New names for countries

[scooby99]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

This is something I've always wondered too.



But when it's the name of something, especially something that is fairly easy to pronounce in English, why don't we adopt the local's name for the place? I can understand altering the spelling a bit to fit in with the way we would spell "Deutschland" (Doichland, maybe?), but why completely change it to "Germany"? (And, of course, the French call it "Allemagne")

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Germany derives from the Latin name Germani which was adopted by Julius Caesar.

Google suggests that different languages have different names for places usually based on tribes and historical connections of the area.

Germany was called Germani by Romans referring to a group of tribes along the river Rhine, Deutschland by Germans referring to the language spoken by the people, Saksa by Finns referring to the Saxon people and Allemagne by the French referring to the Allemani tribe.

[jdouds]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

This is something I've always wondered too.



But when it's the name of something, especially something that is fairly easy to pronounce in English, why don't we adopt the local's name for the place? I can understand altering the spelling a bit to fit in with the way we would spell "Deutschland" (Doichland, maybe?), but why completely change it to "Germany"? (And, of course, the French call it "Allemagne")

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Germany was a group of regions called Germania. But it’s still the translations that change it .
Sugar French Sucre, German Zucker, Italian zucchera, Spain azucar .

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by jdouds

Germany was a group of regions called Germania. But it’s still the translations that change it .

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But why don't we simply use the name that the locals use?

It's not like we translated Deutschland into Germany. They are very different words with different origins. Same goes for other place names around the world - why don't we adopt what the locals call their country (or city/town)?

As for the different words for "sugar", that's what I meant - in that we all use the same root word but have varied our spelling and pronunciation of the word over time so that now they are slightly different. But they are effectively the same word, just pronounced a little differently: sugar / sucre / zucker / etc.

[scooby99]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

But why don't we simply use the name that the locals use?

It's not like we translated Deutschland into Germany. They are very different words with different origins. Same goes for other place names around the world - why don't we adopt what the locals call their country (or city/town)?

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Because we already had a name for it and other countries already had their names for it?

The name Germani/Germania originated with the Romans, around 100AD.

The name Deutschland has Old High Germanic language origins which came about around 500AD.

Calling other countries, cities & towns what the locals call them is basically using another language and could be very difficult with the difference in tone, pronunciation, emphasis, pattern of letters etc.

[snowbelle]

I work closely with trade markets,countries will often change names for political reasons or to refer back to traditional spelling.
We adapt, as it is diplomatic and we respect their new spellings as they are used in official documents.

[JAF]

Turkey have changed the spelling of their country to Türkiye partly to distance themselves from the popular bird eaten at Christmas and also the Cambridge dictionary definition of turkey. It is also to more align the name with the pronunciation of the country’s name in Turkish.

[jdouds]

Originally Posted by scooby99

Germany derives from the Latin name Germani which was adopted by Julius Caesar.

Google suggests that different languages have different names for places usually based on tribes and historical connections of the area.

Germany was called Germani by Romans referring to a group of tribes along the river Rhine, Deutschland by Germans referring to the language spoken by the people, Saksa by Finns referring to the Saxon people and Allemagne by the French referring to the Allemani tribe.

See more...

The other big difference would be languages that you would understand because of there type styles, ie Chinese etc