Why is South Africa abbreviated ZA?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@gnoitall

It’s true that you’re not yourself when you’re Hungary.

I hate that I got that. :smack:

Good one, though.

[psychonaut]

@Bullitt

@Little Nemo

Are there any other countries that had their name abbreviated in a language that wasn’t either English or their country’s language?

There is TCD: Chad [note: République du Tchad (French)]

Seems obvious enough to me that the abbreviation derives from the French name (the first two and last letters), and French is an official language of Chad, so how does this count?

[pulykamell]

@gnoitall

It’s true that you’re not yourself when you’re Hungary.

Now I can report that Hungarians DO tend to be peevish about Hungary/hungry puns. “You’re from Hungary? You must be hungry!” punch in the face

[gnoitall]

@psychonaut

Seems obvious enough to me that the abbreviation derives from the French name (the first two and last letters), and French is an official language of Chad, so how does this count?

I’m not sayin’ that this is the case here among our many fine posters, but there is often a strong undercurrent of “it doesn’t make sense in English, so it doesn’t make sense at all.”

Because, let’s face it. It’s America’s world. We just let everyone else slum on the couch. :dubious:

Are there any examples where “it doesn’t make sense in English”, but there isn’t a sensible explanation in either current or historical major or official languages for the country involved? A hypothetical “Mopervania” whose ISO country code is “ZY” for no reason at all?

[Bullitt]

@psychonaut

Seems obvious enough to me that the abbreviation derives from the French name (the first two and last letters), and French is an official language of Chad, so how does this count?

I didn’t realize French was an official language of this central-north African nation. Looking it up, Arabic is another official language. I thought the French TCH was a carryover from perhaps an old French conquest of the country.

[Bullitt]

@jtur88

A few more come to mind: DZ = Algeria, from the Berber name Al-dzayer, the etymology of its modern name . Also ES = Spain (Espana);

Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania were originally EAK, EAU and EAT, for “East Africa xxx”

Jordan used to be HKJ, for Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

There are so many countries beginning with C, and very few with R, Republica de Chile uses RCH

There is what others use, or what the country likes to use — and then there is the ISO 3166 list, the international standard defined by that body.

These are the ISO 3166 abbreviations, 2- and 3-letters, for those countries:

DZ, DZA: Algeria
ES, ESP: Spain
KE, KEN: Kenya
UG, UGA: Uganda
TZ, TZA: Tanzania
JO, JOR: Jordan
CL, CHL: Chile

And of course:
US, USA: United States

[eschereal]

I am a little ambivalent about the fact that the two-letter abbreviation and TLD for China is the cyanide ion.

[Nava]

@gnoitall

Are there any examples where “it doesn’t make sense in English”, but there isn’t a sensible explanation in either current or historical major or official languages for the country involved? A hypothetical “Mopervania” whose ISO country code is “ZY” for no reason at all?

Switzerland choose its abbreviation from a language that has never been official there (well, unless you want to count back when the capital of the Roman Empire was in Rome), but it was precisely because it wasn’t official while being known to the educated: it didn’t give primacy to a linguistic area over the rest. Cases where someone just threw some handfuls of Scrabble letters against the wall until they got something that wasn’t taken, no.