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  1. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by Jackmoves View Post
    Didn't they found cities like Dublin though? I think English got around 1000(nothing compared to the influence French has had)words that has old norse origin, thursday(thors day) being an obvious example, but also less obvious words like Kraken.
    Dublin was founded by Vikings I'm pretty sure, not the Anglo-Saxons. But most of the population back then lived in the country side. A city doesn't mean much.

    Also... Old Norse and Old English are so closely related, it's a bit unfair to compare its influence to French.

  2. #42
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Majad View Post
    wat

    Korea is called Hanguk? For real? I had no idea... Then was it called Korean before or was it always Hanguk?
    I think Korea is a name given to the country by European visitors and has something to do with it being the land of an ancient and particularly important dynasty. *rushes to Wikipedia*

    Oh yeah! Here it is, The Goryeo Dynasty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goryeo

    I'm pretty sure Japan, despite natives referring to their country as (phonetically) 'Nihon', got it's modern Western names from a long game of 'Chinese Whispers' (pardon the awful pun) of translations of the name of the country in Chinese languages. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan#Jipangu)

    The naming of countries in other languages is fascinating and its hard to pick up a pattern that fits all name choices. It seems most are a case-by-case thing, which was affected by the knowledge which people possessed at the time of 'discovering' each country. Most do make sense when you look into them though.

  3. #43
    Stood in the Fire Palaplu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pendulous View Post
    It might be like Chinese. There's no actual language called "Chinese". It's Mandarin or...the other one I can't think of.
    Kantonese?
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  4. #44
    The written characters are usually referred to as Chinese. So it's a written language.

    ---------- Post added 2012-12-04 at 01:58 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Baiyn View Post
    I think Korea is a name given to the country by European visitors and has something to do with it being the land of an ancient and particularly important dynasty. *rushes to Wikipedia*

    Oh yeah! Here it is, The Goryeo Dynasty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goryeo
    I thought modern Korea chose that in order to be politically neutral, since the internal names of both Koreas only applied to each of their own halves of the country,

  5. #45
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by semaphore View Post
    I thought modern Korea chose that in order to be politically neutral, since the internal names of both Koreas only applied to each of their own halves of the country,
    That rings a bell and you could be right. I was looking at differences in North and South Korean languages a while ago and seem to remember reading something like that.

  6. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by semaphore View Post
    The written characters are usually referred to as Chinese. So it's a written language.[COLOR="red"]
    If I understood it correctly, Mandarin is a western word. In China they just call it Zhong wen which basically means Chinese language (actually it's center language but China is zhong guo which is center country. So you can see the connection).

  7. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Bolson13 View Post
    If I understood it correctly, Mandarin is a western word. In China they just call it Zhong wen which basically means Chinese language (actually it's center language but China is zhong guo which is center country. So you can see the connection).
    Well, actually, in China they call that the Common Language. In Taiwan it's called the National Language (same as Japanese in Japan, incidentally). Pre-Republican times, it's probably called the Capital Tongue or the Bureucrat's Language (which is where Mandarin came from). The term you used mostly refers to Chinese, as in the written language ("Chinese words").

  8. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by semaphore View Post
    Well, actually, in China they call that the Common Language. In Taiwan it's called the National Language (same as Japanese in Japan, incidentally). Pre-Republican times, it's probably called the Capital Tongue or the Bureucrat's Language (which is where Mandarin came from). The term you used mostly refers to Chinese, as in the written language ("Chinese words").
    Well okay. There is one "standard Chinese" but different parts of China use a different dialect which you cant really call it because they are different languages.

    Cantonese is another completely different example separate of the dialects and in Taiwan they write/speak traditional Chinese more though main land Chinese is gaining ground there as well. My teacher also says that in Taiwan, English slang is very popular as well. So some classic words are dying out for something English sounding.

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Bolson13 View Post
    Well okay. There is one "standard Chinese" but different parts of China use a different dialect which you cant really call it because they are different languages.
    Yeah I'm aware. I'm talking only about the Mandarin language and the written script.

    My teacher also says that in Taiwan, English slang is very popular as well. So some classic words are dying out for something English sounding.
    Oh, I don't know about that. English's penetration in Taiwan is heavily limited compared to how obvious Japanese is, for instance.

  10. #50
    Pit Lord Doktor Faustus's Avatar
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    Albion, yo.

    A lot stems from when the name of a particular area enters a language.

    With so many tribal areas so close, and a lot of inter-dealing with these areas each language creates it's own version.

    Britain (used to be called Albion) is a corruption of Prittain, that also lends it's name to Brittany in France, as they were basically the same over-arching tribes in the Iron Age.

    Get hold of any decent wall map/atlas and it should present the names of nation as they are natively used and in English (or whtever language the publisher is printing in).

  11. #51
    Scarab Lord Zhangfei's Avatar
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    The Chinese loathe is being referred to as "Mandarin" because it has sod all to do with the bloody Manchus.
    In fact as far as I'm aware the UK is the only european nation that outright bans guns for civilians.
    Shotguns I'll give you (provided you're allowed 12 and larger gauges... because I mean... come on...) but not .22s.
    This is why people ban guns. Gun supporters don't know what guns are.

