What We Call Countries VS What They Call Themselves
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- Опубликовано: 5 май 2022
- ▶ In this video I talk about the difference between countries' Endonyms (what they call themselves) and their Exonyms (what they are called by others).
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Fun fact: a Slavic exonym for Germany is "Niemcy" (prounounced Niem-tzy or something along those lines) and it comes from a word "niemi" which is a word that defines people without the ability to speak. Basically when Slavs started to migrate to other regions, they somewhat understood each other, but when they traveled to the west of their area, they found out that they cannot understand what the local people are saying whatsoever. Funny enough, because of that people that could've understand each other called themselves "Słowianie" (In english - Slavs), which is a derivative word from "słowo" which basically means "word". In other words "they can't speak, but we can".
It is funny because in Bulgarian we call Germany - Германия (Germaniya). But their language "немски" (nemski). "Германски" (Germanski) can be used to describe "German" as well like "немски" but it is used more as "Germanic" instead. We use mostly "германци" (germanci) for Germans but sometimes we use the "Polish" one to describe Germans instead not the country - "немци" (nemci).
Еdit: We have also the word for mute person but it is "ням" (nyam) - one mute person, "неми" (nemi) - more than one mute person. Basically in Bulgarian we usually for plural change the Я to Е like for example "промяна" (promyana) - change, "промени" (promeni) - changes. But depending on the stress like "промЕни" it means - changes but at "променИ" means - you change.
The funny because Germans still have a horrible language 🤣 😂 😅
Yeah, the same as origin of english "slavs" became from "slave". Slavs was vikings' slaves and they simply selled it to another nations. So if someone say "slaves is offencive word to negros", just stfu ;)
I learned inRussian class in college, that it meant , “mumblers.”
Also, Auslander in German translates to Foreigner in English, or literally Out Lander.
Japan: Land of the rising sun 🌄
Morocco: Land of the setting sun 🌇
The first and the second oldest monarchies in the world. If that's not the most poetic thing I've heard this year!
There should be royal marriage between the two dynasties.
Morocco is not even close to the second oldest monarchy.
@@martychisnall It is lmao.
Do a quick research about the oldest continuous monarchies in the world, you'll find:
1. Imperial house of Japan
2. Kingdom of Morocco
@@martychisnall well that was embarrassing
@@bluemoon4961 its not lmao. 2nd oldest monarchy is Cambodia. morocco is actually 4th
Now, Switzerland is most DEFINITELY NOT called "Helvetia" by its people. As there are four official languages, the endonyms are Schweiz (German), "Svizzera" (Italian), "Svizra" (Rumansh) and "Suisse" (French). Choseon was one of the predecessors of what is today's Korea.
Well, maybe not in daily use, but it is used for coins, postage stomps ect. Even the international code ch stands for "Confoederatio Helvetia" and the Bundeshaus has the inscription "Curia Confoederationis Helveticae". So it's certainly a sort of endonym but mostly on an administrative level. It's used to not favor one of the spoken languages over the other.
In Hebrew we use the German endonym as the word for Switzerland
Helvetia is latin. People from each part call it different. In the german-part people mostly call it "Schwiz" (spelled like "Shweets" in english) or with a longer "i" like "Schwiiz". Also one of our 26 cantons is called Schwyz, one of the 3 original (founding) cantons.
Now, Bharat is new name wherein we would like to decolonize ourselves from the BS Britishers
Is "Helvetia" latin or Romansch?@@Jonas-pd2bc
It made me so happy when you tried to pronounce "Magyarország" (Hungary) i'm hungarian and it makes me smile when people try to speak the laungage, visit the country, or appreciate the culture
And addition to the video the endonym of Magyarország means "Country of the Magyars (Hungarians)" while the exonym comes from "Land of the Huns" - Hungary or in Latin Hungaria. All the Indo-European languages roots back to this Latin name: Hongrie (French), Hungary (English), Ungarn (German), Ungheria (Italian), Wegry (Polish), Венгрия - 'Vengria' (Russian). However Hungarians are not related to Huns at least not any close and they might have lived close to each other 3-4000 years ago in the Uralic region they were not part of the same tribe.
This confusion comes from the fact that both nations came from the East invaded the Western countries with similar fighting techniques and maneuvers. But there are almost 500 years in between the two waves and at the time of Attila the great lord of the Huns who almost reached Rome with his army the Hungarians lived between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea.
@@fastcargtv6Hello there! that’s fascinating😄 Fun fact, also about your country we (Kazakhs) (Kazakhstan )also call you in plural Madiyarlar or singular Madiyar. Just in case, we recognize you as our blood relatives cause we also believe Kazakhs are generation of Huns!
Funfact : Brazil region was actually called Pindorama by the natives that speak languages from tupi guarani roots. Nowadays the population of Paraguay that speaks guarani refers to Brazil as Pindorama
"Pindorama" sounds like piece of art to me
@@Pigraider268 yeah lol
This mean "Land of many palms"
The sufix "Rama" means "Land" in tupi languages and nowadays we have lots of city names ending with "rama" like "Iturama", "Umuarama", etc
Wow like the name Anahuac, it was how the aztec referred to the known world/Ecumene, Mexico was the name only for the capital
Correction: it isn't aztec, is mexica (me-shi-ka) aztec come from aztlan, an ancient and "fictional" place where the mexicas come from
Side note: yes, that's the origin of Mexico (me-ji-co) name
Interesting, never heard of this.
Iran is an interesting example. For most of history, "Iran" was the endonym and "Persia" was the exonym, but recently (by historical standards at least) Iran asked everybody to use the name "Iran" instead, which is how we've referred to it since.
Name Iran was given by Turks as far as I know.
