this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
904 points (98.4% liked)

[Locked] YUROP

2529 readers
1 users here now

A laid back community for good news, pictures and general discussions among people living in Europe.

Topics that should not be discussed here:

Other casual communities:

Language communities

Cities

Countries

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

So which country is known by the same name to the most number of other countries?

[–] datelmd5sum@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Japan is Japan everywhere except Japan.

[–] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Everyone uses the name that China used. I guess that's the benefit and downside of only having one neighbor.

[–] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This caused me to think about upside versus downside and benefit versus some word that isn't anti-benefit, unbenefit, abenefit, ilbenefit, irbenefit, imbenefit, inbenefit, debenefit, disbenefit. There is no etymological related antonym to benefit.

[–] wieson@feddit.org 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I like the way you think

[–] norimee@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah but Nippon is reaaally close to the word.

[–] Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

The only exception I could find is that Japan is 'Japon' in Bambara.

[–] sunbather@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

suggestions off the top of my head are countries with or near significant colonial influences, eg madagascar and indonesia seem to be pretty similar across the board

although far from comprehensive such is the case of languages listed on wiktionarys translations dropdown on the english entries of the countries at least

the only notable exception i spotted is the navajo name for indonesia apparently being "Kéyah Dah Ndaaʼeełí Łání" which is quite interesting and i dont really have an explanation for that discrepancy (perhaps its pronounced similarly and orthography just isnt idunno) but navajo isnt a national language anywhere anyways so it doesnt really matter for the original question

[–] arken@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Without thinking much about it, my guess would be the United States of America.

Edit: my reasoning was that most countries translate USA verbatim to their language, as most replies here demonstrate.

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you mean Amerika Birleşik Devletleri? Los Estados Unidos? Les États-Unis d'Amérique ?

[–] arken@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Translation, in order: The United States of America, The United States of America and The United States of America.

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's how languages work, yes. They have different words for the same thing. How is that different from OP content?

[–] arken@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Remember the meme? Deutschland, Duitsland, Tyskland are all regional variations on the same name. Allemagne and Germany are completely different names for the same country. Of course every language have their own way of saying "The United States of America", but in essence it's the same word, the same idea. Even Japan is Japón in Spanish, Ιαπωνία in greek, and so on. No one can pronounce my name correctly if I go abroad, but most of the time there is a regional variant I can use.

The question was what country is known "by the same name" by the most people around the world. You're not going to find a place name that is pronounced and/or written exactly the same in every language. That's how languages work.

[–] RidderSport@feddit.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actually calling Germany Allemagne would be like calling the US Texas or France Bretagne.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Or the Netherlands Holland? Yeah, that happens.

[–] whome@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean: die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika? VSA VSA

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Out Usono if we're speaking Esperanto.

[–] datelmd5sum@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] arken@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Finnish doesn't count, having completely unrelated names for everything is like a sport to you people

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

It's not even unrelated, it's a literal translation of "United States" to Finnish

Similarly in Estonian sometimes we'd just call it Ühendriigid instead of Ameerika Ühendriigid

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

You mean מְאַהֵב זָקֵן?

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] KuroiKaze@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'm not sure what we did to earn the name. Beautiful land but we'll take it

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a loose transliteration, same as 英国,法国,德国,etc.

[–] KuroiKaze@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I never really felt it was a good one as it's really far off compared to the others

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Los Estados Unidos de América

On second thought maybe as, "Those fucking Yankees"?

[–] myplacedk@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Amerikas Forenede Stater?

But yeah, it's too long, we usually call it USA. Although we pronounce the letters in the local way.