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Lightweight indeed. That article seemed so promising, and then it was just arbitrarily limited by its data (as the author admits but doesn't do anything to fix)
by 205guy 7y ago
Lightweight indeed. That article seemed so promising, and then it was just arbitrarily limited by its data (as the author admits but doesn't do anything to fix).
That topic has so much missed potential. He admits he left off Venice, but what about Aachen/Aix-la-Chapelle, a historical town if there ever was one. Most of his examples are just different languages changing spelling to fit their conventions (eg Italian names ending in -o). But it totally overlooks pronunciation (Paris is totally different in French and English). It would be much more interesting to understand why cities sound different in different languages, for example London in English and Londres in French--why did they add they add the r sound to that word?
- posterboy 7y agoI didn't know Londres. I heard about Durres, Albania, for the first time today, too. I had wondered about a connection between door, Germanic \dorz, Latin forum* and port, porta, portal before (Latin f frequently corresponds to English d, e.g. inferior, En under). Suppose -dres for Londres once meant port, which is always a good guess for any bigger city's name. I can't confirm it though. Durres derives from Dorian Greek Durrhakhion, but Greek has thura for "door"; so if I'm correct, they would have loaned the form with d. Ironically, Albanian dere "door" has a homophone "bitter; difficult, tiresome" (from a different root if akin to Greek due "misery") and one traditional explanation of Albanias means difficult coast (although there was a historical kingdom Albania far off from the coast). By the way: It's Londer in Albanian, too, and Londres in many Romance languages. tl;dr: nobody really knows, and the first address for French etymology doesn't explain Londres either