Is it really "impolite" that some peoples and countries have different names in different languages?

[NewfieMom]

Interesting thing about the Basque language: it is the only non-Indo-European language spoken in Europe:

I believe that Finnish and Hungarian are also not derived from Sanskrit.

 

[ataraxia]

I believe that Finnish and Hungarian are also not derived from Sanskrit.

Interesting- yes, I remember hearing about that at one point.

But it’s not that any of the other European languages are derived from Sanskrit- it’s that they were all derived from a common ancestor. Most of the European languages, Sanskrit, and the old Persian languages, all derive from a common ancient language.

 

[Gaius46]

Actually it's really not so straight forward, and I'm a little confused as it pertains to the modern word for France. The English word "Gaul" comes from the Germanic word Walhaz. The word for the Gallic people that Caesar referred to was indeed coined by the Romans or the Greeks. Though if we follow the typical pattern, the Romans probably got it from the Greeks. The word that the Gallic people had for themselves was the Celtae.

Was Celtae the Gallic word for the Gauls or was it the Roman version of the Gallic word? It certainly looks Latin and when Caesar references people in Gaul they have Latin sounding names but I’ve never figured out whether that’s because the various laguages of the region closely resembled Latin or (more probably) Caesar Latinized the names

 

[NewfieMom]

Interesting- yes, I remember hearing about that at one point.

But it’s not that any of the other European languages are derived from Sanskrit- it’s that they were all derived from a common ancestor. Most of the European languages, Sanskrit, and the old Persian languages, all derive from a common ancient language.

All the European languages save Basque, Hungarian, and Finnish are derived from Sanskrit.

 

[Cardinal]

I do not think that knowing the origin of a practice is useless, "just kicking the can down the road". I find the origin of words interesting and educational. From what you posted above, and what you have proven to know about words, I believe you do as well.

By "kicking the can down the road," what I meant is that while the statement I made traces the origin of the word further back in time, it didn't ultimately answer the question of where the word Greece comes from. In other words, the first appearance of the root word.

 

[Cardinal]

Was Celtae the Gallic word for the Gauls or was it the Roman version of the Gallic word? It certainly looks Latin and when Caesar references people in Gaul they have Latin sounding names but I’ve never figured out whether that’s because the various laguages of the region closely resembled Latin or (more probably) Caesar Latinized the names

Celtae is almost certainly the Latinized form (the "ae" is the dead giveaway), but I believe Celt is itself the root word, or very very close to the root word, that the Gallic people had for themselves. And of course, as you pointed out, the absolutely preferred terms would have been their tribe names, exactly as the case with Native Americans here.

 

[mrjurrs]

It is neither polite nor impolite, but is is intellectually lazy.

 

[ataraxia]

All the European languages save Basque, Hungarian, and Finnish are derived from Sanskrit.

I'm not sure about that. My impression was that the relationship between Sanskrit and the European languages was not of one deriving from the other, but of siblings all derived from a common ancestor.

In support of this view:

"The Indo-European languages are a language family native to western and southern Eurasia. It comprises most of the languages of Europe together with those of the northern Indian subcontinent and the Iranian Plateau...

All Indo-European languages have descended from a single prehistoric language, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era. Its precise geographical location, the Indo-European urheimat, is unknown and has been the object of many competing hypotheses; the most widely accepted is the Kurgan hypothesis, which posits the urheimat to be the Pontic–Caspian steppe, associated with the Yamnaya culture around 3000 BC. By the time the first written records appeared, Indo-European had already evolved into numerous languages spoken across much of Europe and south-west Asia. Written evidence of Indo-European appeared during the Bronze Age in the form of Mycenaean Greek and the Anatolian languages, Hittite and Luwian. The oldest records are isolated Hittite words and names – interspersed in texts that are otherwise in the unrelated Old Assyrian Akkadian language, a Semitic language – found in the texts of the Assyrian colony of Kültepe in eastern Anatolia in the 20th century BC.[3] Although no older written records of the original Proto-Indo-Europeans remain, some aspects of their culture and religion can be reconstructed from later evidence in the daughter cultures.[4] The Indo-European family is significant to the field of historical linguistics as it possesses the second-longest recorded history of any known family, after the Afroasiatic family in the form of the Egyptian language and the Semitic languages. "

Indo-European languages - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[NewfieMom]

I'm not sure about that. My impression was that the relationship between Sanskrit and the European languages was not of one deriving from the other, but of siblings all derived from a common ancestor.

@ataraxia, I appreciate your answer and your citation. I know the languages I listed are not Indo-European. A quick and dirty 'net search unearthed this. (I do not stand behind it but found it interesting.)

What is written below was in response to the question about whether the Hungarian, Finnish, and Basque languages were related.

