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

[mrjurrs]

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.

First, that's not what the OP asked.
When I am talking to someone from that area I ask what they are called and try to use their preferred term. When I'm talking in a group that doesn't include those people I would of course use the common English term.

It doesn't cost a nickel to try to be welcoming.

 

[Loulit01]

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.

No, it isn't.

But then I'd have to be okay with constantly causing a hiccup in the conversation when somebody inevitably asks for clarification.

You're telling me.

 

[mrjurrs]

I know you do far too much guessing.

Thanks for helping to make my point...

 

[Cardinal]

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?

In addition to civility not being your strong suit, neither is reading comprehension.

 

[Gaius46]

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!

IIRC before they met the Chinese, around the 1st century there was no writing system in Japan.

The Japanese writing system is stupidly complex. It’s probably the most bewildering one out there.

From nothing they grew 2 syllabaries - hiragana and katakana - that represent sounds and the ideographs - kanji - that represent ideas (sometimes. Sometimes a kanji is used in a multi-kanji word simply to lend it’s pronunciation to the word).

The syllabaries themselves use simplifications of the ideographs. Hiragana is very cursive while katakana is blocky and “print like”.

In the modern language - I believe the modern rules were adopted after WWII - kanji are used in nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Hiragana is used for prepositions (actually postpositions since they come after the word), and verb and adjective endings. As well some words have just historically always been written in hiragana and some women prefer to render their names in hiragana instead of kanji because it feels more feminine (or so I was told by an acquaintaince years ago).

Katakana is primarily used for loanwords from other languages and to set off text much as we use italics

The entire written language can be rendered using the syllabaries - and that’s the way children start learning to read - but tbh it’s a pain in the ass to read because, since the written language doesn’t separate words with spaces, it’s sometimes hard to tell where one word ends and the next begins. The downside to kanji though are that you need to be familiar with 2500 or so to be reasonably literate and many have multiple pronunciations. You’ll often see pronunciations for Kanji rendered in small hiragana above (or next to depending on whether the writing is horizontal or vertical) Kanji in things meant for learners or even in adult literature for really uncommon words or where a word can be pronounced more than one way and the author wants a specific pronunciation for some reason.

Like I said stupidly complex though a couple hundred million people use it every day.

 

[Nickyjo]

Has anyone mentioned yet whether it's potato or potahto?

Let's call the whole thing off.

 

[Loulit01]

In addition to civility not being your strong suit, neither is reading comprehension.

An insult does not rebut a researched argument. In addition to being wrong about Caeser coining the word, you've just engaged in a logical fallacy. But keep digging, this is fun.

 

[Loulit01]

Thanks for helping to make my point...

You're welcome.

 

[NewfieMom]

If you want cheese here, that's what we ask for. If we want cheese in France, we'd use a different term.

And the word for "cheese" in French is not that hard to remember, either. People use it all the time in English. If you ever move to France and have to ask for cheese, I bet you will be able to remember the word. But what if you want to buy oregano? Now that's a different kettle of poisson!

The French didn't like the word "oregano", which is the Italian word for the Italian spice. When I tried explaining it as "c'est une épice: verte, sèche, et italienne" only an English woman behind me in line understood what I wanted! She translated, "origan" and then from then on I was able to buy oregano in France.

 

[Loulit01]

And the word for "cheese" in French is not that hard to remember, either. People use it all the time in English. If you ever move to France and have to ask for cheese, I bet you will be able to remember the word. But what if you want to buy oregano? Now that's a different kettle of poisson!

The French didn't like the word "oregano", which is the Italian word for the Italian spice. When I tried explaining it as "c'est une épice: verte, sèche, et italienne" only an English woman behind me in line understood what I wanted! She translated, "origan" and then from then on I was able to buy oregano in France.

This is a guess but is it possible the clerk knew darned well what you meant but was simply being a jerk?

 

[NewfieMom]

This is a guess but is it possible the clerk knew darned well what you meant but was simply being a jerk?

I don't think so. I became a regular. (This was centuries ago.) After this incident I was put to work as an interpreter in that little épicerie. The two women who worked there found that I was useful when people who spoke no French came in.

 

[Rumpel]

And the word for "cheese" in French is not that hard to remember, either. People use it all the time in English.

Slightly off topic I may add:

In German it is Käse.
In my Alemannic dialect it is Kääs.
And in Afrikaans and in Dutch it is kaas.