@@jackholler3572 that is pan-turkist bullshit. the name Iran derives from the word "Āryānam" which means the land of Aryans and its borders were vaster and bigger than today
also in Avestan language (the language of Avesta the holy book of Zoroastrianism an ancient religion of Iran before Islam) the land is call "Airan vaija" which means the land of Iranians
those are all pan-turkist bullshit for racism.. they even claim that the name of Italy and England is also turkish😂😐
they even go far more and say Shakespeare was also turkish and muslim and his "real turkish name" was "Sheykh pir" which means"old man/mullah"😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@jackholler3572 iranian here. I don't think so. We have a lot of poems and stuff that refer to it as "Iranshahr" which literally translates to "city/nation of iran". There are some other ones which just simply say "Iran". We had this name for a really loooooong time, however foreigners just called "Persia". As LavaringX said, we recently recommended other countries to say Iran (around the reign of Reza Shah, the second to last monarch of iran, which goes back to 80 years or so! Though in 1941 after Reza Shah was forced to abdicate because of the Allies in WWII his son, Mohammad Reza Shah, said others can say Persia but it's better to say Iran, as far as I know.)
Also: love from Iran, I hope you all have a wonderful day/night.
@@spacecoffee454 Hello thank you for the information but I think the name was given during Seljuk Empire yes it was mentioned but not like a country more of an identity.
@@jackholler3572 Hm fair enough, though of course there are still some poems before the reign of the Seljuks that mention Iran in a geographical type of way, you know. I'll have to go to check though.
And of course: thanks for the reply! :)
I have wondered about this for decades! This is perfectly laid out. Thank you so much!
I noticed that on the second map, Belgium was called just the English name, correct me if it wasn't. In Belgium, there are 3 official languages: Dutch, French and German, which all have very similar names for the country, respectively België, /bɛlɣiə/ Belgique /bɛlʒik/ and Belgien /bɛlɡjən/, all with a different pronunciation of the G.
Galonia is a nice name
Just a side note: The UK is called by its English name, and so are the nations within it.
However, since Scots Gaelic, Irish and Welsh exist we obviously have endonyms.
Scotland is Alba, Wales is Cymru and Northern Ireland is Tuaisceart Éireann.
What I find somewhat amusing is that the non-English nations of the UK call each other mostly similar Exonyms from their Endonyms.
In Scots Gaelic, Wales is Chuimrigh and Northern Ireland is Èirinn a Tuath.
In Welsh, Scotland is Yr Alban and Northern Ireland is Gogledd Iwerddon.
In Irish, Scotland is Albain and Wales is An Bhreatain Bheag.
The Saxons called the Britons they invaded 'foreigners', which roughly translates as 'Welsh' or 'Wales'. It's funny how even today, the English will go to places like France and say it is full of foreigners.
Lowlanders Scots were Germanic
@@daviddowns6037 the words 'Waloon' and 'Wallachia' have the same root meaning as Wales - foreigners
and too add to that, Cymru means compatriots or friends
@@eniejCymry you mean, the people?
5:29 correction: Suomi does not mean "land". In fact, nobody really knows where the name comes from or what it means. There have been numerous theories linked to swamps ("suo" in Finnish), of which there are plenty in Finland. Some theories link the name to the Sami and once I've heard a theory linking the name to the scales of the fish ("suomu" in Finnish). But, at least as of right now, nobody knows the real answer.
Fellow Finn here to confirm the above. We don't know for sure where the name comes from.
Thanks! I was unsure about this one too, "land" was the only thing I could find in any etymology source
Being someone studying finnish grammar rn, I immediately went to this comment because even I knew that was wrong
@@wyattsunkel1048 How far are you in your studies?
@@vilzupuupaa4680 try to guess what does it mean in english; "tapaan sinut" 😎
Love how much effort you put into the pronunciation of each name. Congrats
I wasn't expecting to be this much entertained by this video when I clicked on it. Really nice!!
Japan has two ways of reading the kanji "日本" = nippon or nihon. Either one is correct, and nobody knows which one is more "authentic" (whatever that means)
In Portuguese we often refer to something Japanese as "Niponic", I'm not sure if it's a correct thing to do, but it happens
@@General.Knowledge tbf "niónico" would sound weird in portuguese
In India we have a Word in Hindi *Nipurna* meaning skillful and talented. And both Nippon and Nipurna sound familiar
it depends on context. similar to U.S. vs American
Nippon is more of a noun, used as "Japan"
while Nihon is used as more of an adjective. Like "Nihondai" being used for Japanese
lol Same with Egypt. There's Masr and Mesr while Arabs call us Misr
In Switzerland the endonym is actually Schweiz(Schwiiz)/Suisse/Svizzera/Svizra depending on the language region you’re from. Helvetia is only in the latin name for the Swiss confederation as in Confederatio Helvetica but nobody ever says Helvetia because it’s basically a latin exonym.
Yeah I was gonna say I’ve never heard of anyone calling it that
Also, the Helvetii were a Celtic tribe that lived in that region 2000 years ago.
Switzerland is also called Eidgenossenschaft
In Romania we call you Elveția (Helvetia) :))) ( the roman origins...)
The name Helvetica has become attached to a type face.
Fun fact 2: Luxemburg is a country and also a province of Belgium. Both Belgium and the Netherlands have "Brabant" provinces. People tend to refer to the Netherlands as "Holland," which are really just provinces (North & South) of the Netherlands. People also tend to refer to "The Ardennes" as the Belgian province through which the Germans made their Blitzkrieg. But the only political entity called "The Ardennes" is in France.
Aren't there 3 'Limburg's too? :D In Belgium, the NL and Germany respectively
Scotlands endonym is Alba, pronounced Alapa, but it's more common exonym comes from the Roman name, meaning Land of the Scoti. The Scoti were Irish pirates, who would use Scoti Land as a stage for raiding smaller forts and ambushing patrols. Eventually the Irish reavers and Picts banded together and named the land Alba. It's sometimes mistakenly called Caledonia, but that name only referred to the north eastern part that was ruled by the Caledons. We have no idea what the land was called by the Picts before they formed an alliance with the Scoti, which is a shame.
@giwrgospetrou1159He told you. It's Land of the Scoti.
I always found the meaning of Austria's endonym "Österreich" very interesting as it literally means "Eastern Empire"
Sounds like ostrich to me ngl
@@anirudhrangaswami1546 That's because it's not how you spell it. The "ch" in German is spelled as a "harsh" 'h' sound (not the letter h but how you say it in a word say the h in "how")
@@vivientakacs5599 Or maybe a more simple way to explain it is: like "ch" in "Chaos" or "Technology"
Actually, "Österreich" means "Eastern Realm" in German.
