# Silly foreigners don't know their own country **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 15, 2000, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607 "2000-05-15T20:39:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2000, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/1 "2000-05-15T20:39:21Z")
Okay, that was a sarcastic crack. It’s always been my pet peeve that we (and most other major nations – in the cultural sense of the word) share the conceit that we know the name of a place or country (in the political sense) better than the inhabitants themselves? Like “Germany”, which the natives foolishly call “Deutschland”. I know passed from the Saxon French “Allemagne” to our Anglo-saxon cutural forebears… BUT … do we want to perpetuate French pig-headedness? Or Japan, which has been Nippon for centuries, and for which Nippon was once a common English word. The Japanese can’t even say the ‘Ja’ sound, the closest their syllabylary permits is “cha”. Or India, which the many disparate natives called Bharat until the English colonials showed up and named it after a river that only runs along the northern edge from (now) Tibet into (now) Pakistan. (admittedly, the generic name for the region, used by most people of the area “Bharat” simply meant “home”.) Thoughts, anecdotes, examples, and country renaming trivia are all welcome. [I personally think “Ougadougou, Burkino Faso” has wonderful charm for a capital name. It reminds you that TWIAVBP] ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2000, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/2 "2000-05-15T21:59:53Z")
I am not sure I follow your reasoning. You mean we should all call a place by the name the people who live there call it? why? I cannot see why. I am not speaking their language. ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2000, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/3 "2000-05-15T22:38:08Z")
Finland = Suomi. No F in the Finnish language. ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2000, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/4 "2000-05-15T22:46:24Z")
Precisely because it _is_ a name. In short, Australian and British English (or more so, Indian English) are sometimes considered different languages from American, but if I go to Australia, they can’t just say my name in Aussie English is “Putz-head”. (Well, okay, they did – but I’m fighting it in court). By your argument, we could pat Zaire patronizingly on the head and say “Call yourself whatever you want. You’ll always be the Belgian Congo to us.” I imagine they might take offense – and rightly so. ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2000, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/5 "2000-05-15T22:57:13Z")
Sorry… like most of you, I do this in spare seconds, and get called away in mid-reply a lot. The previous reply was the post asking why we should call other countries by their preferred names. Re: Finland I suspect the Finns would take a perverse pride in the origin of the name ‘Finns’. I recall reading a medieval Latin text where Adam of Bremen cited his title as “the bishop of Germany, Scandinavia and Finis (the utter End)” circa 1050 AD. The footnotes said this Catholic designation was the origin of ‘Finn’ Some cultures would consider this a slur. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/6 "2000-05-16T09:50:25Z")
And don’t forget, in the Slavic languages, Germany is “Niemiec” or “Nemet” and I’m sure there’s zillions more variations on the German theme. The way I see it, the best would be to call a people what they want to be called. I don’t see a problem with pronounciation or the fact that I’m speaking their language. Those sounds can be reasonably approximated. However, there’s just certain established names that I think would be impossible to eradicate. EG. Hungary is Magyarorszag (pronouncing something approaching: MAW-jawr-oar-szahg) I haven’t found one Hungarian complain that the foreigners call them Hungary. In the same token, for Vienna, Hungarians say “Becs” (BAYCH) Whereas in German it’s Wien “VEEN” Bratislava is Pozsony. Italy is “Olaszorszag.” Whereas in Polish, Italy is “Wlochy” I mean, if a particulary peoples take offense to the name another country has for them, then I’m willing to concede. For most of these examples, I really don’t see that much of a problem. ---
