4 ms·

Ironically, we don't call his people by their own name (Navajo is what the Tewa people called the Dine')

gerdesj 2y ago
"The Navajo are speakers of a Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan language which they call Diné bizaad (lit. 'People's language'). The term Navajo comes from Spanish missionaries and historians who referred to the Pueblo Indians through this term, although they referred to themselves as the Diné, meaning '(the) people'." From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo
gerdesj 2y ago
Bizarrely, Germans call themselves Deutsche and the Dutch call themselves all sorts of crazy things. Swiss, Spanish, oh the whole of Europe. As for Japanese, Chinese, Russia ... errm most of the rest of the world 8) In English we don't really get America(n) "right", and they are one of the larger populations that speak the bloody lingo! Oh and lingo: lingua - Latin with a twist, that's how we Anglo-Saxons keep it real!
shiroiushi 2y ago
English speakers don't call anyone by their own name. "Japan" is another good example here. Interestingly, the Japanese term for other countries/languages are frequently much closer than the English versions. So while English speakers call the Deutsch "German" and Deutschland "Germany", Japanese speakers call them "doitsu", which is just as close as you can transliterate "Deutsch" to the syllables allowed in Japanese. It's not a rule though: the proper term for the USA is "beikoku", which translates to "country of rice". (The colloquial term for USA however is "amerika", which is exactly what Americans call themselves colloquially.)
- samatman 2y ago
  Japan is roughly as close to Nippon as doitsu is to Deutsch. The Germans are somewhat extreme on the exonymic spectrum, there are something like six distinct terms used in Europe for them. I've never heard one complain about it.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >Japan is roughly as close to Nippon as doitsu is to Deutsch. This is seriously ignorant. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan "The English word for Japan came to the West from early trade routes. The early Mandarin Chinese or possibly Wu Chinese word for Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. The Malay and Indonesian words Jepang, Jipang, and Jepun were borrowed from non-Mandarin Chinese languages, and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe. It was first recorded in English in 1577 spelled Giapan."
    - samatman 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - yongjik 2y ago
      In the very Wikipedia page it says: > Marco Polo called Japan 'Cipangu' around 1300, based on the Chinese name,[6] probably 日本國; 'sun source country' (compare modern Min Nan pronunciation ji̍t pún kok). The pronunciation "Japan" is from Chinese (or, to be pedantic, some Chinese language) pronunciation of 日本, which is pronounced as Nippon in Japan. It happened because the Chinese character 日 ("sun") has widely different sounds in modern languages. Probably it had an unusual sound in the old time.
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        Yes, the name is a corruption of a Chinese name for Japan. So what's your point? Japanese is not the same language as Chinese; it isn't even related linguistically other than borrowing part of its writing system. It's basically like making up a name for the UK based on a corruption of what the Romans called it 2000 years ago, and then trying to claim this is similar to what Britons call it today.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- oldandboring 2y ago
  > The colloquial term for USA however is "amerika", which is exactly what Americans call themselves colloquially. This reminds me of something I was thinking about recently. I started noticing a few years ago, when I began listening to a lot of podcasts made in the UK, that there's a gap between how Americans colloquially refer to ourselves and how the rest of the world does. The upshot is that the term "America" is used much more liberally overseas. For example, journalists overseas will often use "America" and "American" even when referring to our institutions, cities/states, and leaders, whereas domestically we will switch to "the US" or "the United States" in those situations. Put another way, domestically we usually say "America" when referring to our national and cultural identity, but often (but not always) use The US or The United States when referring to our country. I'm an American, but I live in the United States. Anthony Blinken is the US Secretary of State (foreigners will say American Secretary of State). Britain's ally in WW2 was the United States, and they were glad when the Americans showed up to fight. Gavin Newsom is the governor of the US State of California. If I return from 6 months abroad, I might say "Gd bless America" after my first bite of real cheeseburger. We'll chant USA! USA! at the Olympics and make an impassioned argument that American cars are the finest in the world. And so on.
pavon 2y ago
It has twice been proposed in the Navajo Nation Council to officially change the name from Navajo to Dine and both times the proposal was voted down. This was largely because the proposal was unpopular among members of the tribe. There are multiple generations that have grown up being Navajo, they think of themselves as Navajo, and they want to continue to be referred to as Navajo. Also, growing up (white) on the Navajo reservation, I was taught that Dine was the native language word for themselves, but no one ever expressed any desire for white folks to refer to them as Dine. They tended be private about their culture - there were aspects that were for them not for us, sometimes plainly and other times more subtly. Dine sometimes had that feel, like it was a private name amongst themselves, not a public name for outsiders to use. In other ways it was similar to German vs Deutsch, just a different word in a different language. It is more recently that some Dine activists have cast off the name Navajo as colonial and wish to be referred to as Dine, but as far as I can tell it still isn't the majority opinion.
- jhbadger 2y ago
  There have been successful cases like this though. The Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin, more popularly known as the Winnebago (which is what a neighboring tribe called them), officially changed their name to Ho-Chunk (which is what they call themselves) in 1994. Part of this is also probably because that most people associate the name "Winnebago" with the RV brand rather than a people.

