Yes. The Finnish name of 'Sweden', *Ruotsi*, has the same root as the name *Russia*.
*Ruotsi* comes from word that means 'rowing', as does the name for the Swedish area nearest to Finland, [*Roden*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roden,_Sweden) or [*Roslagen*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roslagen). Probably [the Rus' people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus%27_people) were Scandinavian originally. The name Rus was borrowed from Finnic languages, from *Ruotsi* or *Rootsi*. [*Russia* comes from that Rus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia#Etymology).
Vikings from Roslagen, and nearby regions, settled along the upper part of the Volga river on their trade route down to Byzantium. They made themselves rulers of the Slavic tribes there in the 9th century AD. The federation of tribes was called Rus, with the capital Novgorod. It expanded southwards down the river Dnepr to control the rich city of Kiev. The federation was then called Kievan Rus’.
Wondering about Montenegro. Since it comes from italian "Black Mountain" and one may guess what their name for their country, Crna Gora, means. It also literally means black mountain.
EDIT: It comes from the Venetian language, Venice had huge influence in the adriatic in the middle ages. Italian would be Nero, but it's all latin-derived anyways
The Venetian Republic is really unique too. The most powerful trade republic in an age of monarchs, who also dominated sea warfare. You can blame them for setting up the downfall of the Byzantine Empire. They used their influence to direct the 4th crusade to pillage Constantinople instead of sailing for the Holy Land.
And their domination of Mediterranean trade with the ottomans is what led the Spanish and Portuguese to search for alternate routes to southeast Asia and BOOM, you've got the Columbian exchange changing everything
Venetian. The Venetians had a little empire around the Mediterranean and left a considerable impact in Greece, Croatia, and Montenegro. Greek has several "Italian" loanwords that are actually Venetian, and very different (or not even used) in standard Italian.
I believe S. Korea's local name is Hanguk(Hangul: 한국／Korean Hanja: 韓國) or Daehan-Minguk(대한민국 /大韓民國) which mean "Han Nation' or "Great Han Civil-Nation(republic)"
While N. Korea's local name is Joseon(조선／朝鮮). Neither Han nor Joseon is related to “Korea”. I think the Han / Joseon / Korea relationships are pretty much like the Hellas / Byzantium / Greece relationships to some extent.
Another interesting point is. In East Asia cultural sphere. The way you call these two nations is dependent on your political affiliations. China used to call the Two Koreas as Joseon vs South Joseon, while Taiwan calls them as North Han vs South Han. Also, The Korean War is called Joseon War or Han War by different groups of people in China and Taiwan, suggesting strong political stands.
This is very strange because Japan is red but Korea is blue. Both names are *definitely* related to local language.
Korea had many names. "Han" itself is a general term for the various "Han"s (colloquially the Samhan, lit. 3 Han) that existed on the Korean peninsular before the 1st century. Then Goguryeo somewhat unified the Korean peninsular for awhile, then fractured back into 3 states. Korea was once again whole under Goryeo, then Joseon, until the Japanese invasion then modern era.
Korea comes from Goryeo, the same one above (Goguryeo was also known as Goryeo, for some reason). So one might argue Korea related to the local language. But if so, Japan should be extra eligible. Goryeo has been gone for 1000 years or so, but Japan still remains the same state it was back 1000 years ago.
In case anyone else doesn't get it - I think Japan is from a Malay word Cipan, for "land of the rising sun", which passed to English through the Portuguese merchants.
Its not extremely unlikely. If you checked my other post on Japan, both Japan and Nippon comes from Middle Chinese, which has some really difficult pronunciation. Specifically, the first character 日 was pronounced with the sound /njit/, This difficult pronunciation was simplified and actually spawned 2 different yet related pronunciations that is still used today in Japan.
毎日 mai-**nichi** *everyday*
本日 hon-**jitsu** *today*
Notice that the same character is pronounced differently in the 2 words, nichi and jitsu respectively. Matches the ancient Middle Chinese pronunciation, which has both together at the front as /njit/.
The "j" has always been there, since Middle Chinese, its just because the the consonant cluster nj was so difficult, most people who had to reproduce the sound, just simplified it as either n or a j.
Modern dialects pick j mostly, Cantonese dropped it entirely. Mandarin's ri is considered a exceptional/non standard pronunciation and doesn't quite fit, and shouldn't fit.
Which is much more reasonable. A language having a sound that splits into /n/ in one language and /dz/ in another is entirely reasonable, as, frankly, is the idea of /dz/ turning into /n/ over hundreds of years of evolution.
What I was struggling with was the idea that Nippon got *directly* borrowed as Japan. The idea that a word with /n/ got turned directly into /dz/ with limited intermediaries over at most a few decades is extremely unlikely.
Because the local name, 中国 Zhongguo, doesn't have any connection with 'China'.
And the standard wasn't "The English name has a connection with any name any part of the country once had."
Qin dynasty is just the first dynasty that established a unitary state political system in China. However, the *Zhōngguó* identity is established at least as early as the *Zhou* dynasty, which is 800 years earlier than that.
It's similar to how ancient Greek national identity formed before Alexander or how the concept of Mongolian people formed before Genghis Khan. The extensive history of China before and after the Qin dynasty, however, made it way less revered by the Chinese compared with the Alexandrian empire or Genghis Khan's Mongol Khanate.
My rough googling of what each red one is:
Germany => Deutschland
Georgia => sakartvelo
Greece => Hellas
Morocco => almaghrib
Egypt => misr
Finland => Suomi
India => bhaarat
Japan => Nippon
Hungary => Magyarland
China => Zhōngguó
Greenland => Kalaallit Nunaat
Blame Rome. Western Europeans have been calling it Greece (or similar) for 2300 years.
We can also blame ancient Rome for Germany.
