Comment on Transliterated country names into Chinese Language use pre-existing characters that already has its own meaning, therefore native Chinese speakers have a subconcious impression based on country names.

Apytele@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• Zerot@fedia.io ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  The characters for Japan literally mean sun and origin. And has been in use since the 8th century. So the Mercator projection has nothing to do with that. The origin of "land of the rising sun" is because Japan is East of China and the sun rises in the east.

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  • psycotica0@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    For sure, and the Pacific Ocean is vast. So you go East and find Japan, and then for a long time it’s understood that there’s nothing off Japan’s east coast, and they’re the eastern edge of the world. So they’re the land of the rising sun. Seems fair!

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  • ExtremeUnicorn@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    We do call it that in German as well, I mean, not colloquially, but it’s used in literature or poetry.

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• Samskara@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  There are Mercator projection maps with the Americas in the center and Japan on the left edge of the map.

  Most maps, regardless of projection used, cut the world through the pacific because there’s barely any land. World maps centering the Americas cut through Central Asia, making them less practical for many applications.

  All map projections try to flatten a curved surface. That only works with cuts and distortions. They are all trade-offs between conserving area, angles, shapes, distances. It’s impossible to to all of that.

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• agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Better than “dipshit”.

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