To add insult to injury, what they call it, Deutschland, sounds like what we should call Netherlands
Wait’ll you hear about Japan.
The wiki on Names of Japan is a rollercoaster.
Same goes for Korea (since it was defined by the reigning Kingdom)
Or China!
Wait until you find out that Kanada isn’t called Kanada in Kanada.
In the Netherlands, we don’t call out country The Netherlands.
We call it: “Nederland”. Completely different.
Same with Denmark = Danmark
I know. It’s a shocking difference. We call you guys Holland for some reason, though and every non-european I’ve ever met keeps thinking we are the same country. I was asked to say something in Dutch once and just looked blankly at the person.
and Japan is is not Japan in Japan.
NaNi-ppon?
USA is called ABD in Turkey
There isn’t called there when you are there. It’s called here there.
Same same but different
well how else are you going to know I’ve visited if I can’t go “Deutchland… sorry haha still thinking in German…”
Deutschland, sounds like what we should call Netherlands
Until you then find out that the Netherlands is actually called “Nederland” in the Netherlands. And the reason they’d called “Dutch” in America is due to an archaic mix-up between the two nationalities.
This is what confused me so much about germany’s real name :)
It’s not really a mix-up. More a continuation of an old name for the language spoken in the Netherlands. The Dutch centuries ago called their language Diets/Duuts/Duits which means something like Germanic. This was before the countries Germany and the Netherlands existed.
Diets is not a single language but a name for all the different regional languages spoken in the low lands. Diets is also known as Middle Dutch. The name was used to differentiate the languages from the Romance languages.
Hence why the English called the people of the low lands Dutch since the people of the low lands said they were speakers of Diets/Duuts/Duits.
Also in the Dutch national anthem there is a line that says “Ben ik van Duitsen bloed” “I am of Dutch/Deutsche blood” which does not refer to modern day Deutschland but to what all Germanic people in the low lands, what is now present day Netherlands, would call themselves back then.
The Dutch centuries ago called their language Diets/Duuts/Duits which means something like Germanic.
No, it means something like “people” or “of the people”.
Wait, so Dutch is the language of people and everyone else has been using animal languages this whole time!?
Ja
What do people from the Netherlands call themselves if not Dutch or the Dutch?
Like, people from the United States call themselves Americans, there’s the Spanish and French.
Are they called Netherlanders or something?
Well in Dutch they call themselves Nederlanders or Hollanders. Though Hollanders is technically only correct if they are from the Dutch province North-Holland or South-Holland
here is a CGP Grey video about the difference between Holland and the Netherlands https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc
And the reason why the Netherlands is also known as Holland is basically before the unification of the Low Lands every province was a self governing state and Holland was the richest province. Hence why most traders who went abroad from the Low Lands were people from Holland. It’s therefore why people abroad would call the Low Lands Holland since Hollanders were the only people from the Low Lands they met and and after the Netherlands was formed the name Holland for that area stuck in many languages.
Holland is fairytale beautiful. Would happily live there. I loved visiting.
Most Dutch people I met just call it Holland. We do so in Denmark as well
“We” call it Holland because foreigners say “eh?” when we call it the Netherlands.
Its the worst. Always try a “Netherlands” and get a “what??” in return and then say “Holland” - “ooooooh HOLLAND!”…
Hah, didn’t know that
Yeah wierd situation. Internally it only refers to the 2 provinces in the west but externally we all chant it during football matches
I have another mindblowing fact for you: in Germany, the v is an f and the w is a v.
And s is z, z is c
Too far.
Oh yeah? This symbol = ß that looks deceptively like a mangled B is the double S in German.
Don’t get me started on their states. My favourite is Mecklenburg-Vorpommern because it sounds like a curse word you’d yell out in pain after stepping on a Lego.
Also umlauts.
Which might seem confusing but I wish English used accents/umlauts to show pronounciation because that would do a lot to unfuck the spelling of this powerful but bastard of a language.
Oh for sure. I do have to admit, though, that I very much enjoy when Americans use umlauts in inappropriate ways. And as a Dane I have feel special joy when they replace their o’s with ø in an attempt to make words look hardcore, cool and Nordic.
That, my friend, is endlessly entertaining to me and will never not be funny.
I remember that one album by Twenty One Pilots where literally every o was replaced with and ø on the cover and I was friggin crying and hyperventilating the first time I saw it. I haven’t listened to any of the songs. They may go really hard and be masterpieces, but to me I can never take that album seriously. They really thought that ø is just a cooler looking o and not its own letter with a very distinct sound that, in the context of English would make every word sound like it’s being spoken by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Too var.
I believe trump will be renaming it due to his ancestry.
In Spanish Germany is Alemania. Just to add more confusion to this topic.
Allemagne in french.
Tedesco
And in Italian we call the country Germania but the inhabitants are called “tedeschi”
Danish is closer, we call it Tyskland
To be fair, Alemania (Ale Mania!) sounds like a kick ass name for Bavaria.
*Alemania, no accent
Thanks, fixed
What’s Germany? You mean Německo?
You mean Niemcy?
No, he meant Allemagne
Clearly he meant Tyskland!
Technically, Japan is not called Japan in Japan. Its Nippon.
More often Nihon than Nippon. The latter is somewhat archaic.
Both are spelled almost the same in Japanese (kana): にほん vs. にぽん.
日本 could be either, but most often Nihon.
Not technically, it just plain isn’t called Japan.
In Germany Nippon is a brand of puffed rice with chocolate.
That’s it, I’m going back to bed
In France it’s called Japon.
France also uses the world “nippon” as an adjective equivalent of “japanese”
Same both Japón & Nipón for Spanish language but with its phonetics
Same in Italian. Giappone and nipponico.
I love this exchange.
It is interesting, because Nippon is a somewhat archaic version in Japanese. They usually say Nihon now.
But of course, these exonyms will have been borrowed into these various languages a long time ago, so it kind of makes sense.
Maybe it’s just regional for me, but we say Japonais
Americans are slowly learning about the rest of the world.
Better late than never.
Mostly found out as we feverishly seek out escape routes.
America was originally just the name of South America, then the English lazily coined the term “North America”.
Entire nations: You cannot keep “America” for yourself. There is history, maps, books, the independence of other countries in the region called for the liberation of “America” (e.g. Simón Bolívar “the liberator of America”; “America for the Americans”; Sentimientos de la Nación: “America is free and independent of Spain and all other nations, governments, or monarchies”).
The U.S. of A.: Yeah… No. I’m America now. There’s no other “America” because there’s only North America and South America, 🤷🏼♂️ don’t you know? And the land is The Americas because it’s two in one. Duh. Erasure? I call it freedom! 🇺🇸🦅
The amazing thing is, people don’t refer to their home country by a two letter acronym.
UK has entered the chat
In Denmark we refer to the UK as England. If it’s more official we call them Storbritannien but no one calls them that in everyday speech. It’s just England.
I know it’s not the point.
But spitting on Scotland and Northern Ireland like that is a bit harsh.
(Sees car with CH sticker drive by…)
And the country of Georgia isn’t called Georgia either!
And lets not even get into named country’s in Sub-Saharan Africa.