@@MacMan2152 Yes that too. It really depends on the region how you say the ch cuz where I live, the non-formal way to say it is if it was an sch or "sh". In Hochdeutsch it's h but yeah.
Fun fact : Algeria's official name is Al-jazaïr but we (Algerians) call it Dzaïr (or Dzayer) thus comes the abbreviation: *DZ* .
Also our currency's code is *DZD* (Algerian Dinar) where DZ stands for Dzaïr and D for Dinar.
Ps: Sorry for my bad English.
No need to apologize for your English- you're perfectly understandable! And MILES ahead of my Arabic or Berber!
@@Spartacus005
Thank u very much Robin for your kind words!
You really are a "Good fellow" :D
your english is very good mate, dont downplay yourself
@@dansouthlondon9873 This has boosted my self confidence, thank you brother !
Do Aljazair and Al-Jazeera have the same meaning?
That was a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be. Good work!
I typed in a random tpoic to youtube and got a coherent, relevant, well done video.
Subscription earned.
Although Bharata means Fire but India is named Bharat after the brave king Bharat who ruled the land. Hence even in ancient mythology books, the land between the Himalayas till the ocean in the south is mentioned as Bharatvarsha(i.e. the land of king Bharat).
Thanks for the correction!
Interesting. In Farsi India called Hindustan ( Land of Hindi )
@@siamak1 thats also used in India but not that much anymore
@@siamak1 It's a variation. I am a Tamil (South Indian). We also call North Indians (Hindustanis). So technically I'm not Indian 🤣
@@louvendran7273 We call North Indians 'Northerners' tho
In case of Hungary - Magyarország, the variation in the name comes from a misundedstanding. The Huns and the Magyars were two separate people, but when the Magyars arrived in Europe the people already there thought they were Huns, so they started calling them Huns and the name stuck. Magyarország literally means Magyar country.
Only the letter H comes from the Huns latin sources always called the hungarian tribes as Ungri or Ungari, the first written source mentions us as Ungri. Magyarország has a meaning too. Magyar refers to Megyer one of the 7 tribes which is either refers to Magi eri meaning free man, or Man/person husband. It is kinda confusing but this is what it is.
Weren't the people who confused them as the Huns the Wallachians (Romanians) and they sort of spread the words that the Huns were back but got the wrong people?
One good point to make is that letters and letter combinations have different values depending on what language you are speaking. I'm sad to say that you have mispronounced Magyarország. I am even sadder to say that there is no way to accurately represent the correct sounds to an anglophone in print because many of the sounds in Hungarian simply do not exist in English.
@@lunarsoul1737 no it has absolutely nothing to do with the Wallachians. This association with the Huns is a later medieval explanation for the Latin name Hungaria. There is absolutely no direct evidence that this was the reasoning at the time. The name comes from the Greek Oungroi, which itself likely comes from the Volga-Bulgar name Onogur, which means Ten Tribes. Someone in Western Eruope probably thought that the name Ungaria was missing an H because of a typo. H at the beginning of a word is often not pronounced in Latin languages but they are pretty anal about the spelling so someone probably thought that the word is simply missing an H .
@@joyfulsongstress3238 You can pronounce some of these letters in English. For example in Hungarian there's the letter 'ty' - you can simply pronounce it in the word 'tube' as the 't' stands for the sound of 'ty'. Of course there are some complicated letters like 'dzs' wich is just simply sounds like 'J' in 'jungle'.
I enjoyed your video. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
That’s one of the best videos I have seen in a while. Thanks!
I am an Ethiopian born and raised in America and yes it is sometimes referred as “ityoppya” but I’ve always heard my parents and fellow Ethiopians in my community refer to our country as “agerbeht” which literally translates to “country home”
sounds like how russians call russia motherland
It seems rather plain that Ityoppya is a derivation of the Greek "Ethiopia" (which, if I recall correctly, itself derives from a Hellenic word meaning "burnt" - a reference to the darker skin of its countryfolk). For the sake of courtesy, is my information in need of updating? 🤔 🤨
@@goldenager59Ethiopia indeed comes from the Greek word Εθύωψ which means “having a visage as if burned by the sun” or less periphrastically “dark tan”. It’s referred for the first time in the first rhapsody of the Iliad where the mother of Achilles informs him that the gods have travelled to Ethiopia for festivities with the people there. This reveals the relations and travels Greek mariners had to regions of subsaharan Africa since the Mycenaean times or earlier.
@@Hadoken.
Thank you kindly. You wouldn't happen also to have info about the term "Abyssinia", would you? 😏 🧐
"back in the old country"
Great video! Iran was also another country that requested people to use its Endonym (Iran) instead of its Exonym Persia. Also it’s kind of ironic that we (at least English speakers) use the Greek or Greek-derived names for so many places, except for Greece itself, we use the Latin name. I wonder if Greece will ever request that it be referred as Hellas or the Hellenic Republic in the future
Well, at least it seems to have worked in the case of Iran, since basically no one calls it Persia anymore. It hasn't really worked for the Ivory Coast though, since it's never called Côte D'Ivoire in languages other than French, except for official contexts.
Shouldn't it be called Ellada?
I overlooked the irony with Greek names and Greece's name! Very well thought of!
@@viperking6573 Hellas = Ellada wdym
@@user-dj9vn8jl5u They sound different though
Korean Peninsula, has much more complicated stories.
The exonym "Korea" comes from its kingdom Goryeo that existed until 1392. Goryeo is the first unified kingdom of the whole peninsula, as it has merged all 4 states that was existing on its land. Later on, some Arabic merchants started sailing to Goryeo for regular trades. They called the kingdom "Korea". The kingdom's exonym still remains, as the name became widely known across the globe.
Both North and South Korea still call themselves "Korea" in English. Have you heard of "Air Koryo", the infamous 0-star airline of North Korea? The root of its name is the same. Goryeo, Korea, Koryo.
However, the endonym of North Korea "Choson Minjujuui Inmin Gonghwaguk", or "Democratic People's Republic of Joseon"(translated by its meaning) comes from kingdom Joseon, the successor of Goryeo, that existed until 1897.
