Why do countries have a different name in the native language?
Derek
2010/05/12 00:27:39
I find this fact really funny.
Take Hungary for example. Foreign names for Hungary are basically variations of the same word : Hungary (English), Hungria (Spanish), Hongrie (French) and Ungarn (German). All of these are vaguely pronounced the same.
BUT in Hungarian the country is called Magyarország! It's not pronounced or written even closely!
What gives?
Another example is China. Except for French (Chine) and Hungarian (Kína), China is written the exact same way and pronounced very similarly in all the above-mentioned languages. And yet in Chinese, People's Republic of China is Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó.
Where did the word China go?
A really funny one is Germany. It's called Germany (English), Alemania (Spanish), Allemagne (French) and Németország (Hungarian). And the German name for it is Deutschland!
How weird isn't it? That the whole world called certain country a name that the natives don't?
Do you guys have more examples of countries whose native name does not resemble the international one at all? Or an explanation for this discrepancy?
While I was researching this I found out that most, if not all, the countries of the Americas have the same name internationally and locally. Is this because the Americas are "young" compared to Europe and Asia or because the Americas can be divided to three basic languages (Spanish, English and Portuguese)?
Take Hungary for example. Foreign names for Hungary are basically variations of the same word : Hungary (English), Hungria (Spanish), Hongrie (French) and Ungarn (German). All of these are vaguely pronounced the same.
BUT in Hungarian the country is called Magyarország! It's not pronounced or written even closely!
What gives?
Another example is China. Except for French (Chine) and Hungarian (Kína), China is written the exact same way and pronounced very similarly in all the above-mentioned languages. And yet in Chinese, People's Republic of China is Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó.
Where did the word China go?
A really funny one is Germany. It's called Germany (English), Alemania (Spanish), Allemagne (French) and Németország (Hungarian). And the German name for it is Deutschland!
How weird isn't it? That the whole world called certain country a name that the natives don't?
Do you guys have more examples of countries whose native name does not resemble the international one at all? Or an explanation for this discrepancy?
While I was researching this I found out that most, if not all, the countries of the Americas have the same name internationally and locally. Is this because the Americas are "young" compared to Europe and Asia or because the Americas can be divided to three basic languages (Spanish, English and Portuguese)?
Not all countries used the Onogur name, however. In Czech, they say Madarsko, In Serbian and Croatian it's Madarska. In Farsi/Persian it's Majaarestan. In Arabic it's El-Magr.
I'm interested in why the Hungarian names for certain countries are so different from other languages. Such as Lengyelország for Poland, Németország for Germany, Olaszország for Italy, Oroszország for Russia, Grúzia for Georgia. Pretty much everything else is a "Hungarianized" version of the international name.
Well, at least I got an explanation as to the origin of Hungary's foreign name, thank you! :)
Now I just need to find out about China and Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It explains the 6 different "origins" of the various names for Germany. Now I know that the Hungarian name Németország comes from the old Slavic word for "mute" or the Nemetes tribe.
Also, we have to take into account the grammar, pronunciation, etc... of the other language. For example, China. Just like the Europeans, the Chinese considered their nation the center of the world. Thus the called their nation "中國" (pronounced: Zhōng-guó) with 中 ("zhōng") generally meaning "central" and 國 ("guó") meaning "kingdom". Thus, 中國 ("Zhōng-guó"), the Central Kingdom.
Of course, the Westerners (Especially the Europeans) didn't agree. According to Wikipedia, the word "China" is derived from Cin (چین), a Persian name for China popularized in Europe by Marco Polo. That is probably derived from "Qin" (秦)(778 BC – 207 BC), the westernmost of the Chinese kingdoms during the Zhou (周) dynasty , or from the succeeding Qin (秦) dynasty (221 – 206 BC).
They let Japan keep it's name though (sort of).
SO, the Kingdom of the Svea people. Where "Sweden" comes from, I'm not quite sure.
Why do WE say Hungarian? Did someone pull that word out his a$$? Why does the rest of Europe say it? Do don't WE say some bastardized of "Magyar"?
In English, most of the names of other countries are bastardized versions of the native name, usually focusing in some similarity in pronunciation. We say "French" instead of "Francais" and "Japan" instead of "Nippon". In both these examples the English word is pronounced in a similar way to the native word.
In my example about Hungarian, the international word and the native word are not similar at all and I want to know why.