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This is beyond weird. Where does this convention apply? Maps? Casual language? International diplomacy only? Should the Deutsch refer to Griechenland as the Ελ
by ilikehurdles 4y ago
This is beyond weird. Where does this convention apply? Maps? Casual language? International diplomacy only?
Should the Deutsch refer to Griechenland as the Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, or Frankreich as France? Does this mean they can demand the rest of the English world to stop calling München as Munich and Köln as Cologne?
- mojuba 4y agoI tend to use the original German, Italian, Spanish, French place names even when speaking English in fact. I don't know why, I like it that way. Aren't Köln, Munich [edit München], Zürich, Venezia, Firenze beautiful names?
- graeme 4y agoMunich is the English word. The Germans say München
- mojuba 4y agoOops, you are right!
- ilikehurdles 4y agoDon't you mean the original Deutsch, Italiano, Español, and Française names?
- mojuba 4y agoI get the joke but no. Place names are funny because some of them sound the same in foreign languages, while others are close but not quite the same.
- ilikehurdles 4y agoIt’s not a joke. I’m trying to make sense of your logic and whether there is any consistency in it. I won’t fault you for preferring one name over its translation but clearly we do this for aesthetic reasons only, not some drive to be correct or authentic because we certainly don’t apply that consistently.
- inglor_cz 4y agoThe original names would be in various local dialects. Venezia is Italian, which is a slightly artificial language pushed by the authorities 150 years ago in order to administer the newly unified country more efficiently. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when the nation was unified in 1861. The game of "original" is extra tricky in Europe, with its long succession of cultures and empires. Quite a lot of settlements around the Mediterranean would originally be named either in Greek, or in Phoenician. By Anglicizing those names for your use, you aren't doing anything bad, you're only repeating a process that has taken place many times before.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- marcelluspye 4y agoI don't mean any personal offense, but as an American I associate this behavior with "you can't afford not to travel" and "eating $regionalFood in $location has ruined the dish for me; I can't eat it anywhere else" types.
- misja111 4y agoI don't see anything wrong with countries being called by their real names. It will take a while for everybody to get used to, but in the end we'll get rid of all the ambiguity. I can't help but wonder if the arousal over Türkiye has more to do with the person in charge there at the moment.
- graeme 4y agoWould you kindly tell me the “real” name of Switzerland, a country with four official languages. And what do you say to a Kurd who lives in Turkey and says “Tirkiye”? Are they incorrect in your view?
- misja111 4y agoThis question should be asked to the Swiss themselves, not to any outsider like me. I'm sure they can agree on a name, and I guess they did already because the official Swiss country code is 'CH' which doesn't correspond to any of their four internal country names. To let outsiders decide what a country should be called, despite the country itself objecting, is beyond weird to me. How would you like it when your colleagues decided to call you by another name, just because they liked it better?
- exmadscientist 4y agoTaking this particular tangent to its end, that'd be Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica. It's on the coins, so it must be official!
- thunderbong 4y agoIf you think about it, all names are decided externally
- eurasiantiger 4y agoOnomatopoetic names are somewhat intrinsic and thus we have many languages with similar-sounding names for cat and dog, to name some examples.
- pseudalopex 4y agoHave you heard of Istanbul, Mumbai, Beijing, Myanmar?
- rurban 4y agoIt's not weird, it's simple patriotism from the last sultan, seeing his empire folding. Catching the last straw to get media attention and unite his people. The convention is to use the simplest common language (english) for such names, not the original, internal names. And Greece is certainly called Ελλάδα inside, not the "Greek Democracy". Such requests would not lead far. As you can see that still everybody refuses to write Japanese names (e.g. in sports) in the correct order. It got better with Chinese and Korean names recently, but foreigners are still extremely wrong about Japanese conventions.
- reustle 4y ago> but foreigners are still extremely wrong about Japanese conventions. And don't get us started about how they treat our foreign names here within Japan
- eska 4y agoMaikeru jooji and Donarudo Toranpu would like to have a word. Refuse to write names in correct order? How about refusing to open a bank account for you because they won’t allow YOUR country’s conventions.
- cafard 4y agoShoot, they write Hungarian names in the wrong order.
- zvr 4y ago> And Greece is certainly called Ελλάδα inside, not the "Greek Democracy". I assume you translated the "Ελληνική Δημοκρατία" of the parent comment somehow, but it is not correct. The actual translation is "Hellenic Republic", which is what is written in official documents (for example, on passport covers). As you correctly point out, the state name (Hellenic Republic) is not always the country name (Hellas).