The endonym of South Korea "Daehan Minguk" or "Republic of Daehan"(also translated by its meaning) comes from imperial Daehan, the successor of Joseon and more known as Korean Empire in English, that shortly existed until 1910, the year that Japan Empire has fully colonized the peninsula.
youre like half correct with the daehan minguk part. since korea was under hanzi influence for a long time, most of their words get their sound from hanzi. and daehan minguk, which is consisted of four hanzi sounds dae-han-min-guk can each be translated to big-han-peoples-nation. and dae-han-je-guk, the term for the korean empire in korean is just the min, which means people replaced with the word for empire, je.
Great graphics and clear explanation 😊
Ireland 🇮🇪 is actually called Éire which comes from an Ancient Celtic/Gealic goddess of the Isle of Ireland Éire, a derivation from the word Éiru, an old Irish word for the matron goddess of the Island. It is used in modern day as her being the personification as the goddess of sovereignty, in reference to Ireland's relatively recent revolution🍀🇮🇪
How about Éireann? Is it connected to Éire?
I have never heard anyone in Ireland call it Éire. The only times I’ve heard it are British reporters and politicians on the BBC. It’s interesting if it’s specifically a post-independence thing and the British use it more than us.
@@Pribumi1 Éire refers to the country of Ireland from its beginning. Éireann refers to the state or government of Ireland from 1922. You use Éire for the country in any particular timeline you use Éireann for governmental or state run institutions or business or even matters of the state from 1922.
@@edladd212 That’s because you would refer to it as Ireland when you’re speaking English. When speaking Irish you would use Éire exclusively and never Ireland. So it depends what language you would be using majority of the time it’s English so it’s Ireland.
The Irish constitution of 1937 states the country's name is Èire. Between 1922 and 1937 the country was known as the Irish Free State or Saorstat Eireann.
Feel bad for 🇬🇪 they are often confused with a US state despite not even using the name 'Georgia' in their own language
A large amount of Georgians know English and like the name Georgia.
We call 🇬🇪 Gruzija
Honestly I would change Georgia's name to Sakartvelo because it sounds cooler
Too true.
@@NizhnyBall
@OdessaBall
Georgians hate the name "Gruziya" because it represents Russian control of the country.
They politely asked for all the countries using "Gruziya" or a variation to change the name to their native name, Sakartvelo or the English, Georgia.
Only South Korea changed to Georgia & Lithuania to Sakartvelo.
Fun fact: Japan actually has 2 current concurrent endonyms, Nihon, and Nippon! 🇯🇵😊
Nippon is what gave rise to the popular exonym Japan (suspected just a Portuguese best attempt at mimicking the local reading at the time, which in Marco Polo diaries noted as Cipangu), Nihon is just a stone's throw away from Nippon reading (ho->po) so it's technically different pronunciations of otherwise the same characters, not exactly a good example on the topic of exonym Vs endonym as the video seems to suggest.😢
Nihon is used in daily conversation and nippon is a more formal reading.
nippon not endonym
해 日(일) + 근본 本(본) = 일본 아님?
왜 발음이 두개로 나뉘는거임?
日本人でもわかんない
正直日本人でも使い分けられてないし、違いもわからない😂
i found myself asking me that question more frequently... and here the video pops up in my recommended. thank you for making this
The English name "New Zealand" does come from the Dutch province of Zeeland, since they were the first Europeans to discover the country. The Māori name for the country, Aotearoa, is generally translated as "long white cloud" (hence the country's nickname "land of the long white cloud"). The "long canoe" meaning isn't standard, but comes from the name "Aotea", which was one of the great migration canoes from Māori tradition, and "roa", which means "long".
I was going to say the same, it's called to 'our' province of Zeeland because 'we' discovered it, like the many places 'we' discovered, for example what we called New Holland (later renamed Australia by the British), Nova Zembla, New Guinea, Svalbard etcetera. All in our golden age(17th century) 🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱
He might be thinking of the South Island, called Te waka o Maui.
@@leonieromanes7265 ahhh, that's the North island
@@marcchef98 nova zembla sounds a lot like novaya zemlya. Is that place also discovered by dutch people?
@@osche87 that's just the Russian name for Nova Zembla
Never knew that Morocco is called the land of the setting sun! They must have a special twin country relationship with Japan for being their polar opposite.
It's a poetic translation. Maghreb simply means "west". It (and Spain, hence its motto) were considered the westernmost countries, until some Colombus guy went on an expedition to India and stumbled upon a then unknown landmass...
@@adrianblake8876 West translates to "Gharb" not "Maghrib"
Maghrib means "Where the sun sets"
@@bluemoon4961 Yeah, that's what "west" means. And in any case, it's not "land of the setting sun"...
@@adrianblake8876 No. West=Gharb, not Maghrib like you say. Big difference.
Land of the setting sun would be "Ard Al-Maghrib" but "Al-Maghrib" alone, which is the name of the country, means "(Where) the sun sets" 👍🏻
@@adrianblake8876 the official name is "Mamlakat al-Maghrib" which means "The Kingdom of the Setting Sun"
Kick arse video, man.
Thanks for the insightful work. The thanks for and from Côte d'Ivoire 🙏🏾
Lol, I was wondering how you spoke portuguese that well, but the I went to your channel and saw you were actually from Portugal. I also live in Portugal. Now, some words in Portuguese: O vídeo estava muito bom. Continua o ótimo trabalho que tens feito ao longo dos anos. Portugal é o melhor❤️🇵🇹
Thats my nationality! :D
@@bitterchocodecoration.. mine too :)
Love Portugal from Spain! 🇪🇸❤️🇵🇹
Then give back olivença!!! Just kidding ^^ Much love to spain too.
I'm brazilian
As someone who lives in the US state of Michigan, I found it very informative to learn that Zeeland is a province of the Netherlands, just as Holland is. Although in the Netherlands, Zeeland is South of Holland, in Michigan, Zeeland is directly Northeast of Holland. Just for good measure, there is a small village named Noordeloos, which is directly North of the midway point between Holland and Zeeland. I knew the area was of Dutch heritage, but I guess I failed to realize to what degree.
And then there is also a town called Zeeland which is in the east of the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant....... so confusing... ;-)
funnily two islands found by the dutch were called New Zealand and New Holland until the Brits said it was Terra Australis.