**Author:** ![mazirian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@mazirian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazirian)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/7 "2000-05-16T10:51:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Finland = Suomi. No F in the Finnish language > \*\* > [@](#): > > \*\* > Re: Finland > I suspect the Finns would take a perverse pride in the origin of the name ‘Finns’. I recall reading a medieval Latin text where Adam of Bremen cited his title as “the bishop of Germany, Scandinavia and Finis (the utter End)” > circa 1050 AD. The footnotes said this Catholic designation was the origin of ‘Finn’ > > Some cultures would consider this a slur. > \*\* We Finns take perverse pride in many things here in Ultima Thule. Sauna, Sisu, Sibelius 🙂 The country’s official name for foreign relations used to be the slightly cumbersome Suomi-Finland, abbreviated SF. There is another theory where the name ‘Finn’ came from: > [@](#): > > When the Roman historian Cornelius Publius Tacitus wrote his Germania in AD 98, the peoples along the northern fringes of the Empire whom he mentioned included the Fenni. According to Tacitus the Fenni were “unbelievably wild and miserably poor”, having “no weapons, no horses, no houses”. This account does not even come close to describing the peasants who at that time inhabited the southern part of Finland and earned their livelihood from arable farming and animal husbandry. Instead, the Fenni whom Tacitus describes are most likely to have been the hunting culture of the north, thus in modern terms the Sámi. ---
**Author:** ![mazirian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@mazirian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazirian)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/8 "2000-05-16T11:00:14Z")
Just for fun, few country names in English and Finnish: The United States - Yhdysvallat (literal translation) Sweden - Ruotsi Denmark - Tanska Germany - Saksa France - Ranska Spain - Espanja Hungary - Unkari Japan - Japani China - Kiina ---
**Author:** ![SwimmingRiddles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SwimmingRiddles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwimmingRiddles)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/9 "2000-05-16T12:27:40Z")
While complaining about this to a friend of mine, she pointed out that most countries refer to The United States as America. While it IS part of the title of the country, when refering to it AS a country (and not a state of mind) we refer to it as “The US” or something similar (The States, etc.) Whereas people of other nationalities would use the phase “I can’t be there, I’m in America that week,” we wouldn’t. Sure, it ain’t no Nippon, but still… ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/10 "2000-05-16T13:23:17Z")
Just for fun, few country names in English and Finnish: The United States - Yhdysvallat (literal translation) Sweden - Ruotsi Denmark - Tanska Germany - Saksa France - Ranska Spain - Espanja Hungary - Unkari Japan - Japani China - Kiina === There’s one Finnish country name I can’t figure out. When everyone else, including themselves, calls their country something like: “Eesti”, “Estonia”, “Estland” etc, the Finnish name is “Viru”. Why is that? Floater ---
**Author:** ![trilobite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@trilobite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trilobite)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/11 "2000-05-16T13:24:24Z")
There’s a little village not too far from where I live (in Ottawa, Canada) that goes by the name of Almonte. The village was named for General Almonte, who, a hundred years ago, was kicking Yankee butt --the village’s founders were anti-American, hence the name. However, the last two generations have taken to pronounce the village’s name ‘Almont’, with a stress on the first syllable, and the final vowell dropped. The history of the name has all been forgotten by the people in the area. * * * As for people calling the U.S. ‘America’, I see the logic to it, since its people call themselves Americans. However, in Canada, we say U.S., or the States, or even South of the Border. That last one , for Americans, (or should I say United Statesmen 🙂 )would be Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![soulsling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@soulsling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/soulsling)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/12 "2000-05-16T13:37:05Z")