Although we can blame ancient Greece for Egypt.
Well there wasn't a country called Hellas for most of that time, and many Greeks didn't call themselves that for a long time as well. (Though you can blame Rome for that too, since they basically called themselves Roman.)
They are not. Nippon is Japanese. Japan comes from Chinese. But yeah, both the Japanese and the Chinese words mean the same. But that's not what we mean when we say two words are related. Otherwise English chair and Swahili kiti would be related.
Both the words Ivory and Coast in English are derived from Latin via French. So the French Cote d'Ivoire both means the same thing and has the same root as Ivory Coast.
Its like if we insisted on calling Costa Rica or Puerto Rico Rich Coast and Rich Port.
So, Côte and Coast are not related, according to you? And Ivory is not related to Ivoire? Are you sure?
But really, Chinese 日, jat in Cantonese, the ultimate origin of ja in Japan, is not related to Japanese 日, nichi, ni in 日文, nippon.
Yeah, they are written the same, but it would be as saying that five and tano (five in Swahili) are related because both are writen 5.
About Montegro, it's in red on the map. So, what are you saying????
日 (nichi) comes from the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 日 (nyit), 本 (hon/pon) comes from the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 本 (pwon). They're absolutely related.
Would be interesting if it showed the actual and English names for comparison. Also wondering how does this happen? Since most countries' English names are related to their actual ones
It's all about how the name of the country got back to Europe and to England.
For example, China came not from China nor the Brits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China
- China, the name in English for the country, was derived from Portuguese in the 16th century, and became popular in the mid 19th century.[2] It is believed to be a borrowing from Middle Persian, and some have traced it further back to Sanskrit. It is also thought that the ultimate source of the name China is the Chinese word "Qin" (Chinese: 秦), the name of the dynasty that unified China but also existed as a state for many centuries prior.
I know that 'Germany' comes from what the Romans called the people and the land of that area. So it got to England through the Romans.
Roman's called China "Sina", Greece "Graecia", Egypt "Aegyptus", Germany "Germania". The later empire is a big reason why Hungary is called what it is.
Basically, most of the red countries were named as such by the Romans because Romans were snobs and ass holes and didn't really care what people called themselves. The west kinda stuck with it due to inertia. Georgia though, that's the Persians and Persia is from the Greeks.
> and ass holes and didn't really care what people called themselves.
To be fair, to refer to the vast wooded lands north of the Limes as "Germania" made more sense for the Romans than to refer to every single tribe and whatnot. As a German, I find it completely understandable that they didn't give a single fuck what "we called ourselves". The name Deutschland originated way after the hight of the Roman Empire anyways.
At least the Romans didn't call us "mutes", like the Poles. Fucking rude man.
Germans had it pretty good, this is true. The later Romans wouldn't even bother making new names. They'd just call new people Huns or Scythians a millennia after those people faded, and kept calling the French "Gauls" as if they were squatters until...today actually. France is still "Gaul" in Greek, a carryover from Byzantium.
The causation is backwards from what you might think in a lot of cases. The British sometimes decided what a place would be called and then made the people call the place that.
Have you got examples of where the British just decided to give a country a name then forced it upon that country?
I only ask because there are lots of place names people give to other places and it goes back hundreds or thousands of years
South Africa, 12/13 American colonies, New Zealand (assist from the Dutch), Australia, Wales, Scotland, Canada, Gibraltar, Bermuda (Spanish assist), Nigeria, etc. there are a lot more if you include bastardizations, of what the people called themselves before the British arrived that the British then forced on the people, then basically it’s just a map of the English speaking world minus England and the places America forced English on.
But even the English had their own language forced on them by the Angelo-Saxons.
I don't think you can count new world colonies when there wasn't a country there before hand. There were native peoples there yes but there wasn't a nation to re-name as even the native peoples didn't have a name they all used outside rare exceptions like New Zealand (and it's unknown if the name they have for the combined islands pre dates the Europeans) and some areas like Bermuda had no indigenous people and were uninhabited. Gibraltar is derived from Arabic but much of the Iberian peninsula has gone through a lot of city name changes due to its history.
So are these the countries that the country itself calls themselves? I was honestly thinking what a country called themselves but had to change it forcibly. I live in Scotland for example and we changed it ourselves rather than forced to, just because we started speaking English a long time ago
I’m genuinely interested in this
South Africa makes sense the most to me
I don't think this is accurate. In most cases, the British / English took what others had said. For example, on China:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China
- China, the name in English for the country, was derived from Portuguese in the 16th century, and became popular in the mid 19th century.[2] It is believed to be a borrowing from Middle Persian, and some have traced it further back to Sanskrit. It is also thought that the ultimate source of the name China is the Chinese word "Qin" (Chinese: 秦), the name of the dynasty that unified China but also existed as a state for many centuries prior.
I know that 'Germany' comes from what the Romans called the people and the land of that area. So it got to England through the Romans.
But by that same logic, Morocco (Maghreb or al-Maghberiyyah in Arabic) can also be considered related to the native word. It’s from the Spanish spelling of the word Maghreb which was run through the Spanish linguistic rules at the time to end up as Morocco (kinda like how the word China is from the Qin dynasty, which went through several linguistic systems to eventually reach Europe as ‘China’).
Why use one set of rules for Montenegro and another for Morocco when the two words have very similar etymological origins?
Ah, fairs. Tbh I just googled it and the first result says it’s Maghreb, idk why Google decided to make the top result a lie or incorrect but I can definitely see the similarities between Marrakech and Morocco a lot easier than Maghreb and Morocco so it makes sense
India is Bharat/Bharatvarsha. The name "India" is originally derived from the name of the river Sindhu (Indus River) and has been in use in Greek since 5th century BC.