Zealand is also an island belonging to Denmark where you’ll find Copenhagen.
Zeeland litteraly means sea land because the majority of the land has been reclaimed from the sea by pumping out the water.
Within Zeeland Township, there are two unincorporated communities. One is Drenthe (named after the Province of Drenthe) and the other is Vriesland (named after the Province of Friesland).
Puerto Rico is one example that could have been used along the lines of Côte d'Ivoire and Cabo Verde. After the Spanish-American War in 1898, the name was translated (of sorts) into English as Porto Rico (possibly because of the pronunciation given at the time). It was sometime during the XX century that the name was reverted to the Spanish-language original
Puerto Rico also has the native name “Borinquén” which is still used in a more patriotic and artistic sense for songs and such
This is excellent content.
the guy who drew that map really highlighted every major desert in the world perfectly and then thought the Atacama Desert starts in Ecuador and ends in the middle of western Patagonia for some reason lmao
Are you Albanian?
@@andrewtate5252 no
Finland's endonym "Suomi" doesn't mean "country".It doesn't have meaning in modern language and isn't certain where it comes from. Most usual guess is word "suomu" which means scale of a fish. Some explain this is because finnish people used to wear clothes made from fish skin. One other explanation is word "suo" which means swamp which there plenty in Finland.
Clothes from fish? No wonder the USSR wanted to invade y'all asses.
@@houseplant1016 c'mon they are comfortable!!!!
Soumi actually translate into "we will join NATO", pretty amazing what farsight the finnic-urgo people had!
@@jamivirtanen474 Yeah, no, we'll pass.
You're incorrect, honestly both the scale and swamp theories have been discarded by linguists ages ago.
The most common theory among _professionals_ atm is that it comes from Proto-Baltic *źemee meaning (low) land
Very interesting, thanks.
Not only is the second endonym map directly translated, it is also TRANSLITERATED (meaning the characters have been replaced with Roman letters that match or approximate the sound)
Amazing video! Great work! :)
It’s crazy how a verified channel got ignored by everyone
Whoa, it's Life Noggin!
Sheesh, this is a sight to see
In Lithuania we call Germany 'Vokietija' there is, I guess, a legend of how that came to be. In the medieval times when the German templars were attacking our pagans it is said that some dude hit an armoured german with a stick and said 'Vo, kietas' which would roughly traslate to 'Look, he's hard'.
Hahaaha. That's hilarious. So you call Germans the hard people.
Germany the country with a thousand names
In Latvian it's Vācija, and while uncertain this may ultimately translate to "Sweden"
German Templars? Do you mean the Teutonic Order or "Deutschritterorden" in German? Like the dudes who actually conquered a bunch of land and ruled over it as an order and that land would later become Prussia?
@@martag5997 In Dutch we say Mofrica.
Excellent video.
Here in Italy, we have 2 ways to say a person comes from Japan. The most used is 'Giapponese' which obviously derives from 'Giappone', country name in Italian. Another way, seldom used today, is 'Nipponico' which comes straight out of the transliteration of 'Nihon' to 'Nippon'.
Interesting to know. Btw, the endonym of Japan (日本) has two pronunciations, Nippon and Nihon, with Nihon being a phonologically shifted version of Nippon. Both pronunciations are spelled with the same kanjis/characters and both are in daily use, but certain proper names are fixed with a certain pronunciation.
The government had to release a statement saying both Nippon and Nihon are correct.
But I feel Nippon is used in a more formal way. Or when cheering for sports like volleyball. We do the “Nippon cha cha cha” the cha cha cha being clapping.
歴史的にはnipponが正しい
thats very ineresting because in arabic japan is called "yaban" which isnt too different from nihon or japan or even giappone
Ive seen two words in spanish, "Japonés" and "Nipón"
As a greek myself i was shocked to learn that Georgians refer to Hellas as the Land of The Wise. Thanks a lot! xD
Great video man!
yeah that's only way to explain meaning of Greek nation's name in Georgian language, ბერძენი(Berdzeni) means- a Greek and ბრძენი(Brdzeni) means a wise, I guess Georgians just in someday had a discussion: " okay what do we call a people from aegean sea? let's see who are from that country: Aristotle, Socratis, Plato. damn those people are wise."
In Albanian language we call Helenet and Greqi as well
wow , awesome im Greek and i thought that Ellada ( Ελλάδα - Greece) only means " the land of the light " in ancient greek language i didn't know that the country of Georgia called us " land of the wise " .Well respect to Georgia !!!!! 😎😎👍
@@PoolD3ad007 Και επιτρέπουμε να μας λενε Greece.Τελειο;
What's really interesting here in America that many of the Native American tribes also had both exonyms and endonyms, one of the most famous tribes is the Lakota (which means "the common people") headed by men like Sitting Bull, but other tribes and settlers often called them the Sioux or Dakota (the latter is a misinterpretation of their endonym that stuck). Others never really developed alternative names, and while I could be mistaken, a couple may include the Apache and Pawnee. It is truly fascinating to see how names develop throughout our world at multiple levels.
7:39 correction
Bharata means light, not fire. Good video
Really interesting video and it made me realise that my Country has 2 Endonyms. Scotland which is the most common but we also use Alba. Scotland meaning land of the Scotti and Alba meaning White sunrise in gaelic. We also have Caledonia which is land of the caledoni which we will also use sometimes
Great video!!!!!!!
I appreciate you mister general knowledge for your effort making this content, your videos are always interesting and fun to watch greetings from Greece.
I’ve always wanted to find out what they’re all called in their native language, thanks!
Me too 😊
Thanks for watching!
It's also interesting seeing what other countries and their languages use for exonyms of nations around the world.
I don't know if already mentioned:
endonym of Switzerland is not Helvetia. In the German Speaking Part it's "Schweiz", in Italian "Svizzera", in French "Suisse", Rumantsch "Svizra"...
And from living there, I learnt that Swiss people are really specific about their country and everything connected.
Name and Flag are a derivation From the Kanton "Schwyz", one of the founding Kantone in the 13th century.
But otherwise: thanks for this video.
