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I just learned that Greece is called Yunanistan in Turkey. And as long as the English speaking world still butchers German town names (Hanover, Hamelin, Nuremb
by captainmuon 4y ago
I just learned that Greece is called Yunanistan in Turkey.
And as long as the English speaking world still butchers German town names (Hanover, Hamelin, Nuremberg instead of Hannover, Hameln, Nürnberg) I think it is legit to call the country Turkey.
- smt88 4y agoHanover instead of Hannover is "butchering" to you?
- haasted 4y agoAn absolute carnage!!
- InCityDreams 4y agoYes, username smmt8, it is.
- jalk 4y agoWould you campaign for it to be written as Hannofer in English so that non-German speakers will not butcher the current pronunciation. Obviously there are long historical reasons for language diffs of city names and I imagine many predates the nation states who now house those cities. Changes in local pronunciation is also a thing, and those changes are of course not always propagated to other languages
- kzrdude 4y agoIt's a curious tug of war. Of course every language is allowed to have its own words. Global use of English puts a special pressure on English.
- febeling 4y agoI also find it odd to think differing names of places in a foreign language as butchering. I like how München (Munich) is called Monaco in Italian. But if we do think it's butchering, why don't we refer to Germans as Deutsche in English, call the country Deutschland instead of Germany?
- gkanai 4y agoSame thing with Japan. Japanese call the country Nippon.
- frivoal 4y agoOr, more commonly, Nihon. Nippon is more emphatic, which is occasionally taken to make it sound more nationalistic.
- saiya-jin 4y agoI'd strongly prefer is this 'butchering' would be happening only in cases the original name is literally un-pronounciable in given language. But no, everybody must be pissing on their little sandbox - Neuchatel has to be Neuburg, although both are perfectly pronounciable in both languages. US has to be États-Unis. Practically every effin' language has this. I'd say using original names and how they sound shows some proper respect towards given place, country, people, culture and its history. Shows you actually make some effort, and also shows having some class. But I can only wish this was a widespread opinion.
- andybak 4y agoFor the record, I'm fairly sure how to pronounce Neuburg but much less confident I'd get Neuchatel correct.
- gumby 4y agoEspecially when the circumflex has been left out so you have no reminder of how used to be written and pronounced. États-Unis is quite respectful as it literally describes how the country wants to be considered: United States. It is only if you don’t find the term meaningful that way you would want someone to uncomprehendingly parrot the sounds.
- MonkeyClub 4y ago> why don't we refer to Germans as Deutsche in English, call the country Deutschland instead of Germany? Because the Germans aren’t throwing a fit about how other countries are addressing them in their languages, while the Turks currently are. Given how Turkey currently has insane inflation and internal political turmoil with Erdogan’s opposition rising, there’s a line of thought that has war as the only way to maintain power for Erdogan, much like how a coup solidified his power in 2016. Turkey’s neighbors probably should start feeling like Ukraine before February, or like Poland before September 1939.
- brosinante 4y agoAnd the actual name for Greece is Hellas.
- kgeist 4y agoThey didn't always call themselves Hellenes, at one point the more common names were Achaeans (hence Egyptian "Ekwesh"), Danaans and Argives. The word "Hellenes" is only found once in Homer. Or often people called them by their specific tribe, such as Ionians or Dorians. Some languages use older names because that's what they are used to. It seems that country borders, politics, self-identity etc. change faster than language.
- amilios 4y agoYou're right in that the term Hellenes appears later, however it is worth noting that there was still some sense of collective identity, even that far back, as evidenced by the tribes coming together when facing external threats (e.g. the Persians, or even against Troy in the Iliad), common language, culture, competitions that everyone participated in, etc. etc.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> And the actual name for Greece is Hellas. That's many centuries out of date. You want Ellas. The aspiration was lost long ago. (We might also note that the Greek wikipedia page is titled Ellaða, but the first thing it does is list Ellas as an alternate name.)
- throwaway787544 4y ago
- MrDresden 4y agoAnd they all come from Ummerica
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- someotherperson 4y agoThe whole Middle East has called it some variation of Yunan (Yunanistan specifically meaning "Land of the Yunan") for about 3000 years. It derives from Ionian[0] and roughly specified the land Ionia[1] region and the name is baked into everything (modern and historical) from Hebrew to Persian to Arabic to Assyrian. On the back of this, though, in many countries in the Middle East the Latin names are used for most countries in Europe, including Germany, which is referred to as Alemaan (from proto-Germanic Alemanniz[2]). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionians [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionia [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Alemanni https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Alemanni
- behnamoh 4y agoThe region that's now called "Iran" was called Persia by the West for at least 2000 years, until the Shah of Iran requested the world to refer to the country as "Iran", which is the term used by the Iranians. Fun fact: "Iran" means "the land of the Aryans".
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> The whole Middle East has called it some variation of Yunan (Yunanistan specifically meaning "Land of the Yunan") for about 3000 years. It derives from Ionian > the name is baked into everything (modern and historical) from Hebrew to Persian to Arabic to Assyrian. The term is also used in Han China for the Greek kingdom that came to exist near them. There would have been no real awareness of the original region of Ionia, though there was rudimentary awareness of the Roman Empire a bit later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan
- emmelaich 4y agoI wonder whether that applies to Yunnan as well. It is the most westerly high population province of China.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
- ascorbic 4y agoVereinigtes Königreich checking in
- korlja 4y agoVereinigtes Königreich von Grossbritannien und Nordirland bitte. Also, even more weirdness about the channel islands and the "British" overseas territories (which are isles, but not British isles...).
- eCa 4y agoA favourite of mine is Nueva York.
- egeozcan 4y agoAlso Hindistan (Land of the Hindi) means India, and "hindi" means turkey, in Turkish. Mısır also means corn and also Egypt in the same language.
- walrus01 4y agoAnd the actual bird, in Iranian Farsi, is a "booghoolamoo", which is roughly the same idea as the gobbling noise a turkey makes. In Afghan Farsi (Dari) the bird is a "feel murgh" which translates as Elephant Chicken.
- dizhn 4y agoYup. It's pretty ignorant to call India the land of turkeys,while throwing a fit when other countries call yours Turkey.
- timeon 4y agoMaybe the bird will be also called türkiye now.
- cetinkaya 4y agoHindistan comes from Hindustan (India in Persian), not from the bird hindi (turkey).
- dizhn 4y agoGood to know. But it doesn't matter in the context of this discussion. It still means Land of Turkeys in Turkish. Not really of course, just like Turkey does not mean turkey in English.
- timeon 4y ago> English speaking world still butchers German town names Try Czech: Cáchy, Trevír, Řezno vs Aachen, Trier, Regensburg.
- int_19h 4y agoSometimes that can get political. If you want to start a flamewar in a group including both Germans and Poles, ask them if it's "Danzig" or "Gdansk". (Or just look at the Wikipedia talk page archives for the city.)
- usrusr 4y agoThat's not butchering, it means that the places you list have been sufficiently relevant to speakers of the language in question at the time spelling stabilized to have their own name. The phrase "Mailand oder Madrid" isn't famous for it not being "Milano oder Madrid".
- walrus01 4y agoGreece is also Yunan in Farsi , this is a very old word in the Persian language.
- sedatk 4y agoYes, it's the transliteration of "Ionian".