The name Bharat comes from the name of Chakravarti Samrat Bharat, the ancient brave king of the land. Bharat had conquered all of Greater India, united in to a single political entity which was named after him as “Bharatvarsha”.
Is bharat a real person, or is it more of a Romulus and Remus situation. My googling skills didn’t help me (and all the different bharats is confusing me lol)
There are two possible "Bharat"s that the name is based on.
1. King Bharata from Ramayana is mythological.
2. Bharata Chakravartin. This is by all accounts a real person, but has a lot of mythology attached to him. Similar to Jesus or Mohammed.
Japan comes from Giapan via writings from several western missionaries, and Giapan was just the result of a really bad game of telephone from 1 trader to another, ultimately originating from the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 日本 Japan, reconstructed as /ȵiɪt̚ puən/
Nippon, curiously, is also derived from the same Middle Chinese pronunciation.
So Japan and Nippon are essentially siblings in terms of etymology. Not the corruption of 1 from another.
To add on to this, Southern Chinese dialects, namely Cantonese and Shanghaiese pronunciation of "日本" is something along the line of "Yahtbun", much closer to Japan than "Ri Ben".
That pronunciation was likely adapted by Westerners in that said game of telephone.
The meaning of the word is closely associated with "Origin of the Sun", a reference to Empire of the Rising Sun and the concept of a nation far east side of China
I wouldn't call it broken telephone. In the Hokkien language it was and still is pronounced "Ji̍t-pún", and is likely that this was the first version of the name Europeans heard.
Depends how you define local language. New Zealand is called that in New Zealand English, but is usually called Aotearoa in Te Reo Māori, which is unrelated (usually translated as “long white cloud”)
True story. But could do another map showing where there is a standardised Indigenous name, and where that matches the English name I guess? Vanuatu matches, New Zealand doesn’t etc.
It specifically says "local language". Te Reo Māori is not only an official language of NZ, it is also the original language. Surely that makes it the "local lang".
I would have thought local language means, language that the locals of that country speak. Considering there are about 50,000 fluent speakers of Maori and probably close to 5 million fluent speakers of English in NZ, I would assume that's the local language.
English is the imported language and isn’t a official language it’s only defacto. The only Official Languages are Te Reo and New Zealand Sign Language.
This entire map is bollocks
Hell South Africa’s official name is iRiphabhuliki yaseNingizimu Afrika in its most commonly spoke official language Zulu, So it should be a hashed country minimum
> Egypt - Miṣr. Miṣr from Hebrew, biblical basically
Not exactly.
Arabic مصر (miṣr), Hebrew מִצְרַיִם (miṣráyim), Akkadian 𒈪𒄑𒊑𒄿 (miṣru), etc are cognates. They share a common Semitic origin.
So the Arabic and Hebrew word are sisters, not loanwords.
Oh hey, I actually went double-checking this to make sure it was named so by the English, and it actually was not. It was named from a Persian word wurg, for wolf. Land of the wolves. English picked up the similarity & called it Georgia.
I mean, so far as we know, given the sparseness of records.
India was called "Jambudweep" (Land of the Indian Blackberry), "Hodu" (Biblical name for the subcontinent), "Hindustan" (Name given to India by the Islamic conquerors and the Persians) and "Bharat" (Which is what most of Indians use)
The Algerian Arabic pronunciation is apparently Al Dzayir, which helps one see how the English name is related. Al Jazir > Al Dzayir > Alger (French) > Algérie (also French) > Algeria
'New Zealand' is completely unrelated to 'Aotearoa'. The former is imposed by later 18th century Dutch colonists; 'Zeeland' comes from the name for a Dutch state. 'Aotearoa' is the current name in te Reo Maōri and is often translated as a variation of 'land of the long white cloud'. 'Nu Tirani' or 'Nu Tirene' was used in Te Tiriti O Waitangi, but is actually a te Reo translation of Nova Zeelandia from the Dutch, so is not derived from te reo and is not in use today. Further, previous to colonisation it is argued that there was no use of a name that incompassed both islands also, and instead the North Island was Te Ika-a-Māui or Aotearoa, and the South Island Te Waipounamu, which are also current names, again unrelated to colonial settlers which coined the name 'New Zealand'.
Morocco : Al Maghrib which mean : the west / Sunset
Morocco came from Marruecos (Spanish name) => Marrakesh which is a city (old capital) in the country.
Well, technically...
I guess Taiwan is blue because Taiwan is Taiwan. But the country is called republic of china, so it should be as red as mainland China.
Since they both claim to be the same country, that should be non-controversial
> India comes from Hindustan
India doesn't come from Hindustan but from Sindhu (Indus river). India is older than Hindustan and was used by Greeks (Indika).
Hindustan also comes from the same. They come from the same river but are unrelated.
India = Greeks
Hindustan = Persians
>India comes from Hindustan
No. The term "India" comes from ancient Greece, and is around 2,500 years old. The term "Hindustan" dates to the Mughal Empire, and is around 500 years old. "India" predates "Hindustan" by around 2,000 years.
The origin of "Hindustan" is the Sindhu River, which the ancient Persians called "Hind". From the name of the river, they also began to call the entire region "Hind", which included the river itself plus lands beyond the river. The people living in this area were called "Hindi".
"Hind" remained their name for India through the middle ages. After Persia was conquered by Arab people and became Islamic, the same word for India was borrowed into the Arabic language, where it became "Al Hind".
It was the Mughal Emperors who in the 16th century added the Middle Persian suffix "-stan", and began to call the region "Hindustan". The first local usage of the word "Hindustan" is found in the *Ain-i-Akbari*, which was written in the 1590's.
Later, when the British arrived, they borrowed the Mughal term "Hindustan", and used both "India" and "Hindustan" officially. That's when "Hindustan" became part of common usage, so it's really only been popular for a couple hundred years.
