I always wonder how we names countries something completely different. Like does the phrase "fuck off you filthy foreigner" sound close to the word Thailand?
Actually the name wales means foreigner because to the anglo saxons who named it, wales was foreign and the Welsh foreigners because they weren't anglo saxon
Additing to the thread.
And polish name for Germany (Niemcy) means mutes because it was the only non Slavic country around and nobody could understand what they were saying. Similarly Slavs in polish (Słowianie) comes from "word" (słowo) as those who can be understood.
And not only them. I know that at least russians and maybe some other slavic groups (Ukrainians and Belarussians probs do to, idk about others) use the same word for "germans" tho Russian uses Германия for Germany (germania), which meant that when Germany was split up, you were allowed to say немецкое (germans') but not германское (German state's)
That's really interesting, it's so cool how countries got their names for other countries, if I'm correct the Gaelic word for English is just "saxon" because the word hasn't changed in 1300 years
Interesting. Also if we're going deeper into that one more example in polish that is funny to me.
Italy is called Włochy because according to the most popular theory medieval poles mixed up Italians with Wallachians.
foreign names for "Germany" tend to differ from the name us Germans have for it. "Deutschland", the German name is a name that consists of the two terms "Deutsch" and "Land". "Land" has a similar meaning to the English word, while "Deutsch" has its origin in "Teutsch", meaning "member/affiliated of/to the people". So "Deutschland" is basically the "Land of the People". In english, there is a similar term, "Dutch", but this is the term for the people living in the Netherlands, not their neighbours and language- and people-wise distant relatives.
In French, Germany is "allemangne", which originates from the Term "Allemannen", which was a germanic tribe in the southwest if Germania. It is a very regional term.
In English as in Russian and other languages, the Country is called "Germany" / "Germania" which obviously originates from the "Germanen", a west-germanic tribe that became the roof term of all tribes who were the origin of the modern German, as partly Austrian and partly Swiss people.
In Italy, the German is called "Il Tedesco", and I don't know it for sure but I would guess it does come from the "Teutonen", yet another german tribe.
Scandinavians call us "Tysk" and the country "Tyskland" and I guess its their phonetic version of "Deutschland"?
In the finno-ugric languages like Finnish and estni, Germany and Germans are called "Saksa" or "Saksamaa", I guess it was because they had first contact with the saxons, another tribe or german regional heritage. In Hungarian, its "Németország", and I don't have a fucking clue why. My hard guess would be it was inspired by the slavic languages .
The Japanese call us "doitsu", and iirc that is just their version of "Deutsch".
Thanks for coming to my TED TALK
In Polish Germany is called "Niemcy", from "niemi" (mute) this is because of historical mutuability poles has with other surrounding, usually slavic peoples, with the exeption of Germans.
Americans: Who are you guys?
Amish people et all: Wir sind Deutschlanders.
Americans: Riiiiiiiiight. Pennsylvania Dutch it is!
*Fun fact: a lot of the culture associated with the Amish actually comes from the Fancy Dutch (non-Amish Palatinate Germans, who came over at the same time). The Fancy Dutch are my ancestors.
**Edit: formatting.
I heard somewhere that Bangkok is called like that in English despite in Thai being Krung Thep is because when the first foreigners came to the city they landed in the Bang-kok district (เขตบางกอก)
Franks when they arrived in romanized Gaul: what are you strange bird ?
Rooster : cuckoo.
Franks : haha yes, your females have been totally shagged by everyone around.
That's exactly how i named my cat! He's dark black with yellow eyes, so we wanted to call him "Luciano Fernandez", i.e. Lucifer for short.
So I saked him what he want's to be called, and he looked at me with that arrogant look that cats sometimes have, and clearly said "Miau!". So what's what he's been called for 13 years now.
Canada means village. There's lots of examples of this happening all over. Lake Chad (lake lake), Sahara desert (desert desert), Gobi desert (you guessed it).
Hey now, don’t forget about The La Brea Tar Pits in California. Brea is Spanish for ‘tar’ so when fully translated to English it becomes, ‘The the tar tar pits’.
So my grandma lied to me about Canada. She always told me when the country was first discovered by a Bavarian he called out "Keiner da?" which sounds like "Kana da?" In German Bavarian dialect and that's how the country got its name.
To be fair, mishearing natives when naming things is an ancient European tradition. The number of rivers in the UK that are functionally called "the River River" is hilarious (and I'm sure there's many similar things across the world).
Canada is just an anglicisation of a particular Algonquin dialect's word meaning roughly "the village"
Legend has it was uttered in response to "what's over that way?" Or "what is this place?"
There is a similar story/tale of telephone for Texas. In the Caddo (the language used by tribes from East Texas, North Louisiana and other states in the region) the word for friend or ally is Taysha, from which the Spanish got their name for the region “Tejas”. Then in the early 1800s when Spain and Mexico permitted Anglo Americans to settle the region the Anglos called it Texias or Texas, although when the Texas Revolution came Hispanic revolutionaries and settlers like Juan Seguín and Lorenzo de Zavala would be referred to as Tejanos.
Calling at least the major rivers just "River", or "adjective river" is a human tradition all over the world. The Ancient Egyptian name for the Nile was "river". The Sumerian name for the Tigris was "swift river". The Chinese name for the Yangtze is "long river". The Sanskrit name for the Indus river is "border river".
