Is there any reason people don’t use a language’s or country’s name in its own tongue. I.E., why is it German, not Deutsch? It’s not that hard to pronounce. And Rome, not Roma…there are countless examples. I can see a change if it would be impossible (or just extremely difficult) to pronounce, but i don’t see any othe rreasons…
People have been coining their own names for other peoples and countries since the begining of time. The Eskimos got their name from an Algonquin Indian name ‘eskimaw’ for them meaning "Eaters of raw flesh" and the Russians got their name from an ancient Finnish name for them, possibly ruuotsi meaning something like "Rowers" or "Oarsmen." "Japan" appears to come from a Chinese name meaning "Land of the rising sun" by way of Italian Cipango. The Japanese themselves call their country ‘Nippon.’
Peoples who don’t know each other too well are likely to use their own names for the other side. Thus, the English were ‘Saesneig’ to the Welsh (a corruption of Saxons) and the Welsh were ‘Wealhas’ to the English (a generic term used by all of the Germanic peoples for Celtic and Romance language speakers possibly from ‘Volcae’, a Gaulish tribe).
Unlike the English and the French, the Germans were not a united people for a long time so there was a tendency in Europe and even America to call them by many names other than "Theodisc" (Later German Deutsch; Italian Tedesco). Some of them were ‘Alemani (French Allemand),’ Old French ‘Les Germains,’ ‘Saxons’, ‘Moravians,’ ‘Prussians’ and ‘Pennsylvania Dutch.’ The Slavic peoples originally called them Nemetsi meaning "dumb" but in this context" "dumb" in the sense that they did not speak or understand Slavic.
Sometimes the sheer popularity of a name may be the determining factor. For example, the Swiss call themselves "Helvetians" from an ancient Gaulish tribe the Helvetii but the name has never really caught on outside the country. Only the Romanians call them "Elvet’ienii" and every one else calls them something like "swiss" or "schwyz". The Greeks call themselves "Hellenes" but most other countries consider this an archaic name for them which conjures up images of Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey. They prefer to call them "Greeks, grecs, griegos, greci , gret’i etc. from the Latin name for them instead, Graecus.
Lastly, the politically correct crowd almost always prefers to call people and countries by the names they use for themselves. The Lapps are now Saami and Burma is now Myanmar and it looks like we’ll have to start calling "the rape of Nanking (1937)" "the rape of Nanjing." . The extremists in the group would even like to pronounce Afghanistan as Off-hahn-ee-stahn the way a native Dari speaker there does. Talk about overdoing it! :)
It’s also quite interesting to try to find out what the source language is for the name of country X (and or language X) in language Y. For example, i was quite surprised that quite a few country names in Farsi are derived from French (while a lot of names in French are derived from other languages in their turn).
[quote author=frank link=board=translate;num=1120883007;start=0#2 date=07/09/05 at 04:37:13]quite a few country names in Farsi are derived from French
The reason is, I think, that French used to be the language of international diplomacy, and of culture. When, for example, printing was introduced in Iran, some of the first books printed were translations of Dumas père, Molière and Voltaire.
A large number of loan words got into Persian from not only French from the 19th century, as part of the process of modernization of culture and society in Persia. France did not have the political and military influence of Russia or Britain on Persia, but French was regarded as a model for culture.
Also, French was virtually the only language secondary-school students took for six years to meet the European-language requirement, until it was replaced by English after the Second World War.
The estimated number of French loan words in Persian varies between 800 and 3000-4000! They must have come from writing, because final and consonants and inital h are pronounced in Persian, not in French, like konsert and hotel. A very common French loan is thank you, mersi.
Brian’s explanation deals quite well with the issue. But, J_22_M, you point out the main problem… If I’m fluently speaking in Spanish, I will obviously pronounce "Wasinton" when speaking of the capital of the USA. It will never be written thus in Spanish, because we’ve already identified this pronunciation of ours to "Washington". Now, imagine this in a period of History when new names were orally transmitted for a long time before they got a writing that somehow fixed a bit the pronounciation. Many names from the early times of our respective languages are due to that.
Also, we tend to adapt the names of places to our own fashion of wording. How many names of places in English finish in a vowel that you actually pronounce like "Roma"? London, Liverpool, Reading, Springfield, etc… Same applies for German, and the results are "Rome" and "Rom".
