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Renaming the cities of other countries...

  Tags: Names
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
192 messages over 24 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 15 ... 23 24 Next >>
tractor
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 Message 113 of 192
24 September 2012 at 4:58pm | IP Logged 
Ari wrote:
tarvos wrote:
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.

Swedish version: "Långtbortistan".

Norwegian version: Langtvekkistan (Langtbortistan would work too.)

It is a word typical of the Donald Duck & Co. comics.

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montmorency
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 Message 114 of 192
24 September 2012 at 5:21pm | IP Logged 
It used to bother me that in England we refer to the German city of Köln as "Cologne", which sounds like a French name, until I realised that the latter was derived from the older Roman name of "Colonia". So I decided to be less sniffy about names in future!



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Ogrim
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 Message 115 of 192
24 September 2012 at 5:32pm | IP Logged 
montmorency wrote:
It used to bother me that in England we refer to the German city of Köln as "Cologne", which sounds like a French name, until I realised that the latter was derived from the older Roman name of "Colonia". So I decided to be less sniffy about names in future!


It is also Cologne in French. You also have the term "eau de cologne" as a generic name for perfumes.

By the way, I was told by a German friend that in the local dialect in Köln/Cologne the city is called "Kölle".

My own attitude is simply to refer to a city with the name it has in the language I speak (that is, if I know it): Cologne in English and French, Köln in German and Norwegian, Colonia in Spanish and Keulen in Dutch.
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iguanamon
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 Message 116 of 192
24 September 2012 at 5:51pm | IP Logged 
New York is known in Spanish as "Nueva York" and in Portuguese as "Nova Iorque", but in French it is called simply "New York". I wonder why it's not called Nouvelle York in French? How does French handle the suburb of New Rochelle?

Edited by iguanamon on 24 September 2012 at 5:53pm

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Serpent
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 Message 117 of 192
24 September 2012 at 6:07pm | IP Logged 
tractor wrote:
Ari wrote:
tarvos wrote:
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.

Swedish version: "Långtbortistan".

Norwegian version: Langtvekkistan (Langtbortistan would work too.)

It is a word typical of the Donald Duck & Co. comics.
are these associated with countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan etc? Or not?
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Марк
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 Message 118 of 192
24 September 2012 at 6:52pm | IP Logged 
SamD wrote:
Somehow "I want to go to Londres" sounds either like someone is being
very pretentious or is channeling someone else.

If a foreign city or country has a name that is difficult for speakers of one language
to pronounce correctly or without inducing giggles and blushes, there should be a name
for it in that one language.

On the other hand, the pronunciation of Iraq as "eye-rack" comes off as jingoistic.
It's easy enough for English speakers to say "ee-rock."

Yes, but English does not tend to borrow the pronunciation from other languages. It
seems to me that more often than not they just take an original written word (without
diacritics and letters non-present in English) or a strange transliteration and
pronounce it in a random way. While other languages rarely borrow words in the same way
from English. For example, where did [ks] come from in Mexico and Texas if they have
never been pronounced like that?
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tarvos
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 Message 119 of 192
24 September 2012 at 6:58pm | IP Logged 
Because it's written like that in Spanish and in English x usually means a [ks] sound?

No genius needed to explain that
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Марк
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 Message 120 of 192
24 September 2012 at 7:07pm | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
Because it's written like that in Spanish and in English x usually means
a [ks] sound?

No genius needed to explain that

Then why isn't written in English in a way which would satisfy the Spanish pronunciation
(adopted to English)? And that's what I'm talking about. English speakers rarely borrow
anything from ear.


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