"Of course they are related as all human languages are related. The question is how. On the surface they are rather closely related as all are agglutinative. Many linguists believe that all agglutinative languages derived from a single parent language in western Asia. In addition, though Finnish and Hungarian are grouped together as part of the Finno-Ugrian family, Hungarian and Basque language are ergative languages, whereas Finnish is not (it likely lost its ergative case).

How they are related is not difficult to reconstruct. The Finno-Ugrian languages are believed to have migrated from the Caspian Basin via the Volga Valley, the Volga Finnic languages being the oldest languages of that family (at least of the Finnic branch). At the same time, the Basques are now understood as the remnants of a wave of Neolithic migrants who moved westward along the length of the Mediterranian about 7,000 years ago, with their origin in the Caucausus Mountains, on the western shore of the Caspian. Numerous proposals link Basque language to either South Caucasian or Northeast Caucasian languages.

The Caspian, which was a large population center during the last Ice Age, underwent severe flooding and a conversion to salt water about 12,000 years ago. These radical changes caused waves of out-migration in all directions. It can be presumed that there was a common mother language around the Caspian during the Ice Age, that Basque is one descendant of that language and that Finno-Ugric is another.

Some call that mother language Nostratic, which had many other progeny as well."

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-the-B...elated-Do-they-have-a-connection-to-Hungarian

 

[molten_dragon]

It's just how languages work. It's no more insulting or impolite that English and German have two different words for "Germany" than it is that they have two different words for "lemon"

 

[ataraxia]

Another interesting fact:

There is evidence that Turkish may be part of the same family of languages as Mongolian, Japanese, and Korean! This is the Altaic family of languages. Interestingly, these languages are completely different than the Chinese family of languages. So, interestingly enough, Japanese and Korean are closer linguistically to Turkish than to Chinese (even though the Japanese use the Chinese system of writing). I always thought that was fascinating!

"Altaic (/ælˈteɪ.ɪk/; also called Transeurasian) is a sprachbund (i.e. a linguistic area) and proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages.[1]:73 Speakers of these languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35 °N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from Turkey to Japan.[2] The group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia. The hypothetical language family has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, although it continues to be supported by a small but stable scholarly minority.[1][3][4]"

Altaic languages - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

How did this happen? It turns out that the Turkic tribes which eventually made their way to Turkey as the Ottomans slowly made their way there through migration across the southern steppes of Central Asia. So as you travel from Turkey to Mongolia today, from Azerbaijan and Turkeministan to Uzebekistan and Mongolia, you will see the slanting of the eyes start to look more Mongolian, and you will hear various Turkic dialects evolve from the kind spoken in Istanbul to Mongolian languages. Fascinating stuff!

 

[Rumpel]

I find the origin of words interesting and educational.

So do I
And I am always glad to see that others do as well.

 

[Loulit01]

Actually it's really not so straight forward, and I'm a little confused as it pertains to the modern word for France. The English word "Gaul" comes from the Germanic word Walhaz. The word for the Gallic people that Caesar referred to was indeed coined by the Romans or the Greeks. Though if we follow the typical pattern, the Romans probably got it from the Greeks. The word that the Gallic people had for themselves was the Celtae.

Didn't say it was straightforward or that it wasn't coined by the Romans or Greeks. Since it is Latin in origin it's probably Roman. The word was around long before Caeser.

 

[ataraxia]

@ataraxia, I appreciate your answer and your citation. I know the languages I listed are not Indo-European. A quick and dirty 'net search unearthed this. (I do not stand behind it but found it interesting.)

What is written below was in response to the question about whether the Hungarian, Finnish, and Basque languages were related.

"Of course they are related as all human languages are related. The question is how. On the surface they are rather closely related as all are agglutinative. Many linguists believe that all agglutinative languages derived from a single parent language in western Asia. In addition, though Finnish and Hungarian are grouped together as part of the Finno-Ugrian family, Hungarian and Basque language are ergative languages, whereas Finnish is not (it likely lost its ergative case).

How they are related is not difficult to reconstruct. The Finno-Ugrian languages are believed to have migrated from the Caspian Basin via the Volga Valley, the Volga Finnic languages being the oldest languages of that family (at least of the Finnic branch). At the same time, the Basques are now understood as the remnants of a wave of Neolithic migrants who moved westward along the length of the Mediterranian about 7,000 years ago, with their origin in the Caucausus Mountains, on the western shore of the Caspian. Numerous proposals link Basque language to either South Caucasian or Northeast Caucasian languages.

The Caspian, which was a large population center during the last Ice Age, underwent severe flooding and a conversion to salt water about 12,000 years ago. These radical changes caused waves of out-migration in all directions. It can be presumed that there was a common mother language around the Caspian during the Ice Age, that Basque is one descendant of that language and that Finno-Ugric is another.

Some call that mother language Nostratic, which had many other progeny as well."

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-the-B...elated-Do-they-have-a-connection-to-Hungarian

Wow, this is all a lot more complicated than I thought! Fascinating!

