Comment on I felt so betrayed when I found out Germany isn't called Germany in Germany
AAA@feddit.org 2 days agoActually I’d argue country names are one of the examples where it would make more sense to have the same name everywhere. Why not use the countries actual name (maybe with slight adaption to the language)?
Why not use the German name for “chair”? Words are arbitrary. Why would you use the local inhabitants’ name for it?
What about when a country has more than one ethnic group with more than one language, which have different names for the country? This is the case in many places. You could pick one, of course, but that’s just another arbitrary choice.
The historical reason is that names for countries (which often develop from names for peoples) don’t always come from the a common source.
The word for chair is arbitrary. The chair has no feeling towards one word or another. Most countries’ people do have feelings towards their country and it’s name.
Picking one of the people’s names for the country would still be better than using your arbitrary name for the country.
OK, but most native speakers of a language have feelings towards their own language, and want to continue to speak it as they learnt it. Why should the speakers of a one language have any say over how the speakers of another language speak? What if I feel that Germans should stop using the word “Stuhl” and start using the word “chair” instead? My feelings are irrelevant because it’s not my language and have no rights or interests in the matter.
What happens in multilingual countries? Should the English-speaking majority of Wales be able to dictate to the Welsh-speaking minority that the country is called Wales rather than Cymru*? Should the English-speaking majority of England be able to dictate to Welsh-speaking Welsh residents of England that they should stop using the name *Lloegr*? Or vice-versa? Shall we call Switzerland *Die Schweiz or La Suisse or Svizzera or Svizra? Do you think the German people - or perhaps the German government - should go and tell speakers of Sorbian that they have to stop calling Germany Nimska and must instead use a different word? Do you like where this is going? I mean there were never any problems in Germany before that smell similar to this.
No, this is all rubbish and nonsense. Let people speak their languages. Literally nothing bad happens if you do, and if you go the other way it opens a massive can of ethnically-oppressive worms where one ethnic group gets to tell others what to do.
So does every person get called a different name in every country they visit? What about your pet?
It is normal - in most European languages at least - for proper nouns to be treated differently. And usually the names we use for places ARE the same across languages or at least extremely similar. I think it makes sense for someone to be surprised and curious in cases where that isn’t true.
And I find the reasons in this and a bunch of similar cases to be really interesting, often weird, and sometimes pretty stupid to still be in use. Including the name China (and variations of it).
What if I feel that Germans should stop using the word “Stuhl” and start using the word “chair” instead?
If you would be a people of the nation of chair, then yes. But turns out you’re not, because chair isn’t a country and you’re just making a useless comparison.
The only one who’s talking about forcing this on anyone, is you. So instead of getting all agitated over it you could just stop?
Anyway in your opinion Turkey has no right or reason to ask others to use it’s original Türkiye instead?
DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 1 day ago
The United States of America is just a series of English words. It really wouldn’t make sense in some other languages.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 day ago
In Spanish it’s Estados Unidos which seems like a translation of the words.
TheBat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
USA is EU??? 🤯
Katrisia@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Because of an old rule (plurals get double letter), I believe the recommended way by the Academy is «E.E. U.U.». Not sure if they’ve said otherwise recently.
It’s also not uncommon to see «E.U.A.», «E.U.» or those same but without the dots.
No confusion with the European Union, though, because that’s «Unión Europa»: «U.E.».
JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 day ago
Finally we can get into Eurovision!
AAA@feddit.org 1 day ago
Do country names, or names in general, need to make “sense”?
As for the USA, without any evidence or desire to look it up, I think most languages translate it pretty much literally.