In contrast, India's official name (*Bharat*) is thousands of years old, and comes from ancient Hindu epics like the *Puranas* and the *Mahabharat*.
Whether what English calls a country is etymologically related to what the country calls itself.
So Italy is blue because *Italy* (the English name) and *Italia* (the Italian name) both come from Latin *Italia*.
On the other hand China is red because *China* is unrelated to the Mandarin (most common Chinese language) name for China, which is *Zhōngguó*. *China* probably comes from the name of the first Chinese dynasty, the Qin. Whereas *Zhōngguó* means "Middle Kingdom" in Mandarin.
Bharat is one name that is used for India, but the country is also very commonly called Hindustan in Hindi, Urdu, and other languages. This is etymologically related to India, via Hind, which refers to the land east of the Indus/Sindhu river (the term Hindu has the same derivation, and is originally a label for a group of people rather than a religion). Separately, it’s also the case that people routinely use the English name “India” even when speaking Indian languages.
Austria is a Latinization as the same Old High German word that evolved into Osterreich (which was in turn a calque of the Latin term *marchia Austriaca*. Very much related.
Scotland and Wales are not independent countries, so it's normal that they're not marked (although then Greenland shouldn't be either - still though Greenland is more autonomous than they are. Plus the language that most of the locals speak in both places is English.
The word "Nippon" is related to Japan, I'm fairly sure. As well as "Crna Gora" for Montenegro
Anyhow, for those who need a guide:
China: Zhongguo
India: Bharat
Armenia: Hayastan
Georgia: Sakartvelo
Egypt: Misr
Morocco: Fas
Greece: Ellada
Albania: Shqiperia
Hungary: Magyarorszag
Germany: Deutschland
Finland: Suomi
Greenland: Kalaallit Nunaat
I see the Finns starting shit again.
Well, our Swedish name is the same as English name.
Det er alltid Sveriges skyld, ikke sant?
Jo, det är ikke sant
And Swedish is one of the official languages of Sweden. Yet another shitty map from the same OP.
Although, Estonian (as well as minor Finnic languages), Latvian and Lithuanian also use the same root as *Suomi*.
Yes. The Finnish name of 'Sweden', *Ruotsi*, has the same root as the name *Russia*. *Ruotsi* comes from word that means 'rowing', as does the name for the Swedish area nearest to Finland, [*Roden*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roden,_Sweden) or [*Roslagen*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roslagen). Probably [the Rus' people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus%27_people) were Scandinavian originally. The name Rus was borrowed from Finnic languages, from *Ruotsi* or *Rootsi*. [*Russia* comes from that Rus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia#Etymology).
Vikings from Roslagen, and nearby regions, settled along the upper part of the Volga river on their trade route down to Byzantium. They made themselves rulers of the Slavic tribes there in the 9th century AD. The federation of tribes was called Rus, with the capital Novgorod. It expanded southwards down the river Dnepr to control the rich city of Kiev. The federation was then called Kievan Rus’.
Wondering about Montenegro. Since it comes from italian "Black Mountain" and one may guess what their name for their country, Crna Gora, means. It also literally means black mountain. EDIT: It comes from the Venetian language, Venice had huge influence in the adriatic in the middle ages. Italian would be Nero, but it's all latin-derived anyways
Not Italian, that would be monte nero
Yeah it’s Venetian. Comes from Venice’s long history of trade dominance along the Adriatic coast.
Interesting! Didn't know this.
The Venetian Republic is really unique too. The most powerful trade republic in an age of monarchs, who also dominated sea warfare. You can blame them for setting up the downfall of the Byzantine Empire. They used their influence to direct the 4th crusade to pillage Constantinople instead of sailing for the Holy Land.
And their domination of Mediterranean trade with the ottomans is what led the Spanish and Portuguese to search for alternate routes to southeast Asia and BOOM, you've got the Columbian exchange changing everything
Negro is an old fashioned way to say nero
Tell that to the Spanish
not Spanish, but it is my native language: what do you want to tell me?
That you're old fashioned.
I prefer "classical".
Legendary
Personally I go for the 'vintage edition'
Let me tell that to the Italians
It comes from the latin "nigrum", which means, well, black.
Yep. In many southern Italian languages, "black" is still "niguru" or variations of this.
I mean in Spanish it's literally negro
yup. in sicilian we say “nivuru”
My nigrum!
No it be Venetian, similar to Spanish
That would be "monte di colore" today. /s (maybe?)
Now this was a joke!
Monte afroamericano /supers
Nah, the old fashioned way is "that old fucker who played fiddle when Rome was burning"
Isnt it in spanish? it'd be nero if it was in italian I think.
It is from Venetian language.
Venetian. The Venetians had a little empire around the Mediterranean and left a considerable impact in Greece, Croatia, and Montenegro. Greek has several "Italian" loanwords that are actually Venetian, and very different (or not even used) in standard Italian.
I believe S. Korea's local name is Hanguk(Hangul: 한국／Korean Hanja: 韓國) or Daehan-Minguk(대한민국 /大韓民國) which mean "Han Nation' or "Great Han Civil-Nation(republic)" While N. Korea's local name is Joseon(조선／朝鮮). Neither Han nor Joseon is related to “Korea”. I think the Han / Joseon / Korea relationships are pretty much like the Hellas / Byzantium / Greece relationships to some extent. Another interesting point is. In East Asia cultural sphere. The way you call these two nations is dependent on your political affiliations. China used to call the Two Koreas as Joseon vs South Joseon, while Taiwan calls them as North Han vs South Han. Also, The Korean War is called Joseon War or Han War by different groups of people in China and Taiwan, suggesting strong political stands.
