Foreign Place Names

[Over The Hill]

Why is it that we (British) have our own names for foreign place names and foreigners have their own names for our places?

Italians have Roma but for some reason we insist on it being called Rome. I know we can doubt the Italians at times but I am sure they know what their capital is called.

We probably have our own name for about a dozen places in Italy (Plus the country itself) but seem to cope with the thousands of other places in Italy where we have not made up our own name and use the Italian one. So why do we need a different name for these places?

Same applies for the rest of Europe and I guess the Italians have their own names for French places etc etc.

Johnny foreigner then comes here looking for Londres or whatever instead of London and tries to find a train to Ecosse instead of Scotland.

It seems a really really stupid idea.

How about we all just use the native name for places and countries in Europe where we can?

As long as the Frogs agree that it is the English Channel and not the Manche I think it should be fine.

 

[Melvil]

It's not even the spelling of place names that gets me - it's the pronounciation - e.g. the english numpties calling Scotland's largest city 'Glaaaaaaaaaaaaaarsgay'

 

[John the Monkey]

I'm always a bit suspicious of British people who pronounce Paris "Paree".

"You most likely know it as Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me."

 

[Lardyboy]

One of my irrational peeves is the inability of most television types to say Welsh/Scottish place names correctly, but show them Ouagadougou and Longyearbyen it's syllable perfect!

 

[Carwash]

Germany is a funny example of this - perhaps it's because it only became a unified nation in the 1870s, but lots of languages seem to have totally unrelated words for it:

English: Germany
French: Allemagne
German: Deutschland
Swedish: Tyskland
Finnish: Saksa
Polish: Niemcy

I just think it's odd that one language's word for Germany often bears no resemblance whatsoever to any other's! Some of these are clearly derived from Germanic tribes (Allemani, Saxons, etc) - but they're all different tribes. Cf. most languages' uniform variations on 'Angle-land' for England. (Well, except for Chinese, where it's 'Country of Heroes'. Some good PR there by early English explorers!)

 

[mr_hippo]

One of my irrational peeves is the inability of most television types to say Welsh/Scottish place names correctly, but show them Ouagadougou and Longyearbyen it's syllable perfect!

Reminds me of the tale when Angela Rippon found out that Kenya had a new finance minister with a long, complicated name. So she phoned the Kenyan Embassy to get the right pronunciation. She practised the name because one day he might make the news and sh did not want to stumble over his name. She made a point of asking the news editor if there was a story about him. Months went by and there was nothing but finally one day the news editor told her that there was a story about him... he had been killed in a car accident!

We know the place as 'Bangkok' but the locals call it 'Krung Thep' which is the short form of 'Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit'.
I was eating lunch at a town with a very long name in N E Thailand. I asked one of the staff did they speak English and they did. So I said "Speak very slowly and tell me where I am." She looked at me and said "You are in Bbbbuuurrrrggggeeerrrkkkiiinnnnggg"

 

[alecstilleyedye]

i was watching the women's tt yesterday, when a spanish lady with a very long surname came up to the line with a non-competitive time, hugh porter just referred to her as "the spanish rider".

 

[Fnaar]

Germany is a funny example of this - perhaps it's because it only became a unified nation in the 1870s, but lots of languages seem to have totally unrelated words for it:

English: Germany
French: Allemagne
German: Deutschland
Swedish: Tyskland
Finnish: Saksa
Polish: Niemcy

I just think it's odd that one language's word for Germany often bears no resemblance whatsoever to any other's! Some of these are clearly derived from Germanic tribes (Allemani, Saxons, etc) - but they're all different tribes. Cf. most languages' uniform variations on 'Angle-land' for England. (Well, except for Chinese, where it's 'Country of Heroes'. Some good PR there by early English explorers!)

yerss, and a german, to an italian, is a "tedesco"

 

[rich p]

yerss, and a german, to an italian, is a "tedesco"

IIRC Germany is Germania and German (the language) is Tedesco

 

[Kirstie]

Germany is a funny example of this - perhaps it's because it only became a unified nation in the 1870s, but lots of languages seem to have totally unrelated words for it:

English: Germany
French: Allemagne
German: Deutschland
Swedish: Tyskland
Finnish: Saksa
Polish: Niemcy

I just think it's odd that one language's word for Germany often bears no resemblance whatsoever to any other's! Some of these are clearly derived from Germanic tribes (Allemani, Saxons, etc) - but they're all different tribes. Cf. most languages' uniform variations on 'Angle-land' for England. (Well, except for Chinese, where it's 'Country of Heroes'. Some good PR there by early English explorers!)

Alright then, so where does the word 'teutonic' come from in the way that it is currently used to describe 'German-ness'....because IIRC the teutonic people were an ancient tribe in north of what is now germany but they didn't really go very far from that part of the world...I can see that the word is similar to 'Deutsch'

 

[TimDanaher]

And 'Germany' in Hungarian is Németország.

The etymology of 'German' is interesting. Comes from the Latin germanus (there's a shock) meaning 'out-and-out', 'total', 'complete'. Some Latin writer referred to the tribes north of the Rhine as Celti germanii. 'More Celt than / even worse than the Celts'. Eventually they were labelled simply as Germanii.

The English word 'germane' is also ultimately derived from germanus, although today it meaning has shifted somewhat.

 

[Fnaar]

does that explain germaine greer?

 

[Kirstie]

I don't have my stack of etymological dictionaries to hand

You can get those? Cool!

 

[TimDanaher]

does that explain germaine greer?

Nothing could explain Germaine Greer.

 

[Keith Oates]

Even today if you get your British Passport renewed in Beijing they still show the Place of Issue as Peking. Now what's all that about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!