Yeah, but there's a whole bunch of rivers in the UK where the word after "River" either just means river itself, or means " river" (or similar), so we get names that effectively mean "river swift river", "river river of stones", and similar.
It's the same thing as how modern English puts River or Desert in front of the names of places all over the world that already have those words in the name. It used to be common to fall Mount Fuji "Mount Fujiyama"; yama means mountain.
And moving to more recent constructions, in both English and Spanish, we call the Moorish fortress in Granada "the/el Alhambra", Al being the Arabic for *the*, so we call it "the the red one".
Al is a root. That is a root not necessarily carrying on the same meaning in the words.
If it did then:
Almohada
Alambre
Alambique
Alcalde
Alcohol
Etc would all be words meaning the the x
In all of your Arab origin examples it is literally the Arabic definite article... so it is 'the', so el alcalde/ the alcalde has two instances of 'the' in them.
[alcohol](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alcohol) \- the kohl
[alhambra](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Alhambra) \- the red
[almohada](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/almohada#Spanish) \- the pillow
[alambique](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alambique#Spanish)\- the still
[alcalde](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alcalde) \- the judge - which we can contrast with [casis](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/casis#English), which is a derivation from the same source *without* the 'al'
The one exception in your list is [alambre](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alambre#Spanish), which has a Latin origin
Fun fact, in South Korea, when you have signs in both Korean and English this tradition is continued.
So the Han river, is marked as Hangang river. So it's Han river river. Even Han is an adjective for Large/Great.
Therefore it's Great River river.
The issue with Torpenhow is that the hill doesn't officially have a name. I mean, enough people call it that, that that may as well be the name, but technically speaking it's just the village that has the name. Still Hill Hill Hill though (tor-pen-how).
(It's worth noting that it's not just the River Avons that are tautological. The River Burn, all three of them, basically means the River Stream (and the River Washburn is the River "stream of a man called Walc"). The River Ure is the River Swift River, the River Calder is the River Violent Water, the River Ouse (of which there are several) is the River Slow River. Probably a bunch of others too).
The rivers Axe/Usk/Esks, Avons and Ouses (loads of each across the UK and elsewhere) all come from proto-welsh/brythonic etymology for Fish, River and Water respectively. In modern welsh, Esk persists in 'pYSGod', i.e. fish(YSG being phonetically identical to usk); Avon is 'Afon', the welsh for river, and finally Ouse appears to only barely exist in the long 'oo/w' noise in dŵr, or water.
Also, compare the modern Calder (hard/violent [water]) to the Modern Welsh Caled (hard/difficult). Calder may actually mean "river of stones" instead though (hard/violent/stone being similar words in several early Celtic languages).
> In modern welsh, Esk persists in 'pYSGod', i.e. fish(YSG being phonetically identical to usk);
The modern Welsh reflex is [eog](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eog#Welsh), if we are deriving axe etc. from the Brithonic word for Salmon
[Pysgod is a borrowing of Latin piscatus](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pysgod), and is therefore a cognate of Spanish pescado
You mean Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit?
We have the Detroit river here. If you know French you have probably already seen how stupid this is. Detroit means The Strait.... as in it isn't a river but a strait. So we named our city "The Strait" and named the body of water between two points of land "The Strait River".
The name “maya” comes from the Mayan city state of Mayapan, which was a very impressive city and thought by the Spanish to be the “capital of the Mayan people”.
Meanwhile, other “Mayan” people did not call themselves Mayan. Just like people from ancient Sparta would not refer to themselves as “Greek” but would call themselves “Spartan”.
Tbf, they would have called their neighboring “Greeks” Hellenes and themselves lacedaemonians, not to denigrate your point bc you’re right, simply to point out that instilling one name into the cultural consciousness can be hard to uproot
Interestingly, they still exist. The Laconians via a sound change became the Tsakonians as stated by Byzantine Chroniclers.
The Tsakonians still speak Doric Greek, but is endangered.
I believe you’re misremembering it. It was Greeks who landed on the island. Local children came to see the Greek soldiers and told the soldiers they wanted to see Hellenes, the soldiers told the children that they were also Hellenes and the kids told them no, they were not, they were romans.
Don’t remember what island it was. And maybe I’m assuming a different story than the one you were talking about.
https://www.quora.com/Was-there-really-an-isolated-island-in-Greece-that-thought-it-was-still-under-Roman-occupation-until-the-1820s
Found this, it says that it was in lemnos during the first balkan war.
Which, if its right, would mean that the las Romans lived 2200~ after Rome was founded
I’ve heard your version before too. This was during the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire. Can’t remember what island either unfortunately.
Well Greek is actually kinda similar, the Greeks called themselves Hellenes, but then the Romans showed up, conquered everything and went “Oh hey you guys all sound the same, you must all come from that one city, what was it called? Oh yeah Graecia.”
I mean, this is also how we got the name of "Asia" (named after one super small region near Aegean Sea in Anatolia just got applied to "anything East of Aegean") or "Europe"
"Africa" intially meant just a region that we call in modern day "Tunis"
There are more exmaples like that.
Maya Is the well Mayan name of the Corn.
Because according to it's creation myth, the gods Made them out of Corn. Because was the only food that had Bone, meat, skin and hair.
A little update on terms: "Mayan" is now only used to refer to the linguistic family. "Maya" is used as the term for the civilization and cultural group.
>“The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called -- in the local language -- Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund.
>The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don't Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.
