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

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FishFace@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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.

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