 

[Rumpel]

6 out of 16 voters now say:

"I find it interesting that there are different names in different languages for the same country"​

:

 

[Loulit01]

I don't think so. I became a regular. (This was centuries ago.) After this incident I was put to work as an interpreter in that little épicerie. The two women who worked there found that I was useful when people who spoke no French came in.

So the French is "origan?" I'm not clear if that's what you meant in your first post.

 

[Rumpel]

Has anyone mentioned yet whether it's potato or potahto?

In German it is Kartoffel.
Once Tartuffel.
From the Italian word for truffle.

 

[mrjurrs]

And the word for "cheese" in French is not that hard to remember, either. People use it all the time in English. If you ever move to France and have to ask for cheese, I bet you will be able to remember the word. But what if you want to buy oregano? Now that's a different kettle of poisson!

The French didn't like the word "oregano", which is the Italian word for the Italian spice. When I tried explaining it as "c'est une épice: verte, sèche, et italienne" only an English woman behind me in line understood what I wanted! She translated, "origan" and then from then on I was able to buy oregano in France.

Good story. I wasn't trying to say we should be conversant in the languages (although that would be a bonus), only that we should make the attempt to call people by their preferred names. It may be easier for me to call you NMom, but it's not polite imo.

 

[Unbeknownst]

The best things to call people are:

1. What they call themselves
2. A direct translation of what they call themselves into your language
3. What they call themselves with changes in pronunciation to make it easier to say for someone in your language

This is actually what we do with the names of most countries. For example:

In English, we call France France, the same name it calls itself.

In Spanish, the United states are los Estados Unidos. This is a direct translation of the United States into Spanish.

In English, we call Zhongguo China. We call it China because it used to call itself "Qin"/ "Chin" which ended up being pronounced as China. We are essentially calling them what they call themselves with a slight change in pronunciation.

These are all good names. They are accurate, comprehensible, and have been accepted by the people they're used for.

Bad things to call people are:

1. Something inaccurate
2. Something confusing
3. Something they consider insulting

For example:

Injun, Indian, American Indian, and other variations are all inaccurate as a descriptor for American Aboriginals, as they are not from India. In addition, it can be confused with people from the country India, who are also called Indians.

Native Americans is confusing, because all people born in America (i.e. native to America) are Native Americans. Not specific enough.

Redskin/Injun, both became insults because they were used in a derogatory manner historically, and are generally considered insulting.

These names range from mediocre to bad. They are inaccurate, confusing, insulting, and several have been rejected by the people they're used for.

 

[venice_ca]

Oregano is origano in Italian -- very close to the French origan. Then again the English word is as well.

 

[Rumpel]

The best things to call people are:

1. What they call themselves

In English, we call France France, the same name it calls itself.

It seems you have understood nil and zero and nothing of this topic, I am sorry to say.
What you are posting here is completely beside the point.
Perhaps you could read this thread from the start again - to see what we are talking about?

 

[Rumpel]

Oregano is origano in Italian -- very close to the French origan. Then again the English word is as well.

In German it is Oregano, btw.
Sometimes also: "Wild Majoran".

 

[Unbeknownst]

It seems you have understood nil and zero and nothing of this topic, I am sorry to say.
What you are posting here is completely beside the point.
Perhaps you could read this thread from the start again - to see what we are talking about?

It's fairly related, but maybe I should've made it more clear.

The point I was trying to make was that it's not impolite to call someone something other than what they call themselves, but you should try and call them one of the first three things I listed, and avoid calling them any of the last three things I listed.

 

[Rumpel]

The point I was trying to make was that it's not impolite to call someone something other than what they call themselves

OK - that is on topic!

 

[Rumpel]

Let me say this:
It is not so much our personal choice what we call a certain country.
It is the result of long tradition and history and the development of languages.

It is not because of any ill will if we use the name Wales in an English or German conversation.
Or Pays de Galles in a French conversation.

If we would suddenly use "Cymru" in these conversations, it would be absurd.

 

[OlNate]

No, it ain't.
As I said before:
The names of persons and the names of countries are two completely different topics, whether you may believe me or not.

Yeah, it is...lol... It is exactly the same, which is why it's weird....at least, in English. I can't think of any other example where we'd change a proper noun in this fashion. We don't do it with cities either...and that's a lot closer of an example.

 

[Rumpel]

in English. I can't think of any other example where we'd change a proper noun in this fashion. We don't do it with cities either...and that's a lot closer of an example.

Of course you do it with cities as well.
Only you do not realize it.