Hello I am Maori and I loved how you properly pronounced Aotearoa! And Aotearoa means "Land of the Long White Cloud" hahah and I agree the fact Zealand came from the Netherlands because it was believed Abel Tasman a Dutch sailor has travelled around here hence is why we wave the Sea inbetween Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand called "The Tasman Sea" hahah, welcome for the information!
Both Tasmania and New Zealand were originally named differently (Van Diemen's Land after his patron and Staten Landt), but were later named after the Dutch province indeed and Tasmania after the fabled Dutch seafarer and explorer Abel Tasman you mentioned. The best bit about the story I think, is that he was SO incredibly good at his job that he visited both places but somehow completely missed Australia xD.
Indeed, I was a bit surprised when the video said New Zealand MIGHT come from the Dutch province of Zeeland! In Dutch we write Nieuw-Zeeland. It is interesting that Zee was anglicised to Zea and not to Sea.
Belo vídeo! I find it interesting that Portugal seems to be a country name that suffers little change from language to language, at least in Europe. The european language that changes the name Portugal the most is probably mirandese, which says Pertual... and that's a language spoken in Portugal! Also, we're apparently called Ureno in Kenya, because portuguese sailors would introduce themselves as coming from "O Reino de Portugal".
"Ureno"? That's strange, since _Reino_ means "kingdom"! I assume the Kenyans of that time did not yet know about official country names!
Hehehe urine hehehe
Not ureno in Kenya but in whole Swahili land..and all foreign countries starts with u eg ujeruman for Germany
I was waiting for you to explain the endonym for Maldives.
This was very interesting and well edited. Thank you 🙏🏻
As a student of linguistics, a fan of history, and a guy who just like learning stuff like this.... *AWESOME VIDEO!*
I don’t want to annoy you but Switzerland doesn’t call it “Helvetia” it calls it self „Schwiiz” in Swiss German and in French it calls it self „Suisse” in Italian „Svizzera” and in Romansh „Svizra“ , but you did the best job you could ever do, I love your videos and never give up❤️
Actually the famous symbol "CH" (in websites etc.) means 'Confederatiae Helvetica' (Helvetic Confederation).
@@exampleemail848yep that’s latin. But it’s officially called Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft in german.
You have a great portuguese pronunciation, are you from portugal?
Anyway, great and interesting video!
Cheers From Brazil
Thank you very much.👍👌
The North Korea endonym "Choson/朝鮮/조선" actually means the whole Korean Peninsula somehow. The South Korea endonym "Hanguk/韓國/한국" is almost the synonym with same meaning if you just define the words without any political meanings. 한/韓/Han is the name of the Korean Peninsula too, 국/國/Guk means "country/nation".
Choson is a place name and Han is an ethnic name.
@@user-nl2js1bk1p Not really, 朝and韓 are both names of that the Peninsula, they look similar despite different origins, 朝鮮is a name granted my Chinese emperor, coming from a place mentioned in the ancient Chinese mythology 山海經 (Classic of Mountains and Seas), 韓 coming from native Korean pronunciation, meaning of something great and large, and borrows the Chinese character of 韓 for the writing as it’s reminiscent of character 朝.
@@Marc-. joseon is a name of an ancient korean kingdom and the name later represented the peninsula. Also not "given" by china. Ming dynasty just chose that one when joseon dynasty gave "choseon" and "hwaryeong" as options to call themselves after overthrowing koryeo dynasty.
As I said, without any POLITICAL and I must say HISTORICAL factor, these names BOTH represent the whole Korean Peninsula itself as 조선반도/朝鮮半島 (in North Korea) and 한반도/韓半島 (in South Korea) in present. However, people who speak Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese are all calling it 朝鮮半島.
Me who thought that it meant '1 country' ironically enough
There's another reasons why the endonym and exonym could be different, if the exonym refers to a portion of that state. For example in English Holland is used for the Netherlands. Names derived from England are often used for the entire island, much to the annoyance of the Welsh and Scots.
This is not a problem of exonym and endonym, but the fact that the name use by most people is incorrect, while a more reliable exonym exists. Netherland is called in many other country as Low Countries (i'm italian, and the words are "Paesi Bassi", but the meaning is the same), however the word Holland (and for italians "Olanda", again, simply the translation) is often used. It's a case of synecdoche, where we commonly use the name of a part of something for the whole.
Like when people use the term "England" to identify the whole UK.
Official papers however use always the exonyms of the whole country without the misunderstanding of the common words.
The exonym for the Netherlands in Malaysia is ‘Belanda’. Considering that the Dutch “arrived” considerably earlier than the British, at least the Dutch people at the time must have referred to themselves in some variation of ‘Holland’, unless the Portuguese, Spaniards or Arabs did (the only peoples in the region who plausibly could have known them and referred to them to the indigenous people). By contrast, our exonym for Portugal is Portugis, pretty close. For Spain, it’s Sepanyol, also pretty close to Espanol.
@J Bossthe United States of America has the same issue with its name, it's just a description. Imagine if you were name "Human being from earth" by your parents, or worse, by yourself lol
As far as I know other countries that wanted their name chaged have been Iran (previously called Persia), Myanmar (previously called Burma) and more recentrly Türkiye (Obviously Turkey) and I think I've heard something recently about India wanting to be called Bharat by the rest of the world.
Ivory Coast is another stickler, they want the French variant used in the English world
Very interesting video, and something I'd kind of thought about myself, but never bothered to actually read up on and investigate. So thanks :)
Only I'd hoped you would explain the origin of the exonyms "Japan" and "Korea"
Chosun was the name of the last Korean dynastic kingdom, which was briefly replaced by the Korean Empire before the Japanese Occupation in the early 20th century. North Korea using the endonym Chosun is a reference to this historic kingdom.
I thought it was "Joseon"
@@Pigraider268 i think theyre the same, with different Romanizations. North Korea prefers one of the two Romanization styles used
@@Pigraider268 Yes, Joseon and Chosun are both transliterations of the same word 조선 in Korean. Some more trivia, the Korean alphabet, Hangul, is called Chosungul in North Korea. Korea itself is an exonym based on the older Koryo dynasty.
I thought it was "Bughan"?
