# What do Chinese people call China? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 31, 2001, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-chinese-people-call-china/60185 "2001-03-31T00:56:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2001, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-chinese-people-call-china/60185/41 "2001-04-05T11:11:36Z")
Really it’s called the People’s Republic of China. Although, every one in China calls it “zhong guo”. “zhong” is “middle” or “central” and “Guo” is “country” “state” or “nation”. Usually you see it translated as “Central Kingdom”, which is a leftover from a few hundred years ago. Remember this is a supposedly communist country and the last real emperor was either Puyi (“The Last Emporer”), Mao or his widow Jiang Qing. None of the current players come close. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2001, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-chinese-people-call-china/60185/42 "2001-04-05T13:38:44Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Tengu \* > In Japan it’s Amerika._\* Well, yeah, but there’s also another name for it just using Kanji: Beikoku. The characters used translate as “Rice country.” Kinda strange considering their import restrictions. Other Japanese country names: China – Chuugoku (Middle country) Korea – Kankoku (which apparently just means “Korea”) France – Furansu or Fukkoku (Buddha country) England – Igirisu or Eikoku (Excellent country) Germany – Doitsu or Dokkoku (Alone or Independent country) Italy – Itaria or Ikoku (Italian country) Spain – Supein or Seikoku (West country) As for the Korean names, is there an **Astroboy14** in the house? –sublight. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2001, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-chinese-people-call-china/60185/43 "2001-04-05T14:21:53Z")
Random thoughts on the postings to this point: One reason we have different words or pronounciations for the place names of other countries is because, to some extent, all people get a bit ethnocentric about their language. Thus, where it would be just as easy to call the Italian capital _Roma_, which is precisely what the Italians call it, we call it Rome, which fits our pronounciation tendencies, avoiding a terminating vowel sound and using the ‘e’ to make the ‘o’ say its name. Similarly, even though we still spell the French capital correctly, we don’t bother to pronounce it correctly, and if you tried to convince the average American that he should pronounce ‘is’ as a long-‘e’, he or she would think you had escaped from some local asylum. Complicating this are situations where the common phonemes in the language of another country aren’t found in the ‘home’ tongue. This, of course, often leads to mutilation of the ‘native’ names, or more often outright refusal to use them. This is quite often the case with China and Chinese place names. On still other occaisions, rather than use a foreign word that is meaningless, the place name will get translated to an English equivalent. I could be wrong, but I think China provides another example of this with the ‘Yellow’ River. The Russian name for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was, amazingly enough, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I won’t attempt the English transliteration of the Russian words, but it would come out abbreviated SSSR. As was pointed out, the letters in the Cyrillic alphabet that correspond look like CCCP, pronounced ‘ess ess ess ehr’. Amazingly, we called the country by the right name, likely the result of its relatively recent creation as a name. **Doobieous** is 100% incorrect when making the assertion that the statement by **Derleth** implied a derivative relationship between the Latin letters S and R and the Cyrillic letters ‘C’ and ‘P’. The statement used the word ‘resembles’, which implies no relationship except a visual similarity. It doesn’t imply either an orthographic or a linguistic relationship (though the linguistic relationship certainly exists). If **Doobieous** thinks it did, then **Doobieous** is making an unwarranted inference. And **if** one was to make **any** inference regarding derivation, one would have to go the other way, and think the statement implied that **our** letter derived from their letter. Hmmph. So there. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2001, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-chinese-people-call-china/60185/44 "2001-04-05T14:29:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by exchicagoan \* > **What’s so difficult about Munchen/Napoli/Roma?** Of course, “Napoli” is a bastardization of the original name of the Greek colony, Neopolis. So “Naples” is no worse, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2001, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-chinese-people-call-china/60185/45 "2001-04-05T14:40:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BobT \* > \*\*In English, we’ll recognize most countries which use Romance, Germanic, or Scandinavian languages. However, countries like Suomi (Finland) … will stump us English speakers. \*\* On the other hand: the country is called Finland in Swedish, which happens to be one of the two official languages. ---
**Author:** ![Morrison\_s\_Lament](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Morrison\_s\_Lament](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morrison_s_Lament)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2001, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-chinese-people-call-china/60185/46 "2001-05-13T19:47:24Z")
As a sidenote, I was told by reliable sources that the phrase “Wo Bu Shir Mei Guo Ren” gets you better prices in the San Li Tun area. It literally means “I’m not American”, but among seasoned merchants in the capitol it basically means “I’m not a sucker”. 😃 — G. Raven ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2001, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-chinese-people-call-china/60185/47 "2001-05-14T10:07:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by exchicagoan \* > I’ve never understood how a name could be changed like THAT. > Or is that really some kind of an immigration myth? No. A rose by any other name, eh? Americanized names were very common. The original Russion of my last name is lost to those wacky Ellis Island guys, and my relatives never talked about it. Wouldn’t even speak the Russian/Polish they were raised on unless they couldn’t express it in English. “We are in America now, and we speak English\*\*.\*\*” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-chinese-people-call-china/60185.md?page=2)