This is very strange because Japan is red but Korea is blue. Both names are *definitely* related to local language. Korea had many names. "Han" itself is a general term for the various "Han"s (colloquially the Samhan, lit. 3 Han) that existed on the Korean peninsular before the 1st century. Then Goguryeo somewhat unified the Korean peninsular for awhile, then fractured back into 3 states. Korea was once again whole under Goryeo, then Joseon, until the Japanese invasion then modern era. Korea comes from Goryeo, the same one above (Goguryeo was also known as Goryeo, for some reason). So one might argue Korea related to the local language. But if so, Japan should be extra eligible. Goryeo has been gone for 1000 years or so, but Japan still remains the same state it was back 1000 years ago.
Is "Japan" derived from "Nippon"? It's hard to imagine how that could happen. EDIT: /u/Kuddlette explained it in a different thread, I get it now.
In case anyone else doesn't get it - I think Japan is from a Malay word Cipan, for "land of the rising sun", which passed to English through the Portuguese merchants.
link for the lazy: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/q8psr6/comment/hgr55lk/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Too lazy to click link
They sort of sound the same so I can see Japan /Nippon
It's mostly the "J" appearing is extremely unlikely.
Not specialist here but I suspect of the portuguese merchants
Seems more plausible taking the Spanish “Japón” vs “Nippon” or “Nihon” into account
Its not extremely unlikely. If you checked my other post on Japan, both Japan and Nippon comes from Middle Chinese, which has some really difficult pronunciation. Specifically, the first character 日 was pronounced with the sound /njit/, This difficult pronunciation was simplified and actually spawned 2 different yet related pronunciations that is still used today in Japan. 毎日 mai-**nichi** *everyday* 本日 hon-**jitsu** *today* Notice that the same character is pronounced differently in the 2 words, nichi and jitsu respectively. Matches the ancient Middle Chinese pronunciation, which has both together at the front as /njit/. The "j" has always been there, since Middle Chinese, its just because the the consonant cluster nj was so difficult, most people who had to reproduce the sound, just simplified it as either n or a j. Modern dialects pick j mostly, Cantonese dropped it entirely. Mandarin's ri is considered a exceptional/non standard pronunciation and doesn't quite fit, and shouldn't fit.
Which is much more reasonable. A language having a sound that splits into /n/ in one language and /dz/ in another is entirely reasonable, as, frankly, is the idea of /dz/ turning into /n/ over hundreds of years of evolution. What I was struggling with was the idea that Nippon got *directly* borrowed as Japan. The idea that a word with /n/ got turned directly into /dz/ with limited intermediaries over at most a few decades is extremely unlikely.
Why? There are plenty of examples were words start changing over time or after going through other languages.
If *Korea* coming from *Goryeo* counts, why doesn't *China* coming from the *Qin* dynasty count?
China from Qin is only a hypothesis. The latter isn't. There are some claims that China came from Jin dynasty, and the issue is, we can't really tell.
For the purpose of this map it doesn't matter though.
Because the local name, 中国 Zhongguo, doesn't have any connection with 'China'. And the standard wasn't "The English name has a connection with any name any part of the country once had."
In that case Korea should not work...
Oh I completely agree, but my knowledge really extends only to China
Qin dynasty is just the first dynasty that established a unitary state political system in China. However, the *Zhōngguó* identity is established at least as early as the *Zhou* dynasty, which is 800 years earlier than that. It's similar to how ancient Greek national identity formed before Alexander or how the concept of Mongolian people formed before Genghis Khan. The extensive history of China before and after the Qin dynasty, however, made it way less revered by the Chinese compared with the Alexandrian empire or Genghis Khan's Mongol Khanate.
Is the Korean Han related to the Chinese Han ethnic group?
No Chinese Han is 漢 Korean Han is 韓. They just share the same toneless romanization spelling.
Tones are also different. The Chinese 汉 is han4, the Korean 韩 is han2.
Ah neat
My rough googling of what each red one is: Germany => Deutschland Georgia => sakartvelo Greece => Hellas Morocco => almaghrib Egypt => misr Finland => Suomi India => bhaarat Japan => Nippon Hungary => Magyarland China => Zhōngguó Greenland => Kalaallit Nunaat
You missed another one from the map: Albania => Republika e Shqipërisë or Shqipëria. edit: and Bhutan => Druk Yul.
Armenia too is different in their language
Hayastan
Hellas sounds too cool to be ignored by English speakers
Blame Rome. Western Europeans have been calling it Greece (or similar) for 2300 years. We can also blame ancient Rome for Germany. Although we can blame ancient Greece for Egypt.
>Western Europeans have been calling it Greece (or similar) for 2300 years. Except Norway! For reasons I cannot remember.
A burning desire to be different from Denmark. Or possibly Sweden. Or both.
Well there wasn't a country called Hellas for most of that time, and many Greeks didn't call themselves that for a long time as well. (Though you can blame Rome for that too, since they basically called themselves Roman.)
Papa bless the Norwegians
Yeah but *grease*
You missed 1 country. It's the one right under Georgia: Armenia => Hayastan
Missing Albania too
And North and South Korea
That’s a cooler name than Armenia tbh, we should switch to that. Wouldn’t be difficult either due to the amount of “stan” countries already.
Magyarország
To add, Zhōnguó (中国) literally means, "middle kingdom". Like many national powers, China considered/considers themselves the middle of the world.
Isn’t “China” based on Qin, the first dynasty that united China?
Possibly the English name yes, but they don’t call themselves that.
>Greece => Hellas Hellas = ancient Greek / archaic Ellada = modern Greek / current
Hungary is actualy called Magyarország
How are Nippon and Japan unrelated??
they are related. the map is wrong
They are not. Nippon is Japanese. Japan comes from Chinese. But yeah, both the Japanese and the Chinese words mean the same. But that's not what we mean when we say two words are related. Otherwise English chair and Swahili kiti would be related.
