Right now it would be hard to teach ppl how to call countries in their native names, cuz not all nations has wealthy lexicon, try to say 60 in my language (lithuanian) : Sesiasdesimt, a bit hard? S should be called as sch tho:}
How did you learn that? They might have some weird pronunciation, that's for sure
I have no problem pronouncing it, actually. Something like "Lyooblyana", to use "English", correct?
Also, many of these cities that were once in the Austrian-Hungarian Kingdom still have German names as well.
Bratislava - Pressburg
Ljubljana - Leibach
Cluj - Klausenburg
Sibiu - Hermannstadt etc
German has a lot of "own" names for cities (e.g. Mailand for Milano or Kapstadt for Cape Town), but not as many or as weird as the French...
München (Munich) - Monaco (wat?)
Aachen - Aix-la-Chapelle
London - Londres
I think it was in here somewhere. Korea is the name of a dynasty.
There are many other examples of countries whose names are completely different in their own language.
Finland - Suomi
Hungary - Magyar (forgive me, theres a ´ ` somewhere I think)
Japan - Nippon
...
Nicely put together.
I can't really imagine Wien is called Bec because of the sausage, it's the same in many other parts of German-speaking Europe. Wiener (Würstchen) is the sausage, deriving (afaik) from some butcher named Wiener (while not being from Vienna), and Wien is the city. We don't call Hamburg or Frankfurt differently either :P
I especially like that the French called Marie Antoinette (who was from Austria and not all too popular in France) "l'Autrichienne" (the Austrian (female)), but pronounced it like "l'autre chienne" (the other ...female dog )
Österreich
Yeah Brazilian/Portugese is funnny in that matter. Do you also call LA "Ciudad de los Angelos" or something ?
http://www.forvo.com/word/%C3%A9tats-unis/
That's how États-Unis is pronounced.
Huh? Munich is München, but Monaco's just Monaco.
Merica' ! We have either saved or kicked all the countries of the world so we call ya what we want! RAWR!
Seriously I think part of it has to do with English colonialism in the couple of centuries and then the rise of America as a super power in the last 200.
I know how the United States are pronounced in French, I just wondered how one came to the conclusion the French were dyslexic in this very case just because they don't pronounce the odd T
And about Munich, I was mistaken there, it's not the French but the Italians who call Munich Monaco.
They actually did this in the netherlands. I don't know the other examples, but the chinese city used to be Peking in dutch, but it is changed more and more to Beijing, so it's is more like the actual chinese pronounciation
nice map, historically when the Romans invaded Gaul, they encountered 2 different tribes, the Celtics and the Alamanni tribe. The Celtics covered the northwest, coastal, the islands and Iberia the Alamanni where in the North east, and the central parts of Gaul. Looking at that map sort of confirms the roman placement, As for the Britons that is the Roman name for the coastal Celts, they ranged from Portugal to the Netherlands, they also lived on the many islands off of Gaul. Today only one group of Celtic descendants claim to be Britons they live in 'Brittany France' However this group of Celts where the Ocean going Celtic tribe, ie the fishermen. Just like the Druids where the Spiritual leaders of the Celtics.
The Alamanni btw are the Germans, they never got concurred by Rome. the Celts were concurred, with two notable exceptions. The Scottish Celtic Tribes who caused the Romans to build a wall to prevent them from coming into Roman territory and the Romans avoided going to Ireland.
What that map shows fairly clearly and what history has often speculated was that the Alamanni where a tribe of Celtic culture. The lines of trade and cultural connection of the Celtic peoples prior to roman influence spanned almost all of western Europe north of the Alps, they built roads had a common language.
I actually looked that up once and I believe it comes from the cantonese word for Beijing if you pronounce it somewhat incorrect. That is how that B became a P if i'm not mistaken. Also, they have this word in French and German as well.
It is probably because the European ships would sail to Guangzhou where they speak Cantonese of course. So the Europeans probably had some more things that they would pronounce in Cantonese in stead of Mandarin.
Pequim is portugues for Beijing if checked correctly. They were the ones that had the most power in Guangzhou if i'm not mistaken. The Dutch were mostly in modern day Taiwan.
Last edited by Bolson13; 2012-12-06 at 04:12 PM.
Yeah, that's the name I meant. I remember seeing it on a map. But the label was placed in northwestern Africa. The map displayed Magna Germania to the north though, so I guess they did differentiate between all sorts of 'lesser' races.
---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 07:09 PM ----------
You're right, the Franks were Germanic people who lived in northern France, western Germany and current Belgium and Netherlands (except far north Netherlands)
But I just think the name for France doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because only the people living in the north were Franks. And they even merged with locals and adopted the Roman language later.
