City Names in different language

[Marla_Singer]

I had a little discussion about city names that had been violently censored by CFC sekretbüro (I'm kiddin' it was just off-topic in another thread ). I just continue the discussion over here.

Originally posted by Stapel
hehe, Rijssel is older than Lille, mademoiselle!

Furthermore, we do not use Dusseldorp afaik.
The krauts themselves do not say Cologne, but Koeln. Bergen is Dutch for Mons.
You forgot Londen for London.

I don't think it is typically Dutch. Mailand for Milano, Monaco for Muenchen. We are all guilty!

And Pays-Bas doesn't exactly sound Dutch does it?

You're right about Rijssel since that part of France was originally flemish.

Of course, all languages adapt the name of the cities to their own pronounciation. Interestingly, it's a way to distinguish the cities we talk the more about since french people didn't bother to give a French name to Wolverhampton or Szczecin even if we baptized "London" as "Londres" (London not being that hard to pronounce in french).

However, I still think it's weird to see the same country, Belgium, with two languages, dutch and french, and almost ALL cities with different names in both language (I'm not accusing either flemish or wallons, it's just the phenomenon that I find interesting).

Now some comment oon your post.

Pays-Bas is just the direct French translation of Nederland. Just like Etats-Unis or Verenigde Staten are direct translations of the United States.

By the way, in French, Milano is called Milan and München is called Munich (both are oddly the same in English). In which language do we call Munich as Monaco ? That's weird since it's also the name of a little rock lead by a Prince near Nice on the French Rivieira. (To me, it's a dictatorship but people seems happy there).

 

[SanPellegrino]

In Italian München is called Monaco. btw, I thought the duchy of Monaco has union with France on defense, economic matters and so on and is not really a state of its own.

generally I think the longer a place is known to a culture, the greater the possibility that it has a name varieing from its real name. e.g. Lisboa is called Lissabon in German and Lisbon in English, but I do not know of any other portuguese cities with varieing names in other languages.

 

[WickedSmurf]

Some Swedish name for foreign cities:

Firenze - Florens
Lisboa - Lissabon
Bruxelles - Bryssel
Helsinki - Helsingfors
Roma - Rom

In most cases we use the "real" name of the city.

 

[WickedSmurf]

Double post...

 

[SanPellegrino]

Originally posted by WickedSmurf
Some Swedish name for foreign cities:

Firenze - Florens
Lisboa - Lissabon
Bruxelles - Bryssel
Helsinki - Helsingfors
Roma - Rom

In most cases we use the "real" name of the city.

they are near identical to the german names, but surprisingly we call Helsinki - Helsinki

 

[Hitro]

Don't I live in Brême from a French perspective?

I think SanPellegrino is quite right, the longer a place is known to a culture (and its language) the higher the probability that they have their own name for it.

And the "Sekretbüro" is hilarious...

 

[carlosMM]

how about the Heidelburg of Civ1 fame (it still is spelt like that in Civ3)????

 

[Ville]

Let me give you some city names in Finnish
London - Lontoo
Berlin - Berliini
Paris - Pariisi
Stockholm - Tukholma
Copenhagen - Kööpenhamina
Rome - Rooma
Athens - Ateena
Moscow - Moskova
St. Petersburg - Pietari
Lisbon - Lissabon
Kiev - Kiova
Warsaw - Varsova

I could continue that list but those are all I remember quickly

 

[Zeekater]

Actually, Belgium has 3 languages, German is also an official language.
And Louvain-la-neuve doesn't have a flemish equivalent, IIRC. In Dutch, München is not Monaco, it's the same. I think it's kinda funny we made a Dutch equivalent for every city, but I personnaly prefer the names of cities in the language they speak there.

 

[Archer 007]

New York is called Nueva York in Spanish.

 

[luiz]

Oddly, many city names are different in Brazil and Portugal. The Portuguese are more "radical translators" - they translate all city names. In Brazil we merely translate some of the most famous city.

Exemples of citys translated to portuguese in Brazil:
New York - Nova Iorque
London - Londres
Marseille - Marselha
Firenze - Florença

Some citys translated to portuguese only in Portugal:
Frankfurt - Francoforte
Avignon - Avinhão
Lyon - Lião
Rouen - Ruão

 

[Goober]

No Canadian Cities being translated, such as Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Red Deer, Regina, all the important ones?

