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Renaming the cities of other countries... | ||
Tags: Names | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| brandon Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 7055 days ago 54 posts - 55 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Italian | Message 97 of 192 17 March 2010 at 6:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I found this very interesting on wikipedia. Check it out and enjoy. This should be added to the "you know you're a language nerd when..." because I've spent toooo much time looking through it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_European_cities_in_dif ferent_languages:_A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_Americas_ with_alternative_names#top Enjoy! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 98 of 192 23 September 2012 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
I've wanted to start a thread like this for like forever but what a surprise, it exists.
In general, I find this phenomenon fascinating, and for me the fact that Moscow has various names in various languages is a sign of my city's importance. Own names are also much cooler than messed up versions of the original ones. For me, bossing around and telling other countries what to call you is just pathetic insecurity. An important point mentioned earlier in this thread: proper names are just words. There's no reason why phonetical laws/changes shouldn't affect them, and this shouldn't be stopped artificially. If you're against prescriptivism overall than why should proper names be different? Edited by Serpent on 23 September 2012 at 4:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4676 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 99 of 192 23 September 2012 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some Croatian names:
Budapest > Budimpešta Roma ---> Rim Firenze -> Firenca Wien ----> Beč Nice -----> Nica Lisboa--> Lisabon Napoli-->Napulj Some Italian names of Croatian cities: Zagreb ---> Zagabria Dubrovnik->Ragusa Split ---> Spalato Zadar --> Zara Zagreb used to be called Agram during the Austro-Hungarian times, but that name is now obsolete in German. (It was last used by Hitler during WW2). Pazin, the capital of Istrian County was called Pisino in Italian (still used since the county is officially bilingual), and Mitterburg in German (not used anymore). The largest city of Istria is called Pula/Pola (Pula in Croatian, Pola in Italian). In Slovenian it's called Pulj (which was also used in Croatian a long time ago). Edited by Medulin on 23 September 2012 at 6:23pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4723 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 100 of 192 23 September 2012 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Portuguese (at least Brazilian, as far as I know) we also change some names:
Milano -> Milão München -> Munique Beijing -> Pequim Moskva -> Moscou (our version is closer to the English one than the original, odd) New York -> Nova Iorque Firenze -> Florença (again, oddly closer to the English version) Köln -> Colônia London -> Londres Warsaw -> Varsóvia Brussels -> Bruxelas Torino -> Turim And so on.... And there are also some country names strangely translated: Latvia -> Letônia Deutschland/Germany -> Alemanha (probably from French?) Poslka/Poland -> Polônia Norge/Norway -> Noruega Sverige/Sweden -> Suécia Belarus -> Bielorrússia Greenland -> Groenlândia 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 101 of 192 23 September 2012 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why from French? It's just that there were several tribes that gave names to the country in various languages.
And Firenze was Florentia in Latin... yet another case of a name being closer to the original in other language. Same with Moskova in Finnish :))) (btw it's Moscovo in European Portuguese) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4723 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 102 of 192 23 September 2012 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | ||
For "Deutschland", I thought that because it's Germany in English, Germania in Italian, but it's Allemagne in French, so I guessed it might have come from there, or the Spanish version (Alemania). Btw, I loved your link! Very interesting! =) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5575 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 103 of 192 24 September 2012 at 2:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe it's just me, but I love learning geographical terms in my target languages! I regularly win at iSketch against native speakers of French, German and Spanish in their respective geography-themed rooms. Come join us sometime if you're a geography nerd and a language nerd like me. Even if you're not, check out the other rooms on iSketch; it's a really fun place to learn vocabulary and chat with natives in lots of languages. Edited by Levi on 24 September 2012 at 2:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4647 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 104 of 192 24 September 2012 at 9:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Just discovered this interesting thread, and would like to add the observation that Norwegians even have different names for their own country depending on which version of Norwegian you use. In bokmål it is "Norge", in standard nynorsk it is "Noreg" and in conservative nynorsk (landsmål) it is Norig.
As for "Norway" in other languages, i think it is only Danish and Swedish which use the form "Norge", but even they do not pronounce it like a Norwegian does. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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