@@nickjohnpol2164
That is the word sometimes used in South Korea to refer to North Korea (북한)
Maybe you didnt know (A lot of people dont know actually) but the name of my country, Mexico is not in spanish. It comes form the native languaje nahuatl. Mexico means "The belly button of the moon" or other meaning is "In the center of the moon lake"
Awesome pronunciation of the words Aoteroa and maori 👍it means land of the long white cloud. The name our ancestors gave when they first laid eyes upon Aoteroa
The comments are about as interesting as the video, loving this.
I find England and Wales quite interesting. Their endonyms are both very roughly "our land" and exonyms "foreigners"
English arrogance at it's finest.
Wales especially has a super cool etymology, sharing it with Wallachia and Wallonia
Funny enough, people in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland call the French-speaking parts "Welschland" (the endonym being "Romandie").
@@General.Knowledge plus Valachia and the names for Italy in Polish and Hungarian
Wales is an exonym, the natives refer to it as Cymru, the Romans called it Cambria which the geological period was named after.
When I was a kid I was confused for a while cause most population in Italian have name derived from the country, examples: Francia - francesi, Spagna - spagnoli, Giappone - giapponesi, USA - statunitensi/americani (it varies), but we calls germans tedeschi, and it was one of the population that I'd known before knowing the country, so when as a little quiz my mother asked me "dove abitano i tedeschi?" (where germans live?) I confidently answered: Tedeschia 🤣
Germans have a special name in Russian: Niemtsi.
@@annasolovyeva1013 Also in Dutch: Moffen (something to do with the war ;-)
Tedesco is related to the German word Deutsch 🙂
I noticed that in the maps you showed in the video Norway's endonym was 'Norge', but since Norway has two official equal writing forms you would also have to include 'Noreg'.
There's also Norig, but that's not an official form. I think it used to be, but I'm not sure.
(Nore dialect variations exists too, but that's the case basically everywhere)
In Scotland we sometimes will use Alba which is the gaelic name of Scotland or Caladonia which was what the Romans called Scotland. U can find both name in songs, poems & signs around the country.
in the Philippines we use the word Hapon for Japan, which pronounced a different way means "afternoon" and i remember being told that in WWII the Japanese landed and invaded in the afternoon. pretty sure it was a play on words come to think of it but i also realized just now that it would be from the Spanish exonym "Japón." i think nowadays we just use the term as a demonym rather than an exonym.
Mais um excelente trabalho. Muitos parabéns. Grande abraço.
05:00 Little error on map: "Vatucan City": Endonym is: "Status Civitatis Vaticanae"
Very good video. I am endonymist since a copule years; this video is helpful for my pronunciation.
It's fun, my mother is from a small village in Northern Iraq and they speak an ancient language that dates back to babylonian times ( they call it Surath) she always referred to Iraq as Erdu meaning land. And the Arabic word comes from it ( Arethe referring to land or earth itself).
In Mexico we had many examples with states or towns because of the way the Aztecs called other people
For example Michoacán, a place wich original name was purhepecherio, in purhepecha language, named by the purhepecha people, but called by the Aztecs michhuahcan in nahuatl language, and then called Michoacán by the spanish people
The town of Tlaxiaco is another example, wich original name is Ndijiinu in mixteco language, but called Tlaxiaco in nahuatl language and then in Spanish too
And even Mixteco is a nahuatl name, then used in Spanish, Mixteco speakers call their native language Tu'un savi instead of Mixteco
Fascinating video as usual! In South Africa 🇿🇦 we have a nickname most of the youth call our nation: "Mzansi" (pronounced EM-zun-see)
Its from the Xhosa, literally means: "south"
Hey General great vid. Just so you know, anytime you see a “Zh-“ in pinyin Chinese, that’s actually like a “J” sound like Jumble. So it should phonetically sound like “Jong-Guo”
In the past, overland travel was the majority. Therefore, the Chinese reading (Japan) on the continental side was probably transmitted overseas. Basically, the reading used by the people of the country should be the international standard. A few years ago, some country changed the reading of their own country, and maybe one day Japan will choose "Nihon" as the international reading.
Very interesting content! The "zh" in "zhongguo" is pronounced more like the soft g. So it sounds like "jongguo". Great video overall!
more like "djung gwo"!
From what I understand from China history zhong guo means central rather than the given name China likely by their vase or the place produced ceramic vase
Middle kingdom
It’s interesting to see that some of the words we use in my language (Portuguese) to refer to binational natives (for example, Japanese and brazilian is “nipo-brasileiro), derived from the local Nihon! How cool!!!
Here in Finland, Germany is called Saksa. It is related to the English word Saxon. We also have some of those directly translated names like Itävalta = "east power" = Österreich = Austria, or Alankomaat = "low land" = The Netherlands.
You nailed Aotearoa! I was surprised. Good stuff! And yea it means land of the long white cloud
As a Kiwi, you were almost spot on with the literal translation of Aotearoa. More accurately it means 'Land of the Long White Cloud,' as when the first Maori chieftan viewed it from his waka upon arrival, it looked like a long white cloud on the horizon.
Pretty good pronouncation too, definitely the best pronouncation on RUclips I've heard by someone who is not a kiwi
Arrived on his waka… Are you saying that Maori aren’t from New Zealand? Hehe 😉
@@BJ-qp2gdthat’s literally a common fact wdym ? 😐 New Zealand never had people or mammals on it until the Māori arrived then later the Europeans
@@vic_cresssbruh, NZ does have native Mammals, 2 types of Bat.
@@artfuldodganz9037 I meant like four legged mammal animals. To me bats count as birds 😂 (obviously that’s wrong but yknow what I mean)
Interesting to note, that the name India descends from the native Sanskrit name for the river Indus( Sindhu) which pretty much demarcated the line between the Indo-aryan and Iranian-speaking worlds. The Greeks modelled the name to Indios, referring to the land beyond river Indus, Persian called us as Hindostan( since they couldn't pronounce the S in Sindhu) and Arab just called us Al-Hend or the country of Hend. The present name is just a Greek rendition of the Sanskrit name, first used by Britishers.
Natively, the name for the country differs in every single language, since we are not monolingual like most of western Hemisphere. But, the native names in Sanskrit are Bharatam( it is an aspirated B, not the normal unaspirated English B) and Jambudveepam. Dravidian languages like Tamil call India as Navalamdeyam.