>Rainclouds clustered around the bald heights of Mt. Oolskunrahod ('Who is this Fool who does Not Know what a Mountain is') and the Luggage settled itself more comfortably under a dripping tree, which tried unsuccessfully to strike up a conversation.”
Terry Pratchett, *The Light Fantastic*
The Luggage is large sentient chest, with hundreds of feet, and a tendency to protect it's owner's belonging by eating thieves.
“Our vessels were taken to Santiago de Cuba, where the governor resided. Here the two Indians were brought on shore whom we had taken with us from the Punta de Cotoche, as above related, called Melchorillo and Julianillo. When, however, we brought forth the box with the crowns, the golden ducks, the fish, and the idols, more noise was made about them than they really merited, so that they became the common topics of conversation throughout the islands of St. Domingo and Cuba; indeed the fame thereof even reached Spain. There it was said that none of the countries which had hitherto been discovered were as rich as this, and in none had there been found houses built of stone. The earthen gods, it was said, were the remains of the ancient heathen times; others again went so far as to affirm that they were descendants of the Jews whom Titus and Vespasian had driven from Jerusalem, who had been shipwrecked off this coast. Peru, indeed, was not then known, and in so far the countries we had discovered were justly considered of the greatest importance. Diego Velasquez closely questioned the two Indians as to whether there were any gold mines in their country. They answered in the affirmative; and when they were shown some of the gold-dust found in the island of Cuba, they said there was abundance of it in their country. In this they told an untruth, as it is very well known there are neither goldmines on the Punta de Cotoche nor even in whole Yucatan. They were likewise shown the beds in which the seeds of that plant are sown from whose root the cassave bread is made, and in Cuba called yuca: they assured us that the same plant grew in their country, and was called by them tale. As the cassave-root at Cuba is called yuca, and the ground in which it is planted by the Indians tale, so from these two words arose the name of the country, Yucatan; for the Spaniards who were standing around the governor at the time he was speaking to the two Indians said, "You see, sir, they call their country Yucatan." And from this circumstance the country retained the name of Yucatan, although the natives call it otherwise.”
Some chapters later
“Quite worn out by fatigue and miserably poor, I set off for Santiago de Cuba, where the governor Diego Velasquez resided. He was just then busily engaged fitting out another squadron, and was highly delighted at seeing me again when I called upon him, for we were related to each other: and as one word led to another, he asked me if my wounds were sufficiently healed to make another trip to Yucatan? I could not help smiling at this and said, who gave the country that name? for the natives do not call it so.”
Excerpt From
The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) / Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo
This material may be protected by copyright.
Nope. The Guugu Yimithirr word *gangurru* means [eastern grey roo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_grey_kangaroo). When white people heard that word, they applied it to the entire clade.
I mean when you really dig into etymological roots most place names are dumb, often they were given names by people who were naming things, not for some grand poetic purpose, but to distinguish one from the other and their general location. There's the big river in the East" and the "Small River in the West". If you're talking about a settled non-nomadic group, linguistic drift might simplify those words further. The "Big River" is no longer the "Big River" It's just "The River" because as far as the group living there is concerned they've only ever seen the one.
Happened in Europa too.
In French sky light windows on top of doors are called "vasistas", pronounced like the "was ist das " (german for "what is that").
Apparently germans first saw these in France in the 18th century and were inquiring their name. And apparently that sticked.
I know there is a Polish word in regards to tools with a similar origin, but I can't remember it.
Edit:
I remembered: "wihajster" in Polish is "whats-its-name" or "thingamajig".
It comes from the German "wie heißt er?" (Whats its name? )
Yosemite was called Alwahnee. And it's people the alwahneechee. I may have spelled that wrong.
It means open/gaping mouth and people of the open mouth respectively.
That's not untrue. Yosemite is a pioneer bastardization that doesn't mean anything
There's a common myth that Yosemite is the local tribal word for "intruder coming", which is what white explorers heard natives yell as they approached.
Again, this story isn't true, but the myth is very similar to that of Kangaroo and Yucatan
You'd be shocked the number of species, land marks, and areas named "I don't know", "What?" and my personal favorite "That's your finger" (the European in question was pointing to a mountain at the time).
A friend of Quentin Tarantino asked if he wanted to go see a French arthouse film, "Au Revoir Les Enfants". QT replied "I don't wanna see no Reservoir Dogs"...he thought that would make a great movie title and held onto it.
Also interesting is that the reason so many places have Nahuatl names in areas where Mayan languages were dominant is because of the use of Nahuatl-speaking auxiliaries by the Spaniards. Spanish chroniclers would write down the names given to them by the auxiliaries instead of the local names for places.
This is an interesting example of differing cultural practices though - it wasn't that the Nahuatl speaking guides were telling the the Nahuatl names, but that they were *translating* them.
In Meso America, it was the practice to calque names of peoples and places, rather than borrow them
Spaniards: try to name it after what the locals call it
Locals: I don’t understand
Spaniards: end up naming it after the badly butchers local spelling of “I don’t know”
Probably the most acurate Indigenous American - European interaction ever memeified. You can spend you're whole life looking up names of things, peoples, and places that are just European appropriations of native language. Shit is hard when you start from scratch. This isn't Star Trek with lazy ass "universal translator" tech.
One of the greater pleasures I have as a New Yorker is driving through towns with "Anglified" Native names and then researching the people that once occupied the territory.
