French call the channel between them and England “La Manche”, literally “the sleeve”, because it looks like a coat’s sleeve. The british, imperialistically, call it “English Channel”. I know the Portuguese call it “Canal da Mancha”, changing the french “manche”, by mistake, to “mancha” (port. for “spot”) How do other languages call it?
I’ve often wondered what North Africans call the Strait of Gibralter or what the Arabs call the Persian Gulf.
The British, unimperialistically, call the Irish Sea the Irish Sea.
It’s El Canal de la Mancha in Spanish and Maniko in Esperanto (no article).
I think you have to be French (and possibly drunk) to see how the channel resembles a coat’s sleeve.
That the portuguese and the Spanish call it mancha by mistake is your assumption. As far as I know it is the name of that channel and only coincidentally the name has another unrelated meaning. many words in English and other languages have several unrelated meanings and it does not mean the speakers mistake them for one another. Thara is also a region of Spain called La Mancha (home of Don Quixote and some of the best cheese).
I do not know what the arabs call the strait of Gibraltar but the word Gibraltar is of arabic origin and means Tarik’s mountain (or rock).
The Strait of Gibraltar is, not surprisingly, “el estrecho de Gibraltar” in Spanish. I remember once seeing some United Arab Emirates propaganda in the Economist, including a map of the Arabian Peninsula so that we could actually place that obscure, rich little country. The Persian Gulf was labeled the “Arabian Gulf”.
So, BBC wasn’t the answer to this question?
Dear fellows: I still do not know how other people call the channel.Thank you, AuntiePam, for your cute british humour. To the sailor: I am not (alas!) drunk, and I am not French, neither does Mr. Cassel, who says, in his famous Dictionary of Proper Names, “to the French it is La Manche, literally ‘the sleeve’, for its shape, with the ‘cuff’ as the Strait of Dover, or Pas de Calais, as the French call it”. The Portuguese (that’s my native language, pal) and the Spanish took “Manche” for “Mancha”, the famous plateau in Spain where lived Don Quixote. Meanwhile, a friend called me with some real information: in German, it is the “ÄrmelKanal” - literally, the “Sleeve Canal”. How about that?