Question, is Hindustan an Anglosized word also, then?? I always assumed Indian's native name was Hindustan, and no, not because of the Hindu religion, but the name of the *main* native language "Hindi".... which, I guess is also only an English word??? Lol, boy, I have learnt a lot of new info. right now, I'll have to research where the names Hindustan and Hindi originated from then.
@@trinibago7682 Wtf are you speaking? Why will a language's name be of another language? Hindi (हिन्दी) is a hindi word.
@@trinibago7682 bro, you can go to another thread of comments in same video where they are giving answers about the name of Hindustan. But for your info, Hindu is the word came from the river called as Sindhu. Hindustan were called as land of the people who lives along with Sindhu river. So, there is no any relation of English words.
Yeah they only falsely called Sindhu valley civilisation as Indus valley civilisation. That's the only difference.
@@trinibago7682 and India's native name was never Hindustan. It's native name is Bharat since 5000 years. We only uses "Bharat" in our all languages of India for our nation. It's pronunciation is "Bhaarat भारत".
And Hindi language is the newest form of Sanskrit. Most of the languages of world have deep roots In Sanskrit, but Hindi is supreme in all languages which are closest to Sanskrit.
And for your info, English uses most of our Sanskrit words. For example, "Matr becomes mother", "Bhrata becomes Brother", "Trikonmity becomes Trigonometry", "Giyamitry becomes Geometry". Even English never had concept of Karma, so they used our concept and Sanskrit word Karma. Loot is also a Sanskrit/Hindi word uses in English dictionary.
If all world uses these words Mother, brother, Trigonometry, Geometry, Karma, Loot, then it means they are using our Sanskrit words.
If you are using these words in your daily life, you are not using english, but actually Sanskrit.
@@RaniDevi-xt4hq No need to be coarse and rude. There never is a need for bad manners. He is just asking a question, and very politely indeed. Let us make our Bharatha Maatha, our Mother proud of us.
In Japan, Japan is called NIHON or NIPPON. NIHON = NIPPON = 日本（in Kanji）= Zipang（in old Chinese）
Zipang became Japan when it was introduced to the UK.
What is the music name for video?
In India Egypt is known as Misr, Greece is known as Yoonan, Portugal as Purtugal, Palestine as Filasteen and many more.
similar to Arabic
"Palestine" and "Filasteen" both means "land of Filisteen", but "Palastine" evolved to current form probably from "Filistea"
@@Pigraider268 yeah similarly Turkey is called Turkie
Turks say Mısır, Yunanistan and Portekiz.
Fun fact about Greece: Most other language do use a direct adaptation of the endonym, but only for the official name. Greece is officially called the "Hellenic Republic", same as with France officially being the "French Republic", it's just that nobody outside of the most formal meetings ever uses that name.
Not true. In Norway the name of the country i Hellas, used by all in everyday speech, but the adjective is "gresk", and the inhabitants are called " greker". In Sweden, however the country is called Grekenland, and the other terms are like in Norwegian.
@@Gubbe51 Not quite, we Swedes say Grekland, not Grekenland.
@@krisrakow6663 Sorry for the mistake!
We call it Grecia or sometime Elada
@@Gubbe51 sorry for the misunderstanding, when I said "nobody ever uses that name" I was referring only to English, which I didn't make clear in my comment. Of course some languages use a variation of "Hellas" in everyday speech.
A little random, but I've always wondered whether Cronos and Vulcan meant "Earth, Ground, etc" in Klingon and Vulcan respectively. It would make sense for life to call their world "Earth" or "Ground", etc when you think about it, because of how they evolved from walking on the ground to becoming space faring.
Fun fact: Canada comes from the Huron name Kanata and it means "home, village".
Also, for most country names ending with a "A" in english, that letter is replaced with an "E" in french, like Australie, Russie, Éthiopie.
The USA are called États Unis in french, it's a direct translation of the original enflish name
Québec means "Where the river narrows"
I know it’s not related to the name of the country, but kanata (彼方) means far away in Japanese.
Some totally useless trivia. I used to work for a company that had its Canadian headquarters in Kanata, Ontario.
Great video! I always found interesting how some countries had such different names in different languages.
Also it's curious that in some languages we use the exonym for the name of the country but also use the endonym for the people. For example in Spanish you can call the swiss both "suizo" and "helvético". We also call the portugese both "portugueses" and "lusos", which comes from the roman province of Lusitania
The Celtic tribes came from Indonesian/Germanic tribes that had mixed.. add that to the Iberian/Lusitan coast with Norse and Roman conquests.. and you have Portugal. It was started from the now coastal Lebanese (Phonecian) ppls that had travelled thru Crete and Greece into Iberia (Iberian/Lusitan).. add the North African conquest as well.. and finally the R B 1 blood type shared with Spain Wales Britain Ireland Scotland and France thru the Celtic ppls, you have the first Kingdom and first (and strongest) Navy in western Europe! Portugal (Porto Gali/Gaul) is known as the European Latinos (or Real Latinos) bc of the pure Latin in their language.
Grande vídeo! E adoro o destaque a Portugal!
The Celtic tribes came from Indonesian/Germanic tribes that had mixed.. add that to the Iberian/Lusitan coast with Norse and Roman conquests.. and you have Portugal. It was started from the now coastal Lebanese (Phonecian) ppls that had travelled thru Crete and Greece into Iberia (Iberian/Lusitan).. add the North African conquest as well.. and finally the R B 1 blood type shared with Spain Wales Britain Ireland Scotland and France thru the Celtic ppls, you have the first Kingdom and first (and strongest) Navy in western Europe! Portugal (Porto Gali/Gaul) is known as the European Latinos (or Real Latinos) bc of the pure Latin in their language.
My favorite Exonym : Greece is still refering to France by "Γαλλία" => Gallia, meaning Gaul, just like during the eastern roman empire XD
Funny that Portugal is Porto Gali
@@Louie-pq3kvFrom latin, Portus Cale. The city of Porto nowadays. So it became Portugal.
Norge (Norway) comes from Nordvegen which translates to the way north or the road north, so Norway is a translation of the old name (essentially north-way) that stayed while we changed it the endonym.