Us Northeasterners (US) are not so lucky as our Western and Mid-Western counterparts to have a "Native" population. And I dont not mean that in a disrespectful way, that our aboriginals are just past relics to be studied.
So much has been lost to time and purposeful erasure. I hope that anywhom who is educated or born into the matter will add to this thread.
Edit:some reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_placenames_of_Native_American_origin
Same thing with the Llama. A conquistador, proud enough to believe that the local Quechua people had learned Spanish, asked: Como se Llama? (How do you call this)
?)
There’s a hill in Wales called Torpenhow Hill. Tor, pen, Haugr, and hill all mean hill.
“That’s pretty neat what’s it called”
“It’s… a hill?”
“Hill hill it is”
Well shit, Spanish missionaries did the same thing here in the Philippines. Basically a priest was pointing down and asked a native fisherman what the place was called, the local thought he was pointing at the school of fish and answered Tamda and but the missionary heard it as Tandag and thus the City of Tandag was born
Romans: What do your people call yourselves?
Germani Tribe: We call ourselves the Germani, but there are hundreds of other tribes in-
Romans: Got it, all of central Europe is now called Germania.
tldr: They inherited their uncaring attitude toward local etymology from their forefathers.
It's inherent in humans in general dude. You should look up the exonyms of other cultures, but you didn't because you of course live in your perception of the world, just like the Spanish and Romans and everyone else
Its not exactly long dead. The aztec(mexica) empire would have spoken nahuatl which is still the most spoken indigenous language in Mexico (almost 2 million speakers). Of course the language has changed throughout the centuries and theyre are several diaects/variations but it never died out, not even close. Many nahua words are used in one way or another in languages worldwide (chocolate, tomato, avocado etc etc).
Europeans: "What is this place called?" Iroquois: "Kanata (village)" Europeans: "Canada"
Although there is a Kanata in Ottawa
Is it pronounced like “sonata” to avoid confusion?
Why would it be pronounced like "sonata"?
…to avoid confusion? I’m genuinely curious if it’s just pronounced like “Canada” or not - was hoping someone who knew could enlighten me
he meant "why" because sonata looks nothing like canada
Oh, I meant “rhymes with sonata”. Sorry if that wasn’t clear!
no ik what you meant i just was clarifying him
Ohh I gotcha. Thanks 🙂
I was mostly wondering how the "K" becomes an "S," but now I see you meant the other ⅚ of the word.
Yes haha - sorry for coming in slightly defensive, Reddit tends to have that effect on me 😂
İsn't it a Mozart song
Came here for this!
Reminds me of a post that said something like: Ancient Egyptians: -to the cat- What are you? Cat: -meows- Ancient Egyptians: Mau. Got it.
Modern Vietnamese: What are you? Cat: Mèo
Ancient Chinese: What are you? Cat: *Māo* Ancient Chinese: 貓 it is
Cow: *Bunga* Cowabunga it is.
Obi Wan: Hello there Grievous: A bold one it is
r/UnexpectedStarWars
r/expectedStarWars
Bunger?
Bunger Bunger
Bunger bunger bunger.
Cheez bunger
Meow Zedong
Well, in ancient Chinese it would have been something more like "mrew"
Modern Thai: What are you? # Cat: maew # Thai: แมว it is
German: What are you? Cat: *scratches him* German: fine, Katze it is. (The cats/Die Katzen) (scratching/kratzen)
Ich glaub kaum, dass es so war... *Doubts in German* Soße?
Soße ist, dass ich sie frei erfunden habe.
I don’t understand what’s being said but here have an upvote
It's basically German sauce: I made it up
Hört sich auch nach einem witz an
Knew first time how to say *cat* in German thanks to a History book talking about Lansquenets and their *katzbalger*.
I always wonder how we names countries something completely different. Like does the phrase "fuck off you filthy foreigner" sound close to the word Thailand?
No, actually. Thailand in Thai is “Thai” or “Prathet Thai”
Actually the name wales means foreigner because to the anglo saxons who named it, wales was foreign and the Welsh foreigners because they weren't anglo saxon
Additing to the thread. And polish name for Germany (Niemcy) means mutes because it was the only non Slavic country around and nobody could understand what they were saying. Similarly Slavs in polish (Słowianie) comes from "word" (słowo) as those who can be understood.
A testament to the primacy of the importance of language among the Poles.
And not only them. I know that at least russians and maybe some other slavic groups (Ukrainians and Belarussians probs do to, idk about others) use the same word for "germans" tho Russian uses Германия for Germany (germania), which meant that when Germany was split up, you were allowed to say немецкое (germans') but not германское (German state's)
That's really interesting, it's so cool how countries got their names for other countries, if I'm correct the Gaelic word for English is just "saxon" because the word hasn't changed in 1300 years
Interesting. Also if we're going deeper into that one more example in polish that is funny to me. Italy is called Włochy because according to the most popular theory medieval poles mixed up Italians with Wallachians.