I’ve had a problem recently with Yemen. (Not the country or its people actually) I would be speaking with a friend of mine in Israel (Yisrael) and mention the name “Yemen”, you know, south of Saudi Arabia. She had no clue what i was talking about, 'til later she mentions “Timan” (Tee-man) and we discover what the problem was earlier with my mentioning it as Yemen. Even the Yemenites call their country Timan. And Israel (Yisrael) calls the US “Artzot Ha’Brit”, which translates to the land of the free. I kind of like that one. They refer to their own country as “Ha Eretz”, which just means, The Country, kinda like New Yorkers (being one myself) refer to home as The City. (Because of course, it really is the only REAL city. :sarcastic grin: 😃 jk) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/13 "2000-05-16T13:37:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Or Japan, which has been Nippon for centuries, and for which Nippon was once a common English word. The Japanese can’t even say the ‘Ja’ sound, the closest their syllabylary permits is “cha”. Are you sure about that? They have no problem saying “ji” or “ju”, as in Nihon- **ji** n (a person from Japan), **ju** (ten), Fu **ji** yama (Mt. Fuji), Go **ji** ra (Godzilla). I don’t have a Japanese dictionary handy, so I can’t look to see if they have any “ja” words; but I think they are able to say the syllable. ---
**Author:** ![mazirian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@mazirian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazirian)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/14 "2000-05-16T14:01:08Z")
Floater > [@](#): > > \*\* > > There’s one Finnish country name I can’t figure out. When everyone else, including themselves, calls their country something like: “Eesti”, “Estonia”, “Estland” etc, the Finnish name is “Viru”. Why is that? > \*\* Actually, it’s Vir **o**. However, the Finnish name for the country comes from the northernmost province of Estonia called… Viru. Complicated? Yes. But most of our neighbouring countries were named the same way. Sweden (Sverige) is called “Ruotsi” after the province of Roslagen and Germany (Deutchland) is called “Saksa” after Sachsen (Saxony?). BTW, this is not unique. Latvians call Estonia “Igaunija”, which comes from the southernmost province, Ugand. ---
**Author:** ![Konrad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f475e1/32.png) [@Konrad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Konrad)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/15 "2000-05-16T14:18:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Whereas in Polish, Italy is “Wlochy” I wonder if it’s a coincidence that in Polish Italy means “hairs”? ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/16 "2000-05-16T17:33:34Z")
Mazirian: I’ve heard that theory too - but I always thought Tacitus was… well, you know how the ‘explorer tales’ of that era worked. Not necessarily reliable. I can’t imagine anyone saying the Sámi lacked horses (Sámi without reindeer is unthinkable) and I think the Sámi migrating shelters and waystations were comparable to corresponding structures of other Northern Europeans. As a child, I assumed that, if he was accurately describing any people at all, it was the eskimos. (I was young, I didn’t know eskimos weren’t in nortnern Europe) However, in the 80’s/90’s I learned about the Maritime Archaic, people with roughly eskimo-level kayak/coracle technology, who are now believed to have repeatedly paddled/sailed from Europe and (temporarily) settled in the eastern coast of Canada in roughly 4000 BCE to possibly the ‘christian era’ Swiddles: We _do_ call ourselves America! Quick, what’s the adjective form of ‘United States’? You won’t see USAn anywhere but on the Internet. The objection to “America” came from Latin/Central American countries (and often Canada). It was a kind of international ‘political correctness’ that was very hot in the 70’s (and possibly 60’s, but I was just a tadpole). I recall the Organization of American States (OAS - a group of _non-US_ American nations) pushed that agenda, and there was a lot of rhetoric at the time the Pan-American Highway (from Argentina to Alaska) was being built. Strangely _their_ preferred title for the USA: “United States” was far more ambiguous and toe-treading. What about the “United States of Brazil” and several others – all of whom, like ‘America’ were referred to by the last word in their name. They had deliberately copied our US of A, back when we were a revolutionary inspiration. Meanwhile, there is no other country with “America” in its name. The “US, not America” movement was just a bit of revisionist face-slapping for our condescension in the Monroe Doctrine. For all our sins, they couldn’t slap us _too_ hard in the era between the October missle crisis and the Sandinistas. **Johnny LA: ARRGGGHH!