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Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2012 7:48 pm
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Should English-speakers* change the name they call countries to the name that said country refers to itself? For example, changing "China" to Zhong Guo, Greece to Ellada, or Germany to Deutschland, etc. Or at least an English translation of the word, similar to France's "États-Unis" for United States, if the name is too difficult to English-speakers. I've thought of this for a while, but whenever I ask people about it I fail to explain what I mean correctly. So, what's your opinion?
Note : Sorry if I totally messed up on the names of the countries.
*Any-speaker, really. But since I speak English I can only say it about English. I know that with the Chinese languages, it would probably be kind of weird to totally transliterate.
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Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:37 am
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Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:45 pm
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Sakura Parfait No, because even in other languages, they use their own words to refer to other countries besides their own, too. For example, in Japanese, China is 中国 (Chuugoku), South Korea is 韓国 (Kankoku), France is フランス国 (fuuransukoku), and so on.
But perhaps just for English? I see what you mean, I think. From what I understand, the koku's and goku's are a sort of -land suffix. (I'm just sort of assuming this) The names of countries aren't really set in stone in English, are they, though?
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 12:38 am
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 11:47 am
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 3:18 pm
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Hikaridranz nah, I don't think so. The current names have been used for so long, it'll be very confusing to suddenly change everything. You'll have to relearn the names you once knew, and after all that the newer generations will still have to know the old names (if the change is too much to recognise it by the 'new' name) because existing books and records won't magically correct themselves. and if they were to change, do you expect the words to be pronounced just as in the original language? Especially since English's already confusing... I can imagine some people pronouncing nihon like how they pronounce nylon. ninja
Nihon like Nylon is still closer than the word Japan. Plus, there are enough snobs in the world to be like no, it's NEE-PONE, not NAI-PUN. At least hopefully. I see what you mean though, I hadn't thought too much of that. Our dictionaries could just do this:
Quote: NIPPON jpThe country in blah blah blah. Referred to as Japan until 20XX. Of course then, using the jp. to mean Japanese wouldn't work because we would probably need to change the name of the languages as well.
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 3:20 pm
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 4:10 pm
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Eretlen Hikaridranz nah, I don't think so. The current names have been used for so long, it'll be very confusing to suddenly change everything. You'll have to relearn the names you once knew, and after all that the newer generations will still have to know the old names (if the change is too much to recognise it by the 'new' name) because existing books and records won't magically correct themselves. and if they were to change, do you expect the words to be pronounced just as in the original language? Especially since English's already confusing... I can imagine some people pronouncing nihon like how they pronounce nylon. ninja Nihon like Nylon is still closer than the word Japan. Plus, there are enough snobs in the world to be like no, it's NEE-PONE, not NAI-PUN. At least hopefully. I see what you mean though, I hadn't thought too much of that. Our dictionaries could just do this: Quote: NIPPON jpThe country in blah blah blah. Referred to as Japan until 20XX. Of course then, using the jp. to mean Japanese wouldn't work because we would probably need to change the name of the languages as well.
from what I've read in Paul Varley's Japanese Culture, the word Japan came from the old Chinese (it doesn't mention specifically what kind of Chinese) pronunciation of nihon, "jihpen", which was then transmitted back to Europe in the 13th century by Marco Polo (who recorded what he heard as "cipangu" ). So it's not like the English language just decided to call Japan "Japan" spontaneously.
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 6:42 pm
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Sakura Parfait Eretlen Hikaridranz nah, I don't think so. The current names have been used for so long, it'll be very confusing to suddenly change everything. You'll have to relearn the names you once knew, and after all that the newer generations will still have to know the old names (if the change is too much to recognise it by the 'new' name) because existing books and records won't magically correct themselves. and if they were to change, do you expect the words to be pronounced just as in the original language? Especially since English's already confusing... I can imagine some people pronouncing nihon like how they pronounce nylon. ninja Nihon like Nylon is still closer than the word Japan. Plus, there are enough snobs in the world to be like no, it's NEE-PONE, not NAI-PUN. At least hopefully. I see what you mean though, I hadn't thought too much of that. Our dictionaries could just do this: Quote: NIPPON jpThe country in blah blah blah. Referred to as Japan until 20XX. Of course then, using the jp. to mean Japanese wouldn't work because we would probably need to change the name of the languages as well. from what I've read in Paul Varley's Japanese Culture, the word Japan came from the old Chinese (it doesn't mention specifically what kind of Chinese) pronunciation of nihon, "jihpen", which was then transmitted back to Europe in the 13th century by Marco Polo (who recorded what he heard as " cipangu" ). So it's not like the English language just decided to call Japan "Japan" spontaneously.
Yeah, I was aware that it game from another language.. for some reason I thought it was Malay. I think we got our word for China from Malay or something.
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