah, yes. English. The only language ever to contain exonyms.
Side note, I think switching to try and refer to people as they refer to themselves is awesome (well, as close as we can get because, you know, phonology). I also get that this is probably colored by colonialism. But every language contains exonyms. Come on.
English speakers do it way more, because of the soft power of the language. Everyone does it, English speakers do it by far the most, in my fairly broad experience of language communities, and are the most resistant to suggestions that they should change.
Nihon にほん/Japan Not just limited to countries either. Ananas/pineapple Football/soccer Americans/English super arrogant with their naming preexisting terms
This has always upset me about English. Mexica, the name of the "Aztecs" that they gave themselves. It's not that hard, hell - English does this with other language's words all the time.