"The Navajo are speakers of a Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan language which they call Diné bizaad (lit. 'People's language'). The term Navajo comes from Spanish missionaries and historians who referred to the Pueblo Indians through this term, although they referred to themselves as the Diné, meaning '(the) people'." From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo

gerdesj 2y ago

Bizarrely, Germans call themselves Deutsche and the Dutch call themselves all sorts of crazy things. Swiss, Spanish, oh the whole of Europe. As for Japanese, Chinese, Russia ... errm most of the rest of the world 8) In English we don't really get America(n) "right", and they are one of the larger populations that speak the bloody lingo! Oh and lingo: lingua - Latin with a twist, that's how we Anglo-Saxons keep it real!

shiroiushi 2y ago

English speakers don't call anyone by their own name. "Japan" is another good example here. Interestingly, the Japanese term for other countries/languages are frequently much closer than the English versions. So while English speakers call the Deutsch "German" and Deutschland "Germany", Japanese speakers call them "doitsu", which is just as close as you can transliterate "Deutsch" to the syllables allowed in Japanese. It's not a rule though: the proper term for the USA is "beikoku", which translates to "country of rice". (The colloquial term for USA however is "amerika", which is exactly what Americans call themselves colloquially.)

samatman 2y ago
Japan is roughly as close to Nippon as doitsu is to Deutsch. The Germans are somewhat extreme on the exonymic spectrum, there are something like six distinct terms used in Europe for them. I've never heard one complain about it.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >Japan is roughly as close to Nippon as doitsu is to Deutsch. This is seriously ignorant. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan "The English word for Japan came to the West from early trade routes. The early Mandarin Chinese or possibly Wu Chinese word for Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. The Malay and Indonesian words Jepang, Jipang, and Jepun were borrowed from non-Mandarin Chinese languages, and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe. It was first recorded in English in 1577 spelled Giapan."
  - samatman 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - yongjik 2y ago
    In the very Wikipedia page it says: > Marco Polo called Japan 'Cipangu' around 1300, based on the Chinese name,[6] probably 日本國; 'sun source country' (compare modern Min Nan pronunciation ji̍t pún kok). The pronunciation "Japan" is from Chinese (or, to be pedantic, some Chinese language) pronunciation of 日本, which is pronounced as Nippon in Japan. It happened because the Chinese character 日 ("sun") has widely different sounds in modern languages. Probably it had an unusual sound in the old time.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      Yes, the name is a corruption of a Chinese name for Japan. So what's your point? Japanese is not the same language as Chinese; it isn't even related linguistically other than borrowing part of its writing system. It's basically like making up a name for the UK based on a corruption of what the Romans called it 2000 years ago, and then trying to claim this is similar to what Britons call it today.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
oldandboring 2y ago
> The colloquial term for USA however is "amerika", which is exactly what Americans call themselves colloquially. This reminds me of something I was thinking about recently. I started noticing a few years ago, when I began listening to a lot of podcasts made in the UK, that there's a gap between how Americans colloquially refer to ourselves and how the rest of the world does. The upshot is that the term "America" is used much more liberally overseas. For example, journalists overseas will often use "America" and "American" even when referring to our institutions, cities/states, and leaders, whereas domestically we will switch to "the US" or "the United States" in those situations. Put another way, domestically we usually say "America" when referring to our national and cultural identity, but often (but not always) use The US or The United States when referring to our country. I'm an American, but I live in the United States. Anthony Blinken is the US Secretary of State (foreigners will say American Secretary of State). Britain's ally in WW2 was the United States, and they were glad when the Americans showed up to fight. Gavin Newsom is the governor of the US State of California. If I return from 6 months abroad, I might say "Gd bless America" after my first bite of real cheeseburger. We'll chant USA! USA! at the Olympics and make an impassioned argument that American cars are the finest in the world. And so on.

pavon 2y ago

It has twice been proposed in the Navajo Nation Council to officially change the name from Navajo to Dine and both times the proposal was voted down. This was largely because the proposal was unpopular among members of the tribe. There are multiple generations that have grown up being Navajo, they think of themselves as Navajo, and they want to continue to be referred to as Navajo. Also, growing up (white) on the Navajo reservation, I was taught that Dine was the native language word for themselves, but no one ever expressed any desire for white folks to refer to them as Dine. They tended be private about their culture - there were aspects that were for them not for us, sometimes plainly and other times more subtly. Dine sometimes had that feel, like it was a private name amongst themselves, not a public name for outsiders to use. In other ways it was similar to German vs Deutsch, just a different word in a different language. It is more recently that some Dine activists have cast off the name Navajo as colonial and wish to be referred to as Dine, but as far as I can tell it still isn't the majority opinion.

jhbadger 2y ago
There have been successful cases like this though. The Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin, more popularly known as the Winnebago (which is what a neighboring tribe called them), officially changed their name to Ho-Chunk (which is what they call themselves) in 1994. Part of this is also probably because that most people associate the name "Winnebago" with the RV brand rather than a people.