The thing that I am finding most interesting about this right now is that although the Indo-European languages and the Finno-Ugric/Basque languages are entirely separate families of languages, they all seem to originate from around the general area of the Caspian Sea. But as far as I know, I don't think anyone has proposed any more ancient root to these two language families.

 

[Cardinal]

Didn't say it was straightforward or that it wasn't coined by the Romans or Greeks. Since it is Latin in origin it's probably Roman. The word around long before Caeser.

You're not being very clear. By "the word was around long before Caeser," are you referring to the Greeks (probably) coining the term?

 

[Loulit01]

It is neither polite nor impolite, but is is intellectually lazy.

No, it isn't. Give it up — you lost a long time ago.

 

[Loulit01]

You're not being very clear. By "the word was around long before Caeser," are you referring to the Greeks (probably) coining the term?

I'm referring to the fact that the word was around long before Caeser. Jeez.

 

[Cardinal]

It is neither polite nor impolite, but is is intellectually lazy.

I don't think it's intellectually lazy. We agree on certain words because it facilitates communication...even if those words aren't always necessarily accurate. Changing the names of places and peoples is generally a large effort that we all (or most of us) agree to so we're not all confused about who or what we're talking about. Sure, I could call France "Gaul," and that of course is more accurate. But then I'd have to be okay with constantly causing a hiccup in the conversation when somebody inevitably asks for clarification.

 

[Cardinal]

I'm referring to the fact that the word was around long before Caeser. Jeez.

Well it's been real.

 

[Rumpel]

It is neither polite nor impolite, but is is intellectually lazy.

Are you serious?
Do you really maintain that for every people and for every country on Earth we should use exactly the same name that these countries use for themselves?
What about you now?
Do you follow your own rule?
Now be honest about it.
Do you really use the word Cymru every time when you speak in English of Wales und the word Magyarország when you speak in English of Hungary?
I doubt it.
And it would be quite absurd.

 

[mrjurrs]

No, it isn't. Give it up — you lost a long time ago.

I'm guessing clarity isn't your strong suit...

 

[Tender Branson]

Definitely not insulting.

But I would never call Hungarians „Magyars“ ... or so, even if they call themselves that way.

 

[mrjurrs]

I don't think it's intellectually lazy. We agree on certain words because it facilitates communication...even if those words aren't always necessarily accurate. Changing the names of places and peoples is generally a large effort that we all (or most of us) agree to so we're not all confused about who or what we're talking about. Sure, I could call France "Gaul," and that of course is more accurate. But then I'd have to be okay with constantly causing an hiccup in the conversation when somebody inevitably asks for clarification.

The French don't refer to themselves as Gaulans or Gaulish...

If you want cheese here, that's what we ask for. If we want cheese in France, we'd use a different term. Don't get me wrong, if I could get paid for being lazy I'd be in a higher tax bracket, but choosing to call someone by your own language term when they refer to themselves as something else just seems like taking the easy way.

 

[Loulit01]

Well it's been real.

If you want to be that way I'll do your research for you:

As you know, the letter "u" did not exist in the Roman alphabet so strictly speaking Caeser never wrote it. You may mean "Gallia," from the Latin or "Galatia (Γαλατία) from the Greek.

Borrowed from French Gaule (“Gaul”), from Middle French Gaule (“Gaul”), from Old French Gaule, Waulle (“Gaul”), a word used as a translation of Latin Gallia (“Gaul”), from Frankish *Walha(land) (“Gaul, Land of the Romans, foreigners”) (but see etymology for Gallus), from *walh (“foreigner, Roman, Celt”), from Proto-Germanic *walhaz (“an outlander, foreigner, Celt”), probably of Celtic origin, from the same source as Latin Volcae (name of a Celtic tribe in South Germany, which later emigrated to Gaul). Akin to Old High German Walh, Walah (“a Celt, Roman, Gaul”), Old English Wealh, Walh (“a non-Germanic foreigner, Celt/Briton/Welshman”), Old Norse Valir (“Gauls, Frenchmen”). More at Wales/Welsh, Cornwall, Walloon, and Vlach/Wallachia.

Despite their similar appearance, Latin Gallia is not the origin of French Gaule; the similarity is purely coincidental. According to regular sound changes in the phonetic development of Old French, Latin g before a becomes j (compare gamba, whence jambe), and the i of terminal -ia transposes to the preceding syllable (compare gloire from gloria). Thus, the regular outcome of Latin Gallia is Jaille, a component still seen in several French placenames (e.g. La Jaille-Yvon, Saint-Mars-la-Jaille, etc.).

Gaul - Wiktionary

en.wiktionary.org

And you said I was unclear.

Are you still telling me Caeser coined the word?

 

[Loulit01]

I'm guessing clarity isn't your strong suit...

I know you do far too much guessing.