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Renaming the cities of other countries... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6711 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 105 of 192 24 September 2012 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have always wondered why Greece is called "Yunani" in Indonesian. It sound like a South American native tribe. "Mesir" for Egypt is initially as puzzling until you discover that the offical name is "Junhuriyah Misr al-Arabiyah" (or just "Misr" although that also can be the name for Cairo).
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6605 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 106 of 192 24 September 2012 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's Yunanistan in Turkish... seen it in the Euro-2012 sticker album :D
for me applying this Turkic -stan ending to European countries is cute/funny. Like also Hırvatistan. Edited by Serpent on 24 September 2012 at 3:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4852 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 107 of 192 24 September 2012 at 3:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Chinese place names are the best!
I especially like deguo (land of virtue) for Germany and yingguo (land of heroes) for England. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4715 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 108 of 192 24 September 2012 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
The Dutch word for a country far away (that they don't care to name/is fictional/said in jest) is "Verweggistan". Literally meaning "farawayistan." We can only use this in jest though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6590 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 109 of 192 24 September 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
Swedish version: "Långtbortistan". As to Mandarin names, my favourite is Feizhou for Africa, which can be interpreted as "Not a continent" or "Wrong continent" or even "The continent of wrongness". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Duke100782 Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Philippines https://talktagalog.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4496 days ago 172 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 110 of 192 24 September 2012 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I second that. What we're familiar with now is the Hanyu Pinyin system of romanizing Chinese Mandarin Chinese sounds, such as today's Beijing and Chongqing. Before this system was implemented, another sytem, the Wades-Giles system of romanization, was the one which was most widely used. Thus what we now call Beijing, can be found in our history books as Peking. What is now China fastest growing city of Chongqing, was Chang Kai-Shek's Chungking. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5138 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 111 of 192 24 September 2012 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
My admittedly simple understanding is that it comes from Persian - into Arabic. As noted, Yunanistan's also used in Turkish. Doing a search on the etymology, there seems to be some discussion of "Ionia" being the root. Don't know how much truth there is to that, but it's an explanation. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4715 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 112 of 192 24 September 2012 at 4:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Does this not relate to the word desert? I know that in Hebrew, Mizraim indicates those Jews that never left the homeland and are literally "the desert ones". (As opposed to Ashkenazim or Sephardim). Which is again notable because of Egypt's location, of course. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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