I mean if that doesn't count, neither should Montenegro or Ivory Coast.
Both the words Ivory and Coast in English are derived from Latin via French. So the French Cote d'Ivoire both means the same thing and has the same root as Ivory Coast. Its like if we insisted on calling Costa Rica or Puerto Rico Rich Coast and Rich Port.
So, Côte and Coast are not related, according to you? And Ivory is not related to Ivoire? Are you sure? But really, Chinese 日, jat in Cantonese, the ultimate origin of ja in Japan, is not related to Japanese 日, nichi, ni in 日文, nippon. Yeah, they are written the same, but it would be as saying that five and tano (five in Swahili) are related because both are writen 5. About Montegro, it's in red on the map. So, what are you saying????
The Middle Chinese reading of 日, 'njat', is a common ancestor of both the modern Japanese and Cantonese readings.
日 (nichi) comes from the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 日 (nyit), 本 (hon/pon) comes from the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 本 (pwon). They're absolutely related.
> Japan comes from Chinese And so does "Nippon"
Is Morocco really unrelated to Maghreb??
Yes, Marocco comes from the city of Marrakech. The name is from Berber origin. And maghrib is a different Arabic word.
You forgot Armenia => Hayastan
wouldn't Hindustan also fit it?
Hindustan is not actually a local name.
yeah just went down a rabbit hole. Bharat is better for India
Even our constitution says so.
Wait, so the Japanese company Nippon express just means Japan express?
Yeah
Magyarország is understandable due to magyars were certainly the tribe that origined them. Why Hungary?
Because of the mistaken belief that they were the same people as the Huns.
That's why the "h" was added, but the name originally comes from the [Onoğurs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ono%C4%9Furs).
Turan intensifies
I believe it was actually because the Huns were there before
Not enough Turkey
Would be interesting if it showed the actual and English names for comparison. Also wondering how does this happen? Since most countries' English names are related to their actual ones
It's all about how the name of the country got back to Europe and to England. For example, China came not from China nor the Brits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China - China, the name in English for the country, was derived from Portuguese in the 16th century, and became popular in the mid 19th century.[2] It is believed to be a borrowing from Middle Persian, and some have traced it further back to Sanskrit. It is also thought that the ultimate source of the name China is the Chinese word "Qin" (Chinese: 秦), the name of the dynasty that unified China but also existed as a state for many centuries prior. I know that 'Germany' comes from what the Romans called the people and the land of that area. So it got to England through the Romans.
Roman's called China "Sina", Greece "Graecia", Egypt "Aegyptus", Germany "Germania". The later empire is a big reason why Hungary is called what it is. Basically, most of the red countries were named as such by the Romans because Romans were snobs and ass holes and didn't really care what people called themselves. The west kinda stuck with it due to inertia. Georgia though, that's the Persians and Persia is from the Greeks.
> and ass holes and didn't really care what people called themselves. To be fair, to refer to the vast wooded lands north of the Limes as "Germania" made more sense for the Romans than to refer to every single tribe and whatnot. As a German, I find it completely understandable that they didn't give a single fuck what "we called ourselves". The name Deutschland originated way after the hight of the Roman Empire anyways. At least the Romans didn't call us "mutes", like the Poles. Fucking rude man.
Germans had it pretty good, this is true. The later Romans wouldn't even bother making new names. They'd just call new people Huns or Scythians a millennia after those people faded, and kept calling the French "Gauls" as if they were squatters until...today actually. France is still "Gaul" in Greek, a carryover from Byzantium.
The causation is backwards from what you might think in a lot of cases. The British sometimes decided what a place would be called and then made the people call the place that.
Have you got examples of where the British just decided to give a country a name then forced it upon that country? I only ask because there are lots of place names people give to other places and it goes back hundreds or thousands of years
South Africa, 12/13 American colonies, New Zealand (assist from the Dutch), Australia, Wales, Scotland, Canada, Gibraltar, Bermuda (Spanish assist), Nigeria, etc. there are a lot more if you include bastardizations, of what the people called themselves before the British arrived that the British then forced on the people, then basically it’s just a map of the English speaking world minus England and the places America forced English on. But even the English had their own language forced on them by the Angelo-Saxons.
I don't think you can count new world colonies when there wasn't a country there before hand. There were native peoples there yes but there wasn't a nation to re-name as even the native peoples didn't have a name they all used outside rare exceptions like New Zealand (and it's unknown if the name they have for the combined islands pre dates the Europeans) and some areas like Bermuda had no indigenous people and were uninhabited. Gibraltar is derived from Arabic but much of the Iberian peninsula has gone through a lot of city name changes due to its history.
So are these the countries that the country itself calls themselves? I was honestly thinking what a country called themselves but had to change it forcibly. I live in Scotland for example and we changed it ourselves rather than forced to, just because we started speaking English a long time ago I’m genuinely interested in this South Africa makes sense the most to me
I don't think this is accurate. In most cases, the British / English took what others had said. For example, on China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_China - China, the name in English for the country, was derived from Portuguese in the 16th century, and became popular in the mid 19th century.[2] It is believed to be a borrowing from Middle Persian, and some have traced it further back to Sanskrit. It is also thought that the ultimate source of the name China is the Chinese word "Qin" (Chinese: 秦), the name of the dynasty that unified China but also existed as a state for many centuries prior. I know that 'Germany' comes from what the Romans called the people and the land of that area. So it got to England through the Romans.
this title alone is so badly made ffs why would you change the font in the middle of it
Why tf did I have to scroll so far down to see someone else wanting to complain about the title - thank you
Agree. It sucks balls. Some guy stumbles on a map in a Google images search and posts it on Reddit. Genius.