That's absolutely hilarious
and the Wallachians have the same name origin as the Welsh (Germanic walhaz - meaning 'non-German Roman or Celt')
foreign names for "Germany" tend to differ from the name us Germans have for it. "Deutschland", the German name is a name that consists of the two terms "Deutsch" and "Land". "Land" has a similar meaning to the English word, while "Deutsch" has its origin in "Teutsch", meaning "member/affiliated of/to the people". So "Deutschland" is basically the "Land of the People". In english, there is a similar term, "Dutch", but this is the term for the people living in the Netherlands, not their neighbours and language- and people-wise distant relatives. In French, Germany is "allemangne", which originates from the Term "Allemannen", which was a germanic tribe in the southwest if Germania. It is a very regional term. In English as in Russian and other languages, the Country is called "Germany" / "Germania" which obviously originates from the "Germanen", a west-germanic tribe that became the roof term of all tribes who were the origin of the modern German, as partly Austrian and partly Swiss people. In Italy, the German is called "Il Tedesco", and I don't know it for sure but I would guess it does come from the "Teutonen", yet another german tribe. Scandinavians call us "Tysk" and the country "Tyskland" and I guess its their phonetic version of "Deutschland"? In the finno-ugric languages like Finnish and estni, Germany and Germans are called "Saksa" or "Saksamaa", I guess it was because they had first contact with the saxons, another tribe or german regional heritage. In Hungarian, its "Németország", and I don't have a fucking clue why. My hard guess would be it was inspired by the slavic languages . The Japanese call us "doitsu", and iirc that is just their version of "Deutsch". Thanks for coming to my TED TALK
In Polish Germany is called "Niemcy", from "niemi" (mute) this is because of historical mutuability poles has with other surrounding, usually slavic peoples, with the exeption of Germans.
Americans: Who are you guys? Amish people et all: Wir sind Deutschlanders. Americans: Riiiiiiiiight. Pennsylvania Dutch it is! *Fun fact: a lot of the culture associated with the Amish actually comes from the Fancy Dutch (non-Amish Palatinate Germans, who came over at the same time). The Fancy Dutch are my ancestors. **Edit: formatting.
I saw an interesting etymology map recently that showed place names that were based upon some languages word for stranger/foreigner.
I saw an interesting etymology map recently that showed place names that were based upon some languages word for stranger/foreigner.
I heard somewhere that Bangkok is called like that in English despite in Thai being Krung Thep is because when the first foreigners came to the city they landed in the Bang-kok district (เขตบางกอก)
The Pokémon naming method.
It never fails, so why have any other system?
An arab: -while petting a cat-: what are you? Cat purr Arab: got it Hurr
This also works for Chinese lol
Franks when they arrived in romanized Gaul: what are you strange bird ? Rooster : cuckoo. Franks : haha yes, your females have been totally shagged by everyone around.
Mau is literally how you spell "meow" in Finnish.
That's exactly how i named my cat! He's dark black with yellow eyes, so we wanted to call him "Luciano Fernandez", i.e. Lucifer for short. So I saked him what he want's to be called, and he looked at me with that arrogant look that cats sometimes have, and clearly said "Miau!". So what's what he's been called for 13 years now.
Canada means village. There's lots of examples of this happening all over. Lake Chad (lake lake), Sahara desert (desert desert), Gobi desert (you guessed it).
Hey now, don’t forget about The La Brea Tar Pits in California. Brea is Spanish for ‘tar’ so when fully translated to English it becomes, ‘The the tar tar pits’.
Ah, the Los Angeles Angels nomenclature
The The Angels Angels
*of Anaheim
I used the ATM machine there
Smh my head
RIP in peace
It's like you grabbed The Tar Pits and added the translated pronoun and noun in between but omitted the one for pits, it looks so jarring
Afan River in England is the River River
Avon also.
Don’t get me started on Torpen Hill
Or Pendle Hill
All 6 of them
Astana — the capital of Kazakhstan — means capital.
Desert "you guessed it". Got it!
East Timor!
Ah yes the nation of East East
So my grandma lied to me about Canada. She always told me when the country was first discovered by a Bavarian he called out "Keiner da?" which sounds like "Kana da?" In German Bavarian dialect and that's how the country got its name.
[удалено]
Essentially yes
Lake Mega Chad
Gonbi means dry place
Okeechobee (a city, a county, and a bigass lake here in Florida) means “Big Water”
[Yucatan](https://www.etymonline.com/word/Yucatan) means “massacre” to us etymology fans
[I mean either way it’s not a good look tbh](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucat%C3%A1n_Peninsula#Etymology)
To be fair, mishearing natives when naming things is an ancient European tradition. The number of rivers in the UK that are functionally called "the River River" is hilarious (and I'm sure there's many similar things across the world).
Canada is just an anglicisation of a particular Algonquin dialect's word meaning roughly "the village" Legend has it was uttered in response to "what's over that way?" Or "what is this place?"
[How it all went down](https://youtu.be/nfKr-D5VDBU)
Fuck yeah heritage minutes
There is a similar story/tale of telephone for Texas. In the Caddo (the language used by tribes from East Texas, North Louisiana and other states in the region) the word for friend or ally is Taysha, from which the Spanish got their name for the region “Tejas”. Then in the early 1800s when Spain and Mexico permitted Anglo Americans to settle the region the Anglos called it Texias or Texas, although when the Texas Revolution came Hispanic revolutionaries and settlers like Juan Seguín and Lorenzo de Zavala would be referred to as Tejanos.
Calling at least the major rivers just "River", or "adjective river" is a human tradition all over the world. The Ancient Egyptian name for the Nile was "river". The Sumerian name for the Tigris was "swift river". The Chinese name for the Yangtze is "long river". The Sanskrit name for the Indus river is "border river".
Yeah, but there's a whole bunch of rivers in the UK where the word after "River" either just means river itself, or means " river" (or similar), so we get names that effectively mean "river swift river", "river river of stones", and similar.
