Italia, Deutschland, Espana, learn to spell

[Burninator]

Same goes for you Polska, Danmark, Nederland, Norge and Sverige. We give you our letters and look what you do with your names, go and spell them nothing like your country is pronounced. Some of you got close with your spelling, just a couple letters off. I assume Brasil's (Brazil) national plant is basil. It's an important herb I admit, but I am sure you could have came up with a herb more conducive to your party atmosphere. Osterreich (Austria) must be quite fond of ostriches or something. I mean I understand, they are a cool animal, but not cool enough to name your country after. Get real everyone, go out and buy a dictionary and change all your signs. Ridiculous.

...

How come there are some countries we don't call by their real names? What's the deal here? We have a bunch of words in our language that are ripped right out of other languages which don't fit into "standard" English. I am sure some of them are harder to say, but something like Deutschland isn't much of a reach even for us simpleton North Americans. I mean we change a name like Turkiye, but keep Uzbekistan?

Has anyone else thought about this or know more about it?

[Tyler]

I've thought about it a little bit.

Then realized I speak English, and that the rest of the world should bend over backwards to make things easier for me.

[FlamesAddiction]

Croatia is actually Hrvatska in the Croatian language, and a Croatian person is a Hrvat (m) or Hrvatica (f).

I also believe that Japan is Nippon in Japanese.

Ireland is Eire.

Finland is Suomi.

[Five-hole]

Part of it I'm sure is that in English we wouldn't say the country like it is spelled in their native tongue.

Norge looks like norj, but it's more like Nor-guh. The 'o' sound is different too,

Espana is more like espanyah. And so on.

[RatherDashing]

It's also interesting that we don't do this to European names that have English translations, like Christopher Huselius and Michael Kiprusoff.

And how do you get from Deutschland to Germany? Is the pronunciation in German that different than ours? I know Polish is pretty goofy when compared to English, maybe it's something like that.

This is also interesting during the Olympics, it seems people never know which name for cities to use. Like in 2006 some networks went with Torino, and others stuck with Turin.

[jammies]

I like saying "Deutschland".

EDIT - ooh, synchronicity again!

[Delthefunky]

In swedish we spell Canada "Kanada"

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by RatherDashing

And how do you get from Deutschland to Germany? Is the pronunciation in German that different than ours? I know Polish is pretty goofy when compared to English, maybe it's something like that.
.

To make things even more complicated, in French, Germany is Allemande and in Croatian, it is Njemačka.

Four completely different names for the same country.

[Ryan Coke]

I thought about this while in Italy. I think we can handle saying Italia, and Roma (Rome) and Firenze (Florence) and Venizia (Venice). Why on earth do we need to 'englishize' it? Calgary is Calgary no matter what your native tongue is, just as New York is not Nouveau York or Mesa Arizona isn't Table Arizona.

Just seems stupid to me.

[4X4]

In Italian, The Netherlands is Paesi Bassi...?

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

I thought about this while in Italy. I think we can handle saying Italia, and Roma (Rome) and Firenze (Florence) and Venizia (Venice). Why on earth do we need to 'englishize' it? Calgary is Calgary no matter what your native tongue is, just as New York is not Nouveau York or Mesa Arizona isn't Table Arizona.

Just seems stupid to me.

French does it too.

The USA in French is États-Unis d'Amérique.

I know part of it is just history. For example, Njemačka in Croatian is in reference to a specific Germanic tribe that had influence in the region of Germany during the early middle ages.

[Bill Bumface]

This always drives me nuts too. A country's name should be a country's name. If someone is blabbering in some other language I should be able to pick out the name of their country at the very least.

[flip]

Ive given this same rant to numerous people at my work and they all stare at me like I'm crazy.

Being of Italian descent it drives me crazy. Its Roma not Rome. Italia not Italy.

Even Jesus is Yeshua (not sure on the spelling but if you sound it out that is close).

Personally I don't think names should be translateable. My name is MIchael I don't care what ****ing country I'm in.

[dionfan]

This is one thing I've never understood - People from Canada are Canadian, people from Germany are German, People from Italy are Italian, etc. but people from the Netherlands are Dutch??? What's with that?

[4X4]

Originally Posted by flip

Ive given this same rant to numerous people at my work and they all stare at me like I'm crazy.

Being of Italian descent it drives me crazy. Its Roma not Rome. Italia not Italy.

Even Jesus is Yeshua (not sure on the spelling but if you sound it out that is close).

Personally I don't think names should be translateable. My name is MIchael I don't care what ****ing country I'm in.

Dove sei?

[gottabekd]

Originally Posted by RatherDashing

I
This is also interesting during the Olympics, it seems people never know which name for cities to use. Like in 2006 some networks went with Torino, and others stuck with Turin.

I think the thing with Turin is some network execs decided Torino sounded sexier, so they started using that to hype the Olympics. Which, doesn't make any sense, because we don't say "Roma", so why use the Italian version of any other city?

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by dionfan

This is one thing I've never understood - People from Canada are Canadian, people from Germany are German, People from Italy are Italian, etc. but people from the Netherlands are Dutch??? What's with that?

Similarily, the main ethnic group in Hungary are Magyars.

[GirlySports]

South Korea = Daehan Minguk
China = 中華 Zhonghua
Switzerland = Helvetica

and if you look at the Arabs countries... you've got no chance.

And if you speak an Asian language, you should see what the european and north american countries are called. This summer at the Beijing Olympics, the countries will march in the order of the Chinese Alphabet... that'll be really messed up!

[Five-hole]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

South Korea = Daehan Minguk
China = 中華 Zhonghua
Switzerland = Helvetica

and if you look at the Arabs countries... you've got no chance.

And if you speak an Asian language, you should see what the european and north american countries are called. This summer at the Beijing Olympics, the countries will march in the order of the Chinese Alphabet... that'll be really messed up!

Finally .... Zimbabwe won't be last! IT'S OUR TIME NOW!!

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by 4X4

In Italian, The Netherlands is Paesi Bassi...?

Probably has the same meaning as in French, who call is Les Pays Bas, meaning literally "the low country", which makes sense consider a good portion of the Netherlands is below sea level.

In Norwegian we have some names that are quite different that the English:
Greece = Hellas
Germany = Tyskland
Switzerland = Sveitz

And like someone else pointed out Canada is spelled with a K.

Germany sure seems to have a wide variety of different names in different language. Ones that I know of:
German = Deutschland
English = Germany
Norwegian = Tyskland
French = Allemande
Hungarian = Németország

None of those are even close to each other.... its kind of weird. Usuallly the names are at least somewhat similar.