Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Shawaii t1_j6esj4j wrote

It's somewhat tied to whomever is making contact, mapping the area, etc. Sometimes they makes stuff up or just name it after the city (probably asked "what do you call this place?"

Germany comes from a town in Deutschland.

Taiwan was called Formosa until quite recently, named ilha Formosa (beautiful island) by Portugese explorers.

Japan calls itself Nippon or Nihon, but the Portugese learned of Japan from the Chinese who would pronounce the same written characters "cipangu" or the Malay who would say, "Japang".

In China, the US is called Mei Guo or "beautiful country".

England in Ying Guo, which sounds pretty close.

San Francisco is Jiu Jin Shan or "old gold mountain"

−1

AngryBlitzcrankMain t1_j6ewh7c wrote

>Germany comes from a town in Deutschland.

Huh? Germany comes from the name Romans used for area north of Rhine, Germania.

33

Shawaii t1_j6exlzl wrote

Thanks - I knew it was something like that.

−2

AngryBlitzcrankMain t1_j6eymxb wrote

All good. Etymology for different versions of names fo Germany are all over the place.

3

judgingyouquietly t1_j6g1oix wrote

>San Francisco is Jiu Jin Shan or "old gold mountain"

Was. The current translation is "San Fan Shi" or "San Fran City".

Canada is from a Huron or Iroquois word "Kanata" meaning "settlement". Basically the Europeans thought the settlement where they met was the entire territory.

6

abriec t1_j6f2u54 wrote

It was Marco Polo (and his contemporaries) who heard something akin to “yit pun kok” and mapped it to “cipangu”.

“mei guo/mei kok” is likely more related to how “America” was first transliterated into “mei li jian/mei lei keen” rather than for expressing beauty, although that choice is reflected in the written character :)

3