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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.

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Zerot@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨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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