Over half the countries in the world have names that end in an “a”. China, India, Russia, Africa, Austria and Canada certainly represent the broad spectrum of linguistic history. How come the similarity in suffix.
Well, those are the English names for those countries. Not all of them have the same names in the native language of that country.
Also, Africa is a continent, not a country.
If you go by the UN Member States list, only about 74 out of 189 nations end in A, which is only 39% (still high, but not “over half”).
Arjuna34
China — Zhongguo (nope)
India — Bharat (nope)
Russia — Rossiia (check)
Austria — Österreich (nope)
Canada — le Canada (check)
That whittles it down pretty fast.
But to be nitpicky, the actual name of India in the original Sanskrit is Bharata (or in full: Bharatavarsha). It’s the Hindi pronunciation that dropped the final -a.
In Latin feminine singulars end in “a”. Country names are feminine in Latin. Romance languages are based on Latin, thus…