History and/or syncronical derivation play a role there, too. Witness: Aachen-Aix-la-Chapelle-Aquisgrán, which is in relation with the aforementioned German-tedesco-allemand-deutsch- case.
All this factors joined together make up for the distinction we have.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And we can’t just go around changing all the names in school books and maps. I got the ones that were similiar: Roma=Rome=Rom. Allemand, etc, always through me though. People probally wouldn’t like to suddenly use ‘Nippon in place of Japan. Does anyone here care if their country is called something differnet? The United States, i understand the Etats-Unis and Estados Unidos, porque son palabras y puedan translated as words. But Deustchland, and Espana don’t obviously mean anything…to us…
Sorry, the spanish is "because they are words and can be…"
<<< The estimated number of French loan words in Persian varies between 800 and 3000-4000! They must have come from writing, because final and consonants and inital h are pronounced in Persian, not in French, like konsert and hotel. A very common French loan is thank you, mersi.<<<
Another source is the French (oil) industry.
(A source for me is my Iranian wife who did some research about it):
Restorân, post, (or postkhane, lit. posthouse), telefon, mashin (mostly for car), abajour, chemise, manto, television, radio, proje, gile, automobile (obselete), kârt (Fr. carte), gârt (guarde), abonman, abone, aparteman, loads of medical terms (abse (abcès), ...), ârtist, atelie, violân, arshe (violin, erm, stick), shik, antik, the names of the months (the western set, not the native set),... (with apologies for the bad transcriptions)
But my all time favourite is terafik…
Quite a few times, when i said ‘mersi’ in Iran, people reacted "Oh, you do speak Farsi", lol, while it is a very common in Dutch too (or at least in Antwerp).
<<<Does anyone here care if their country is called something differnet?<<<
Maybe not the name of the country, but a lot of Iranians tenaciously keep using the word Farsi in English, rather than Persian, despite the countless articles written on this (most of them articles in favour of Persian). Ironically, Farsi is the Arabic rendition of Parsi.
Most of the times it’s a bit funny, for me… especially when Chinese is involved (Bilishi for Belgium, how did they arrive at that?)
F
Well then I will, WS. What is the current expression for citizens of the US? We don’t even have a word for them, or a word for the language. Some Canadians speak American English, but have their own name for what they speak. I speak Yankee, but i am a yankee. Not a fan, just geographically speaking. But I will never call a southerner a yankee. So if I was from Atlanta, who would I be and what would I speak?
Hi Katy! Been to Lanner (and the other big city thereabouts) and they may pretend to speak redneck but they do a pisspoor job of it.
Tim! where from? and do you speak redneck?
[quote author=frank link=board=translate;num=1120883007;start=0#8 date=07/09/05 at 17:41:16]a lot of Iranians tenaciously keep using the word Farsi in English, rather than Persian, despite the countless articles written on this (most of them articles in favour of Persian). Ironically, Farsi is the Arabic rendition of Parsi.
During one period, I made a number of translations into Swedish of Iranian school reports, from indigenous certified translations into English. It was invariably stated "Translated from the original Persian".
Most of the times it’s a bit funny, for me… especially when Chinese is involved (Bilishi for Belgium, how did they arrive at that?)
F
My impression is that transcription into Chinese is becoming largely standardized. There is no be- syllable in Standard Chinese, so bi- is as close as you get. The i in België (supposing the Dutch brought the name there) should also help in chosing the first two i’s. To an amateur like me, an ending like -rike would sound almost perfect for French -gique, but -shi at least recognizes a voiceless fricative like a Dutch g.
The only language I know of that translated Yugoslavia is Chinese: Nánsilafu: south-slav
England Lloegr
Brittany Llydaw
Scandinavia Llychlyn
and we call the Irish people: Gwyddelig
but Ireland the country Iwerddon
Which reminds me that we also call the Atlantic Ocean
Home-grown words are common in languages which have been isolated for long periods of time and Welsh is certainly one of them along with Icelandic, Romanian, Breton and Basque. German and Hungarian have a fair amount of home-grown words too but probably for other reasons mostly.