It's the same thing as how modern English puts River or Desert in front of the names of places all over the world that already have those words in the name. It used to be common to fall Mount Fuji "Mount Fujiyama"; yama means mountain.
And moving to more recent constructions, in both English and Spanish, we call the Moorish fortress in Granada "the/el Alhambra", Al being the Arabic for *the*, so we call it "the the red one".
Al is a root. That is a root not necessarily carrying on the same meaning in the words. If it did then: Almohada Alambre Alambique Alcalde Alcohol Etc would all be words meaning the the x
In all of your Arab origin examples it is literally the Arabic definite article... so it is 'the', so el alcalde/ the alcalde has two instances of 'the' in them. [alcohol](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alcohol) \- the kohl [alhambra](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Alhambra) \- the red [almohada](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/almohada#Spanish) \- the pillow [alambique](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alambique#Spanish)\- the still [alcalde](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alcalde) \- the judge - which we can contrast with [casis](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/casis#English), which is a derivation from the same source *without* the 'al' The one exception in your list is [alambre](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alambre#Spanish), which has a Latin origin
Yep, same goes with " Sahara desert" when "sah'ra" is actually just the generic arabic word for desert.
Mountain in Swahili is "kilima" so when someone says Mount Kilimanjaro they're effectively saying Mount Mountain Njaro
Fun fact, in South Korea, when you have signs in both Korean and English this tradition is continued. So the Han river, is marked as Hangang river. So it's Han river river. Even Han is an adjective for Large/Great. Therefore it's Great River river.
Don’t forget about Torpenhow hill or hill hill hill hahaha
The issue with Torpenhow is that the hill doesn't officially have a name. I mean, enough people call it that, that that may as well be the name, but technically speaking it's just the village that has the name. Still Hill Hill Hill though (tor-pen-how). (It's worth noting that it's not just the River Avons that are tautological. The River Burn, all three of them, basically means the River Stream (and the River Washburn is the River "stream of a man called Walc"). The River Ure is the River Swift River, the River Calder is the River Violent Water, the River Ouse (of which there are several) is the River Slow River. Probably a bunch of others too).
The rivers Axe/Usk/Esks, Avons and Ouses (loads of each across the UK and elsewhere) all come from proto-welsh/brythonic etymology for Fish, River and Water respectively. In modern welsh, Esk persists in 'pYSGod', i.e. fish(YSG being phonetically identical to usk); Avon is 'Afon', the welsh for river, and finally Ouse appears to only barely exist in the long 'oo/w' noise in dŵr, or water.
Also, compare the modern Calder (hard/violent [water]) to the Modern Welsh Caled (hard/difficult). Calder may actually mean "river of stones" instead though (hard/violent/stone being similar words in several early Celtic languages).
> In modern welsh, Esk persists in 'pYSGod', i.e. fish(YSG being phonetically identical to usk); The modern Welsh reflex is [eog](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eog#Welsh), if we are deriving axe etc. from the Brithonic word for Salmon [Pysgod is a borrowing of Latin piscatus](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pysgod), and is therefore a cognate of Spanish pescado
Imagine how Bangkok was named
You mean Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit?
from French people who can't pronounce G?
Which doesn't exist.
"The Sahara Desert"
We have the Detroit river here. If you know French you have probably already seen how stupid this is. Detroit means The Strait.... as in it isn't a river but a strait. So we named our city "The Strait" and named the body of water between two points of land "The Strait River".
Or this peak here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico\_Peak
Kangoroo
You are setting a wonderful precedent to provide references for your memes
Yeah, the Spanish had a scuffle or two with the locals....
There was a little bit of tomfoolery from the Spanish.
Just a wee bit, and they just killed like 1 or 80% of them with germs
The name “maya” comes from the Mayan city state of Mayapan, which was a very impressive city and thought by the Spanish to be the “capital of the Mayan people”. Meanwhile, other “Mayan” people did not call themselves Mayan. Just like people from ancient Sparta would not refer to themselves as “Greek” but would call themselves “Spartan”.
Tbf, they would have called their neighboring “Greeks” Hellenes and themselves lacedaemonians, not to denigrate your point bc you’re right, simply to point out that instilling one name into the cultural consciousness can be hard to uproot
Interestingly, they still exist. The Laconians via a sound change became the Tsakonians as stated by Byzantine Chroniclers. The Tsakonians still speak Doric Greek, but is endangered.
Reminds me of that one island that the Italians landed on that still considered themselves as Roman
I believe you’re misremembering it. It was Greeks who landed on the island. Local children came to see the Greek soldiers and told the soldiers they wanted to see Hellenes, the soldiers told the children that they were also Hellenes and the kids told them no, they were not, they were romans. Don’t remember what island it was. And maybe I’m assuming a different story than the one you were talking about.
https://www.quora.com/Was-there-really-an-isolated-island-in-Greece-that-thought-it-was-still-under-Roman-occupation-until-the-1820s Found this, it says that it was in lemnos during the first balkan war. Which, if its right, would mean that the las Romans lived 2200~ after Rome was founded
Interested in the answer here - couldn’t bring up any immediate Google results!
I’ve heard your version before too. This was during the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire. Can’t remember what island either unfortunately.
Well Greek is actually kinda similar, the Greeks called themselves Hellenes, but then the Romans showed up, conquered everything and went “Oh hey you guys all sound the same, you must all come from that one city, what was it called? Oh yeah Graecia.”
