Comment on I felt so betrayed when I found out Germany isn't called Germany in Germany

Perspectivist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• Dicska@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Or Németország in Hungarian. And Hungary is Magyarország in Hungarian. Ország just means country, so they’re just “German country” and “Hungarian country”, literally.

  Most slavic countries also call Germany Německo or the like.

  This happens when there’s no fast global media when you meet a new nation, and you can’t copy someone else’s homework to come up with a name for them. Or when you copy someone else’s homework, instead of actually asking a member of that nation.

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  • Rubanski@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Nemetor sounds like a LOTR character

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    • androidul@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      If you want LOTR character names, look up Icelandic names

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      • Nangijala@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I still cannot get over the fact that Tolkien based Middle Earth and several characters in Lord of the Rings on friggin Djursland in Denmark. I live an hour away from the real life Helms Deep, Isengard and so on. There’s even a local myth in the area that directly inspired the characters of Aragorn and Eowyn who were split onto two characters. The original myth was about a chief’s daughter who had to reclaim her dead father’s legendary sword and thereby set him free from the curse that kept him and his men trapped as ghosts. I forget if their Graves were on Helm Island or if it was somewhere else. It’s just really cool and super random. Apparently there are official Tolkien tours. I don’t have to go to New Zealand to experience middle earth xD I have the original lame version at home.

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    • Dicska@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Some executioner style villain

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  • FishFace@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    The first time the inhabitants of what is now Germany and what is now Hungary met, there were no nations at all. People have been communicating and trading with those from far-off lands for longer than the concept of nation even existed, which is a major contributor to why these names are so different.

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    • Dicska@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      True, my bad for a poor word choice. I guess ‘people’ would have been more appropriate. But I guess the rest holds.

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      • FishFace@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Yeah true, then it works.

        Endonyms often turn out to derive from “people” in some language or other, but exonyms could come from anything like “the people on the other side of the hill/river/swamp” or “the rich people” or “the people who herd sheep” or “the people who really like goat’s milk”. There’s an inherent asymmetry between naming the one group of “us” and all the groups of people who are not “us”!

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