… Кроме ума
2 Apr 2008 12:21![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iad58The 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.
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no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 12:29 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 12:45 (UTC)верыуверенности во всем остальном? Ведь против Munich, the Netherlands или на Кубе не возражает никто, насколько мне известно.no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 12:50 (UTC)Кстати, против die Ukraine и Kijew вроде тоже никто не воюет.
no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 12:51 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 15:18 (UTC)Как по мне, всё это перекрывается доводом одного московского журналиста. Когда киевские официальные лица попытались попенять ему на его "на Украине", ин их по-дружески послал не "на", а "в" три буквы.
Насчет жа названий и самоназваний народов по одному из племен-основателей, то это, кажется, самый распространенный вариант. Германцы-алеманы, русские - vene и krievu... интересно, отлуда взялись другие внешние названия, отличающиеся от внутренних - армяне, финны, чечены, черкесы...
no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 17:41 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 17:48 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 20:10 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 20:10 (UTC)This was it at the time, anyway. There were a few more battles on that front, the Bank drew back, and the representatives of the relevant departments were walking around beating their chests along the lines of ‘we didn't just win this war for ourselves, but for all nations that use the Cyrillic script’. I'll see what happens when it's the Ukraine and Belorussia's turn to adopt the euro.
no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 20:14 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 20:42 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2 Apr 2008 21:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Apr 2008 02:58 (UTC)no subject
Date: 28 Apr 2008 00:34 (UTC)2. Georgia is not just the English toponym, of course, it's in all the European languages except the Russian-derived
3. But the best part is, the name of the Israeli-Jewish ethnic subculture of Georgian Jews remains the same old YEHUDIM GRUZINIIM in Hebrew :)
no subject
Date: 28 Apr 2008 06:45 (UTC)(I see, however, that the case isn't so bad as I'd thought: I had misread גיאורגיה as ג׳אורג׳ה, due to the poor resolution of the sans-serif fount chosen by LJ for my discussion pages.)