  12. #52
    Deleted
    Because if we did that, the world map would look like that: http://www.digilicious.org/gallery/w...mes_medium.jpg

    Somehow, I find one using my language for every country to be easier to read
    http://www.populationdata.net/images...-politique.gif

  13. #53
    We generally use different names for places in different regions due to historical factors. The other is reason is etymological.

    For exemple. The United States of America.

    The geographical region is America. But the United States is only a title which means something specific in English. It means united states...saying the same for exemple in Spanish or Hungarian would fail to convey the meaning of the title. Thus Spaniards translate it to Estados Unidos de America, Hungarians call it Amerikai Egyesült Államok. Which in essence means exactly the same thing. The same goes with names such as Great Britain which in Spanish would be Gran Bretaña. Note that Bretaña is a loan word from the French Bretonnia, which is in turn an evolution of the Roman Britannia, which in turn is a loan word from a Greek explorer who heard it from original P-Celtic native islanders. In the case of Hungarians the name of Great Britain is translated as Nagy Britannia. Which again is again a combination of a historical loan word and the title translation.

    Now to point at another issue is that for exemple Hungary in the native tongue is called Magyarország which means Country of the Magyar's, Magyar being the name Hungarians use to refer to themselves. For the rest of the world due to historical reasons Magyar's are Hungarian's or descendents of the Hun's despite of the fact that there is little real relation betwen Hun's and Magyar's beyond of the fact that both were originally nomadic raiders with similar customs and military tactics.

    Sometimes a translation of name place gives a better idea to a foreigner what the place is about then the use of it's original name. Other times using an established form in different languages helps avoiding confusion.

    Better we stick to something that is already working just fine. Or if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

  14. #54
    Legendary! Wikiy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cattaclysmic View Post
    Because other languages are weird...

    Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia - good luck pronouncing it! I shall call it Dave.
    Lol so easy. "Lj" is pronounced basically by starting off with an "L" and transiting to "y" as in "yes", all in 1 consonant.

    Basically: http://www.forvo.com/word/ljubljana/

    For some reason, in my language, Vienna is called Beč (Bech is the pronunciation). Apparently, after googling a bit, it's because "Wien" means a sausage on Hungarian (in case of confusion, Croatia was ruled by Hungary and Austria for centuries), and a sausage is called bečkerek on Croatian. And people shortened it. Although I've never heard the word "bečkerek" in my life so I'm a a bit confused myself.

  15. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by semaphore View Post
    Yeah I'm aware. I'm talking only about the Mandarin language and the written script.


    Oh, I don't know about that. English's penetration in Taiwan is heavily limited compared to how obvious Japanese is, for instance.
    I...
    I should not have read your sig...



    ...


    I need an adult...

  16. #56
    Quote Originally Posted by Mihalik View Post
    The same goes with names such as Great Britain which in Spanish would be Gran Bretaña. Note that Bretaña is a loan word from the French Bretonnia, which is in turn an evolution of the Roman Britannia, which in turn is a loan word from a Greek explorer who heard it from original P-Celtic native islanders. In the case of Hungarians the name of Great Britain is translated as Nagy Britannia. Which again is again a combination of a historical loan word and the title translation.
    I think you mean "is a loan word from the French Bretagne" - Bretonnia is the French/Arthurian nation from the Warhammer world.

  17. #57
    Is it really a loan word from French, if it already existed in Old English...? Maybe loan spelling



    Quote Originally Posted by Cattaclysmic View Post
    I...
    I should not have read your sig...
    ...
    I need an adult...
    Awww, there there
    It's a perfectly normal(!?) thing...

  18. #58
    Void Lord Elegiac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dhrizzle View Post
    No, they just didn't bring large enough numbers to significantly change the population.
    False. The maximum population of the empire at its height, spanning from the Tyne to the Euphrates, was at most about 55 million. Local populatiobs were in fact relatively small thus enabling the barbarian invaders to have significant effects.
    Quote Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
    The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk and understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

  19. #59
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by semaphore View Post
    Well the way a culture calls a country can have a bunch of history behind them (like Germans calling France the kingdom of the Franks)
    Except that the language of the Franks is most like today's Dutch, not French. So although the name got stuck to an area, the people moved.

    So yeah, it was probably an accurate name back then, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense today. You're right that history can explain the reasoning behind different names for a country though.

    ---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 12:51 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Didactic View Post
    barbarian invaders
    I'm pretty sure Barbaria was the Roman name for today's northern-western Africa. It has no connection with Germanic people.

  20. #60
    1. The name "Hungarian" most likely does not come from the Huns, but the Onogurs.

    2. While the western mediterranean coast of Africa was indeed called "Barbary Coast" for a while in the early modern age, the Romans never called that territory "Barbaria".

    The Romans called all uncivilized (from their viewpoint) people beyond the borders of the empire barbarians. The lands beyond the borders of the empire were sometimes referred to as Barbaricum. The word barbarian is actually of Greek origin btw. It was a term for all non-Greek people originally.

    The Roman name for northwestern Africa was Mauretania (present day north Morocco and west Algeria) and Numidia (present day east Algeria).

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