iad58 | … Кроме ума

Greece calls herself Ελλάδα, formerly Ἑλλάς. This self-nomination is honoured, curiously, in Hawai`ian Helene and Nahuatl Helenoyān.

The Latin Graecia (whence the names of the country in most other languages, incl. some less recognisable ones such as Czech Řecko, Hungarian Görögország, Finnish Kreikka) is said to come from the (likewise Latin) name of a Boeotian tribe.

Arabic يونان Yūnān (whence Dhivehi ޔޫނާން dto., Armenian Հունաստան Hunastan etc.), Hebrew יװן Yāwān, Syriac ܝܘܢ are a nod to Ionia in western Asia Minor.

Not quite sure where Chinese 希腊 Xīlà (whence Vietnamese Hy Lạp, Tibetan ཧི་ལ Hila etc.) comes from.

In Georgian the name is საბერძნეთი saBerζneti.
In Chechen it is Джелтимохк.
And this probably isn't all.

It is already ironic that the abovementioned, of all the world's countries, should be harassing its less fortunate neighbour on the subject of ‘its name’, as if there were such a thing as ‘the name’ of a country. As if Greece weren't in the best possible position to realise that a country can have as many names as there are languages in the world.

But what is even harder to understand is that the rest of the world is willing to play this game. Why doesn't anyone tell those people: ‘Look, you decide what this country shall be called in Greek, but what it will be called in (shall we say) English is up to the speakers of English (and likewise with all other languages), so don't pretend you should have a say’?

Along with the €uropean Central Bank's attempts to teach Bulgaria what the euro is to be called in Bulgarian, this is my other nomination for the greatest stupidity of this age.