That's why I say the area that remained closest to the Franks is current Netherlands and Belgium. And they speak the Dutch language, which is also closest to the language spoken by the Franks.
The Franks where the post Roman expansion of the German Tribes, they push out the last of the Roman and Celtic peoples and dominated All the land from the Danish Peninsula to Rome, and from the borders of Poland to Spain.
They where called Franks by the Romans prior to the fall of Rome, Here is a 5th Century depiction of ethic groups by the failing Roman empire.
What is interesting is that in 100bce the Celts dominated the occupation of all these lands.
What you have is the Romans pushed the Celts out of much of Europe and hired Germans to fill in many of the needed vacancies, Because the Germans were unconcerned the Romans made treaties and hired them for food production, and border guards. The 'Huns', 'Vandals' and 'Goths' where some of these German tribes used for Mercenary work, so by the 5th century you see that the Roman Mercenaries became the dominate cultures after the Romans pulled out. It's also related to how a German Tribe became the rulers of North Africa.
The most telling part is the DNA testing maps.
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/maps_o...ml#ethnicities
Essentially Most of Europe was Celtic, then the Romans came pushed the Celts into corners, hired Eastern Germans to do the Grunt work, and then left everything to the Germans. The Germans divided themselves up into groups using the derogatory names that the Romans used for them as badges and titles. And reshaped Europe into the current map.
Originally you where either a Celt or a German or further east a slave... oops Slavic (maygars).
I'm sorry to say that's really not correct... the city of Porto has it's name derived from the region here - back when there was no Spain nor Portugal, but rather the different iberian kingdoms - that was called Condado Portucalense (a county). When the leader of that county rebeled against his mother and step father, who were in league with the kingdoms that later became Spain, and by Papal Decree in 1143, Afonso Henriques was no longer count of the region, but king of a new kingdom called Portugal. Only years later, the city of Porto was founded at were the Condado Portucalense used to be, as capital of the kingdom (after Guimarães).
Portus Cale was indeed the root of the name, but for the county, not the city, as each were separeted by many years. It used to be a great trading port during the roman times in the iberian peninsule, hence its name.
The Oporto moniker was only atributed to the city in the XVII century, after Porto Wine became so famous, and people of that era needed a way to tell apart city and wine.
Last edited by Azgraal; 2012-12-06 at 07:04 PM.
Oh interesting! i had always assumed that the Portus Cale city had kept existing. I guess it makes sense, only a few cities from the roman era remained after the decay of the empire and the germanic invasions, and even if new cities took the same place and name, they had to be basically rebuilt and refounded.
Thanks for clearing up that mistake!
Germany as the center of Europe (if you exclude far east Europe) is the country with the most different names given by its neighbours :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany
Current spelling in many languages occured very late and some countries are still reforming spelling, it's true for comun words and even more true for name of countries, region, rivers, city, etc. Those words from anoher language are sometimes difficult to pronounce so the spelling is neccesarly different from the original language.
Also you have languages that translate phoneticly every foreign words (english/french football, portugues futebol) or were used to (london is londres in french, but new york is also new york and not nouillorque )
Last edited by pouca; 2012-12-07 at 02:11 PM.
Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenija --- fixed that for you
Yeah i know. A lot of ppl have a hard time saying J Z Ž S Š C Č if they try to tranlate into english.
Also: Germany -- Nemčija
America -- Amerika
Spain --- Španija
United kingdom --- Britanija
Portugal --- Portugalska
Italy --- Italija
Croatia -- Hrvaška
Šveden -- Švedska
and more...
Last edited by Yunru; 2012-12-07 at 02:12 PM.
Don't sweat the details!!!
Your relating the difference in Language, Genetics has shown us a slightly different possibility, in regards to the Origins of these tribes. Granted the Slavics and the Northern Finno-Urgic people are not related, but these two groups have interesting interconnections. If anything the Finno-Urgic are an anomaly of sorts. The closest group to them genetically are in Siberia. As for the Huns being not a German tribe, all the evidence points to them being from the Ukraine, which during the late Roman period when the Huns appeared that was described as Asia. But then again so was the lands we now call Turkey. If you read the anceint accounts it makes it seem like they must have been Mongolians or something, but n closer inspection you find that the Horse tribes of the central Russia who were Germanic peoples, they spoke Gothic which is a Germanic language. History actually supports the idea that the Germanic People started out in the Near east and moved north west. Evidence has linked the Hittite Empire with Germanic peoples.