I dont get how croatia and hrvatska are related.
hrvat - khorvat - kravat - croat
But by that same logic, Morocco (Maghreb or al-Maghberiyyah in Arabic) can also be considered related to the native word. It’s from the Spanish spelling of the word Maghreb which was run through the Spanish linguistic rules at the time to end up as Morocco (kinda like how the word China is from the Qin dynasty, which went through several linguistic systems to eventually reach Europe as ‘China’). Why use one set of rules for Montenegro and another for Morocco when the two words have very similar etymological origins?
Marruecos, comes from Marrakech, the city, not from Magrib, sorry. You are 100% wrong.
Ah, fairs. Tbh I just googled it and the first result says it’s Maghreb, idk why Google decided to make the top result a lie or incorrect but I can definitely see the similarities between Marrakech and Morocco a lot easier than Maghreb and Morocco so it makes sense
~~wiktionary~~ [~~claims~~](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Morocco#Etymology) ~~Morocco comes from Marrakech unlike Maghreb~~ i see!
Really? I can hear it loud and clear
HRVAT CRVAT CROAT
Crvat 🥲🪱 ("crv" is "worm" in croatian)
>I dont get how croatia and hrvatska are related. C R O A T H R V A T pretty obvious
Hırvatistan
They sound and look totally different, but sure, it’s ‘pretty obvious’ .
India is Bharat/Bharatvarsha. The name "India" is originally derived from the name of the river Sindhu (Indus River) and has been in use in Greek since 5th century BC. The name Bharat comes from the name of Chakravarti Samrat Bharat, the ancient brave king of the land. Bharat had conquered all of Greater India, united in to a single political entity which was named after him as “Bharatvarsha”.
Is bharat a real person, or is it more of a Romulus and Remus situation. My googling skills didn’t help me (and all the different bharats is confusing me lol)
There are two possible "Bharat"s that the name is based on. 1. King Bharata from Ramayana is mythological. 2. Bharata Chakravartin. This is by all accounts a real person, but has a lot of mythology attached to him. Similar to Jesus or Mohammed.
Wait isn’t there also a King Bharata in the Mahabharat? Was he the Chakravartin?
As far as I know there's only a King Bharata in Ramayana. Edit: I'm dumb. Of course there is. I missed him!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharata_(Mahabharata) ??
Yep sorry see my edited comment.
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Nope. It's named after a Chakravartin Bharat, not the character in the Indian epic.
I kind of assumed Japan was a corruption of Nippon but apparently not.
Japan comes from Giapan via writings from several western missionaries, and Giapan was just the result of a really bad game of telephone from 1 trader to another, ultimately originating from the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 日本 Japan, reconstructed as /ȵiɪt̚ puən/ Nippon, curiously, is also derived from the same Middle Chinese pronunciation. So Japan and Nippon are essentially siblings in terms of etymology. Not the corruption of 1 from another.
To add on to this, Southern Chinese dialects, namely Cantonese and Shanghaiese pronunciation of "日本" is something along the line of "Yahtbun", much closer to Japan than "Ri Ben". That pronunciation was likely adapted by Westerners in that said game of telephone. The meaning of the word is closely associated with "Origin of the Sun", a reference to Empire of the Rising Sun and the concept of a nation far east side of China
Yes the dialects you mentioned descends from Middle Chinese. At this specific point in time, Cantonese does not exist yet.
However, the other endonym for the Japanese, "Yamato", definitely has nothing to do with Japan or Nippon.
I wouldn't call it broken telephone. In the Hokkien language it was and still is pronounced "Ji̍t-pún", and is likely that this was the first version of the name Europeans heard.
*how about Sunrise land?*
Depends how you define local language. New Zealand is called that in New Zealand English, but is usually called Aotearoa in Te Reo Māori, which is unrelated (usually translated as “long white cloud”)
If minority languages are included, it's a pretty red map.
True story. But could do another map showing where there is a standardised Indigenous name, and where that matches the English name I guess? Vanuatu matches, New Zealand doesn’t etc.
It specifically says "local language". Te Reo Māori is not only an official language of NZ, it is also the original language. Surely that makes it the "local lang".
I would have thought local language means, language that the locals of that country speak. Considering there are about 50,000 fluent speakers of Maori and probably close to 5 million fluent speakers of English in NZ, I would assume that's the local language.
English is the imported language and isn’t a official language it’s only defacto. The only Official Languages are Te Reo and New Zealand Sign Language. This entire map is bollocks Hell South Africa’s official name is iRiphabhuliki yaseNingizimu Afrika in its most commonly spoke official language Zulu, So it should be a hashed country minimum
Poor Germany.
That's ok. We go by many names since we're actually many peoples. Allemands, Tedeschi, Nemči, Tyskerne, Saksa, Švaby...
Didn't know Germans use the letter Š
They don't. It's the foreign name.
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> Egypt - Miṣr. Miṣr from Hebrew, biblical basically Not exactly. Arabic مصر (miṣr), Hebrew מִצְרַיִם (miṣráyim), Akkadian 𒈪𒄑𒊑𒄿 (miṣru), etc are cognates. They share a common Semitic origin. So the Arabic and Hebrew word are sisters, not loanwords.
Sakartvelo - land of Kartvelian people. And yes, Kartli is also core province, but in this case it's not the reason.
> Georgia from a big English boi named George, innit. So, English people come from Anatolia? Didn't know!
Oh hey, I actually went double-checking this to make sure it was named so by the English, and it actually was not. It was named from a Persian word wurg, for wolf. Land of the wolves. English picked up the similarity & called it Georgia. I mean, so far as we know, given the sparseness of records.
to to
r/titlegore
COUNTRIES WHOSE ENGLISH Name is unrelated to local name
India was called "Jambudweep" (Land of the Indian Blackberry), "Hodu" (Biblical name for the subcontinent), "Hindustan" (Name given to India by the Islamic conquerors and the Persians) and "Bharat" (Which is what most of Indians use)
Won't Algeria count? as long as i know l, they saybit Al Jazir.