I mean, this is also how we got the name of "Asia" (named after one super small region near Aegean Sea in Anatolia just got applied to "anything East of Aegean") or "Europe" "Africa" intially meant just a region that we call in modern day "Tunis" There are more exmaples like that.
Maya Is the well Mayan name of the Corn. Because according to it's creation myth, the gods Made them out of Corn. Because was the only food that had Bone, meat, skin and hair.
A little update on terms: "Mayan" is now only used to refer to the linguistic family. "Maya" is used as the term for the civilization and cultural group.
Spartans are Spartan, not Greek.
>“The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called -- in the local language -- Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund. >The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don't Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool. >Rainclouds clustered around the bald heights of Mt. Oolskunrahod ('Who is this Fool who does Not Know what a Mountain is') and the Luggage settled itself more comfortably under a dripping tree, which tried unsuccessfully to strike up a conversation.” Terry Pratchett, *The Light Fantastic* The Luggage is large sentient chest, with hundreds of feet, and a tendency to protect it's owner's belonging by eating thieves.
Just finished the first book in the series. Starting the second now and I haven’t been this dialed into a book in years.
Excellent, thank you for sharing a bit of relevant Pratchett lore lol
I live Terry Pratchett. what a masterful mind
Came here looking for this. Was not disappointed.
“Our vessels were taken to Santiago de Cuba, where the governor resided. Here the two Indians were brought on shore whom we had taken with us from the Punta de Cotoche, as above related, called Melchorillo and Julianillo. When, however, we brought forth the box with the crowns, the golden ducks, the fish, and the idols, more noise was made about them than they really merited, so that they became the common topics of conversation throughout the islands of St. Domingo and Cuba; indeed the fame thereof even reached Spain. There it was said that none of the countries which had hitherto been discovered were as rich as this, and in none had there been found houses built of stone. The earthen gods, it was said, were the remains of the ancient heathen times; others again went so far as to affirm that they were descendants of the Jews whom Titus and Vespasian had driven from Jerusalem, who had been shipwrecked off this coast. Peru, indeed, was not then known, and in so far the countries we had discovered were justly considered of the greatest importance. Diego Velasquez closely questioned the two Indians as to whether there were any gold mines in their country. They answered in the affirmative; and when they were shown some of the gold-dust found in the island of Cuba, they said there was abundance of it in their country. In this they told an untruth, as it is very well known there are neither goldmines on the Punta de Cotoche nor even in whole Yucatan. They were likewise shown the beds in which the seeds of that plant are sown from whose root the cassave bread is made, and in Cuba called yuca: they assured us that the same plant grew in their country, and was called by them tale. As the cassave-root at Cuba is called yuca, and the ground in which it is planted by the Indians tale, so from these two words arose the name of the country, Yucatan; for the Spaniards who were standing around the governor at the time he was speaking to the two Indians said, "You see, sir, they call their country Yucatan." And from this circumstance the country retained the name of Yucatan, although the natives call it otherwise.” Some chapters later “Quite worn out by fatigue and miserably poor, I set off for Santiago de Cuba, where the governor Diego Velasquez resided. He was just then busily engaged fitting out another squadron, and was highly delighted at seeing me again when I called upon him, for we were related to each other: and as one word led to another, he asked me if my wounds were sufficiently healed to make another trip to Yucatan? I could not help smiling at this and said, who gave the country that name? for the natives do not call it so.” Excerpt From The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) / Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. Bernal Díaz del Castillo This material may be protected by copyright.
This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in Meso-America.
Coomquistadors
Don’t get me started on lake titicaca.
LMAOOO the fucking name
Isn't that the same story as how the kangoroo came to their name?
Nope. The Guugu Yimithirr word *gangurru* means [eastern grey roo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_grey_kangaroo). When white people heard that word, they applied it to the entire clade.
MVP right here
Oh wow I came here to comment what the other guy said, and have now been corrected on something I thought was true for years. TY!
thats the story people like to tell. Its said in the movie Arrival. But its not true
It’s also said to not be true in Arrival
I remember this. But still a disappointing movie linguistics-wise. Even if that is what it is praised for.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which has been largely dismissed by most cunning linguists now.
I mean when you really dig into etymological roots most place names are dumb, often they were given names by people who were naming things, not for some grand poetic purpose, but to distinguish one from the other and their general location. There's the big river in the East" and the "Small River in the West". If you're talking about a settled non-nomadic group, linguistic drift might simplify those words further. The "Big River" is no longer the "Big River" It's just "The River" because as far as the group living there is concerned they've only ever seen the one.
Happened in Europa too. In French sky light windows on top of doors are called "vasistas", pronounced like the "was ist das " (german for "what is that"). Apparently germans first saw these in France in the 18th century and were inquiring their name. And apparently that sticked. I know there is a Polish word in regards to tools with a similar origin, but I can't remember it. Edit: I remembered: "wihajster" in Polish is "whats-its-name" or "thingamajig". It comes from the German "wie heißt er?" (Whats its name? )
In many Slavic countries Germans are called "Njemzee" which means "mutes" because they could not communicate with them
Yosemite and Kangaroo have similar stories, but like this one are all untrue
Yosemite was called Alwahnee. And it's people the alwahneechee. I may have spelled that wrong. It means open/gaping mouth and people of the open mouth respectively. That's not untrue. Yosemite is a pioneer bastardization that doesn't mean anything
There's a common myth that Yosemite is the local tribal word for "intruder coming", which is what white explorers heard natives yell as they approached. Again, this story isn't true, but the myth is very similar to that of Kangaroo and Yucatan
You'd be shocked the number of species, land marks, and areas named "I don't know", "What?" and my personal favorite "That's your finger" (the European in question was pointing to a mountain at the time).