** For a moment, I thought I was going to have to commit hara kiri! But as I was laying out the rice paper, I realized what demon had possessed me to say such a thing. The Japanese language consists of syllables: sa si se so su etc rather than ‘single letters’. The only letter taht doesn’t contain a vowel sound is ‘n’ which is used at the end of certain syllables (-jin, den’wa, onna, etc.) However, as you run through each ‘family of letters’ (ta ti te to tu) you find the occasional mutant. for example, it’s ‘ha hi he ho FU’ (not HU) Don’t ask me, I didn’t write the language. The letter ‘ji’ occurs in the family ‘za JI ze zo zu’, so I quickly said there was no JA (there’s za, instead) However I forgot that there are palatized members of the families, too. (mya, kyo, ryu) and in the ‘za’ family, the letter that you’d expect to be ‘zya’ is pronounced “ja” _ **Mooshiwake gozaimasen!!** _ This humble worm places his life in your hand for dispatch. ---
**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/17 "2000-05-16T18:04:21Z")
One problem with using the local term for a country can occur if it’s difficult to transliterate the name. Without a native phonetic alphabet, the Chinese must sort of assemble native syllable so they will sound vaguely like the foreign word. The word (in mandarin, I think) for the United States is something like “beautiful country” because those syllables sound a little like America. Any Chinese speakers should feel free to tell us the actual syllables. The point is, it’s not always easy just to expand your language to include the words from the country you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Geenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Geenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geenius)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/18 "2000-05-16T18:51:22Z")
The Mandarin Chinese word for “America” is _Meiguo,_ which does in fact literally mean “beautiful country.” There are others: England is _Yingguo_ (“hero country”), France is _Faguo_ (“law country”), Germany is _Deguo_ (“virtue country”). Russia, for reasons that I can’t quite fathom, is called _Eguo_ (pronounced “uh-gwo”), which sounds like “evil country,” although it’s written with a different character for the first syllable. Japan is _Riben,_ the literal translation of _Nihon._ Most other countries’ names are simply transliterated, however: _Jianada, Yidali_. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/19 "2000-05-16T19:20:41Z")
> [@](#): > > And Israel (Yisrael) calls the US “Artzot Ha’Brit”, which translates to the land of the free. I kind of like that one. They refer to their own country as “Ha Eretz”, which just means, The Country, kinda like New Yorkers (being one myself) refer to home as The City. Actually, Artzot haBrit means “Lands of the Covenant.” You may recognize the word brit, as it has the same meaning in _brit_ (or bris, if you use Ashkenazi pronunciation) _milah_. The covenant referred to is the Constitution. Additionally, HaAretz means “the land,” as in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, an area that is not exactly contiguous with the current State of Israel, or Medinat Yisrael. (Aretz and Eretz are spelled differently in English, but not in Hebrew; they’re the same thing.) By the way, here in the Bay Area, we refer to San Francisco as The City as well, despite the fact that it’s not even the largest city in the area. You can actually address a letter “The City” and it will be delivered appropriately. ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2000, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/silly-foreigners-dont-know-their-own-country/19607/20 "2000-05-16T20:18:59Z")
Boris B: True, there are transliteration problems but that doesn’t mean we can’t try. Indian languages have a particular problem, because I don’t believe there are near-universal “Romanization” (transliteration) systems as with Japanese and Chinese. Certainly they are not universally used. In Japan (since I’m in that mode today) French is furansu-go (francais), German is doitsu-go (Deutsch), and English is egirisu-go. (-go means language) They came as close as they could to the ‘native’ pronunciation. The Japanese (ra ri re ro ru) sound is halfway between ‘r’ and ‘l’ Other languages, in turn, call Japan something like Nihon (their own name) or Nippon (a variant), which is what the country has called itself since at least the 7th century. I have no idea where the word “Japan” came from. If you want a really complicated story, perhaps some other posters would care to explain why the Japanese call the USA “beikoku” which means something like ‘ricemaker’. It has to do with different ways of reading their writing systems (hiragana, kanji, furigana, katakana … ack! _Nani wo kangaeyagattetanda?_) Trust me, Japanese is _much_ easier to learn than to explain. I need to go wash my brain in German for a while.