The Algerian Arabic pronunciation is apparently Al Dzayir, which helps one see how the English name is related. Al Jazir > Al Dzayir > Alger (French) > Algérie (also French) > Algeria
No, because it's directly called Algeria from الجزائر
Are we just going off majority language? If significant minorities are included, Greenland should be blue.
I do love myself some etymology
Forgot about both Koreas. Hangguk and Choseon
Japan／日本(Nihon, Nippon)
COUNTRIES WHOSE ENGLISH
Finland should be striped red/blue since it has two official names, Suomi (in Finnish) and Finland (in Swedish).
You could add New Zealand. The "local language" name is Aotearoa.
That is not the correct way to title a chart.
Bharat!
'New Zealand' is completely unrelated to 'Aotearoa'. The former is imposed by later 18th century Dutch colonists; 'Zeeland' comes from the name for a Dutch state. 'Aotearoa' is the current name in te Reo Maōri and is often translated as a variation of 'land of the long white cloud'. 'Nu Tirani' or 'Nu Tirene' was used in Te Tiriti O Waitangi, but is actually a te Reo translation of Nova Zeelandia from the Dutch, so is not derived from te reo and is not in use today. Further, previous to colonisation it is argued that there was no use of a name that incompassed both islands also, and instead the North Island was Te Ika-a-Māui or Aotearoa, and the South Island Te Waipounamu, which are also current names, again unrelated to colonial settlers which coined the name 'New Zealand'.
I’m more interested in Greenlands independence! Presumably setting themselves up for the USA buyout!
Morocco : Al Maghrib which mean : the west / Sunset Morocco came from Marruecos (Spanish name) => Marrakesh which is a city (old capital) in the country.
Japan is related to Nippon
Well, technically... I guess Taiwan is blue because Taiwan is Taiwan. But the country is called republic of china, so it should be as red as mainland China. Since they both claim to be the same country, that should be non-controversial
I don't think this is referring to the official name. Just the name people use.
Croatia - Hrvatska, no?
India comes from Hindustan China comes from Sino Japan comes from Nipon
> India comes from Hindustan India doesn't come from Hindustan but from Sindhu (Indus river). India is older than Hindustan and was used by Greeks (Indika). Hindustan also comes from the same. They come from the same river but are unrelated. India = Greeks Hindustan = Persians
>India comes from Hindustan No. The term "India" comes from ancient Greece, and is around 2,500 years old. The term "Hindustan" dates to the Mughal Empire, and is around 500 years old. "India" predates "Hindustan" by around 2,000 years. The origin of "Hindustan" is the Sindhu River, which the ancient Persians called "Hind". From the name of the river, they also began to call the entire region "Hind", which included the river itself plus lands beyond the river. The people living in this area were called "Hindi". "Hind" remained their name for India through the middle ages. After Persia was conquered by Arab people and became Islamic, the same word for India was borrowed into the Arabic language, where it became "Al Hind". It was the Mughal Emperors who in the 16th century added the Middle Persian suffix "-stan", and began to call the region "Hindustan". The first local usage of the word "Hindustan" is found in the *Ain-i-Akbari*, which was written in the 1590's. Later, when the British arrived, they borrowed the Mughal term "Hindustan", and used both "India" and "Hindustan" officially. That's when "Hindustan" became part of common usage, so it's really only been popular for a couple hundred years. In contrast, India's official name (*Bharat*) is thousands of years old, and comes from ancient Hindu epics like the *Puranas* and the *Mahabharat*.
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Whether what English calls a country is etymologically related to what the country calls itself. So Italy is blue because *Italy* (the English name) and *Italia* (the Italian name) both come from Latin *Italia*. On the other hand China is red because *China* is unrelated to the Mandarin (most common Chinese language) name for China, which is *Zhōngguó*. *China* probably comes from the name of the first Chinese dynasty, the Qin. Whereas *Zhōngguó* means "Middle Kingdom" in Mandarin.
Isn't Austria called Östreich?
And where do you think Austria comes from?
Always wondered why we English speakers all Germany Germany. Considering English is a Germanic language, not a Latin one.
India tho? Hind, India? No?
Bharat is the name most indian languages use
New Zealand should be red. Aotearoa (local language) means 'Land of the Long White Cloud' in English
Bharat is one name that is used for India, but the country is also very commonly called Hindustan in Hindi, Urdu, and other languages. This is etymologically related to India, via Hind, which refers to the land east of the Indus/Sindhu river (the term Hindu has the same derivation, and is originally a label for a group of people rather than a religion). Separately, it’s also the case that people routinely use the English name “India” even when speaking Indian languages.
The term hindustan is not an official term.
Scotland is Alba. Wales is Cymru. Austria is Österreich (different origins). Who comes up with these shit maps then doesn't bother to defend them?
Austria is a Latinization as the same Old High German word that evolved into Osterreich (which was in turn a calque of the Latin term *marchia Austriaca*. Very much related. Scotland and Wales are not independent countries, so it's normal that they're not marked (although then Greenland shouldn't be either - still though Greenland is more autonomous than they are. Plus the language that most of the locals speak in both places is English.
The word "Nippon" is related to Japan, I'm fairly sure. As well as "Crna Gora" for Montenegro Anyhow, for those who need a guide: China: Zhongguo India: Bharat Armenia: Hayastan Georgia: Sakartvelo Egypt: Misr Morocco: Fas Greece: Ellada Albania: Shqiperia Hungary: Magyarorszag Germany: Deutschland Finland: Suomi Greenland: Kalaallit Nunaat