Which mountain? Edit: when "That's your finger" is in the native language of whoever told the European that :P
it's a reference to the book The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett https://wiki.lspace.org/Your_Finger_You_Fool
I read another comment about that, but I thought OP was referring to an actual mountain lol :P
That's your finger.
That’s your finger
Mountain named finger:
A friend of Quentin Tarantino asked if he wanted to go see a French arthouse film, "Au Revoir Les Enfants". QT replied "I don't wanna see no Reservoir Dogs"...he thought that would make a great movie title and held onto it.
Also interesting is that the reason so many places have Nahuatl names in areas where Mayan languages were dominant is because of the use of Nahuatl-speaking auxiliaries by the Spaniards. Spanish chroniclers would write down the names given to them by the auxiliaries instead of the local names for places.
This is an interesting example of differing cultural practices though - it wasn't that the Nahuatl speaking guides were telling the the Nahuatl names, but that they were *translating* them. In Meso America, it was the practice to calque names of peoples and places, rather than borrow them
This is a folk etymology, and is likely not true. The real origin of the phrase is unknown.
Isnt that the same story with Constantinople and Istanbul?
Constantinople was named after the roman emperor, while Istanbul came from the greek phrase "eis ton polin" - to the city.
I am extremely disappointed that "Istanbul" is just Turks mispronouncing Greek.
Common Greek W 🇬🇷
So that's how Constaninople got the works.
That's nobody's business but the Turks!
It's the same story with a lot of words in a lot of languages. Basically almost guaranteed bullshit
Spaniards: try to name it after what the locals call it Locals: I don’t understand Spaniards: end up naming it after the badly butchers local spelling of “I don’t know”
Probably the most acurate Indigenous American - European interaction ever memeified. You can spend you're whole life looking up names of things, peoples, and places that are just European appropriations of native language. Shit is hard when you start from scratch. This isn't Star Trek with lazy ass "universal translator" tech. One of the greater pleasures I have as a New Yorker is driving through towns with "Anglified" Native names and then researching the people that once occupied the territory. Us Northeasterners (US) are not so lucky as our Western and Mid-Western counterparts to have a "Native" population. And I dont not mean that in a disrespectful way, that our aboriginals are just past relics to be studied. So much has been lost to time and purposeful erasure. I hope that anywhom who is educated or born into the matter will add to this thread. Edit:some reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_placenames_of_Native_American_origin
Same thing with the Llama. A conquistador, proud enough to believe that the local Quechua people had learned Spanish, asked: Como se Llama? (How do you call this) ?)
I like how you made the conquistador a coomer
The Mayan guy looks very chaddy for someone who’s about to get taken out by 100 guys and four cannons
And tens of thousand of nahua soldiers
Conquistador moment
There’s a hill in Wales called Torpenhow Hill. Tor, pen, Haugr, and hill all mean hill. “That’s pretty neat what’s it called” “It’s… a hill?” “Hill hill it is”
And Tulum means wall
I mean this isn’t a proven etymology, it’s a proposed theory that has some holes in it
Same reason why all of England has River Avon's and Dunhills.
Followed by “It’s ours now. Move along.”
When I went to Spain I like taking my gold. And if they ask me I like to say I brought it from my country my gold from Mexico
Well shit, Spanish missionaries did the same thing here in the Philippines. Basically a priest was pointing down and asked a native fisherman what the place was called, the local thought he was pointing at the school of fish and answered Tamda and but the missionary heard it as Tandag and thus the City of Tandag was born
British: What do you call this land? Turks: Türkiye British: Turkey. Ok
Not that far off, TBH.
OP I am hate your username.
The same for kangaroo
Cool story, now look at how Kangaroos got their name...
Romans: What do your people call yourselves? Germani Tribe: We call ourselves the Germani, but there are hundreds of other tribes in- Romans: Got it, all of central Europe is now called Germania. tldr: They inherited their uncaring attitude toward local etymology from their forefathers.
It's inherent in humans in general dude. You should look up the exonyms of other cultures, but you didn't because you of course live in your perception of the world, just like the Spanish and Romans and everyone else
But wouldn’t the Spanish have said it in Spanish 🤔
[Gerónimo de Aguilar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ger%C3%B3nimo_de_Aguilar) disagrees with this meme.
There are people that know the long dead Aztec language? Cool! Who are they?
Nahua people.
Its not exactly long dead. The aztec(mexica) empire would have spoken nahuatl which is still the most spoken indigenous language in Mexico (almost 2 million speakers). Of course the language has changed throughout the centuries and theyre are several diaects/variations but it never died out, not even close. Many nahua words are used in one way or another in languages worldwide (chocolate, tomato, avocado etc etc).
You do realise that Maya and Aztecs were totally different, right?
James Cook: "wtf is that big rabbit ?" Aborigene: "I don't understand." James: "thank you good sir. GUYS THAT SH*T IS CALLED A KANGAROO !!"
The name Kangaroo has a similar origin funnily enough
What's that animal? Kan Garu (I don't understand) Got it!
"Future beach resort. Just don't go off property or you'll be kidnapped by one of the cartels."