(Ya, apparently Back East there are some big cities too, Toronto, and the like . . . )

 

[yaroslav]

In Spain there are four official languages: Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Basque. The cities in the "states" inside Spain that have their own language recieve two official names: one in Spanish and one in the other offical language:

Examples:

La Coruña-A Coruña
Vitoria-Gasteiz
Bilbao-Bilbo

and so on

 

[The Yankee]

India went through a big thing recently, getting rid of the English names for cities like Madras or Calcutta...

I can provide English translations for American cities:

New Yawk = New York
Bahstan = Boston
Washington....um....Washington D.C.

Hope this helps!

 

[Marla_Singer]

Actually The Yankee. You're kidding but you made me think of something. American cities have no translations in most of language I know !

We can't say it's because they are recent since cities like St. Petersburg or Berlin are newer than New York, Boston or Philadelphia. Berlin was a small town two hundred years ago with no real History.

The only exception I know are those :

• New York is called in spanish "Nueva York".
• Philadelphia is called in French "Philadelphie"
• New orleans is called in French "la Nouvelle Orléans"

The first one is interesting since I've heard so many times "New York" in french that I finish to forget the "new" stands actually for... well "new". It's almost only one word in my mind : "Newyork". It would be funny to call that city "la Nouvelle York", however, that doesn't sound like New York.

Now about Philadelphia, it's an easy translation in French since everything ending as "-ia" in english ends as "-ie" in French. (California => Californie, Tunisia => Tunisie, etc..).

Finally for the third city, the explanation is pretty obvious once we know "la Nouvelle Orléans" was the original name of that city... once it was still a village people by 20 guys of course... but still.

 

[One Man Bucket]

The original name of New York is Nieuw Amsterdam, today it is known everywhere as New York though. I'm wondering if there are cities that still have their original name in different languages. For example, are there languages in which Istanbul is still called Constantinopel?

 

[cgannon64]

I beleive the Dutch word Breuklyn (however you spell it) has to do with the borough Brooklyn.

And we were New Amsterdam for a while, then the English kicked the Dutch's ass.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Originally posted by cgannon64
I beleive the Dutch word Breuklyn (however you spell it) has to do with the borough Brooklyn.

And we were New Amsterdam for a while, then the English kicked the Dutch's ass.

Yes you're certainly right about Brooklyn. Another name being undoubtly dutch is Harlem (Northern part of Manhattan). Harleem is actually a dutch city (less peopled than the neighbourhood of Harlem I guess ).

I know the story of Peter Stuyvesant. However, I don't understand something, why didn't we rename "New Orleans" once it became american ?

Oh well . Obvious answer. It wasn't Britain anymore but the US. Sorry for the stupid question.

 

[Kamilian]

Polish names for some cities:
Paris - Paryz (z w/ a dot over it)
Rome - Rzym
Venice - Wenecja
Moscow - Moskwa
Cologne - Kolonia
Kiel - Kilonia
Stockholm - Sztokholm
Konigsberg (back when this was its name) - Krolewiec (o w/ a thing over it)
Prague - Praga
Brussels - Bruksela
Bern - Brno
Vienna - Wieden
Kiev - Kijow (o w/ a thing)
Vilnius - Wilno
St. Petersburg - Sankt Petersburg (when it was "Petrograd" we called it "Piotrograd")
Beijing - Pekin
Budapest - Budapeszt
Brest-Litovsk (the place of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Germany and revolutionary Russia) - Brzesc Litewski (in "Brzesc", the s and c have little things over them)
Leipzig - Lipsk
Dresden - Drezno
...

 

[Pangur Bán]

Edinburgh - English and Scottish English
Edinburg - German/Dutch/Turkish/Albanian/Serbo-Croat
Edenburg - Afrikaans
Hlavní Mìsto Skotskav - Czech
(this is what websters says - unable to verify )
Edimburgo - Spanish/Portuguese/Italian
Edimbourg - French
Dùn Éideann - Scottish
Dún Éideann - Irish
Doon Edin - Manx
Caeredin - Welsh
Edinbur - Tagalog

For names in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Bulgarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Greek and Bulgarian - check this link:

http://www.websters-dictionary-online.org/definition/english/Ed/Edinburgh.html

Glasgow - English and most languages

but

Glasgo - Albanian
Glazgov - Serbo-Croat
Glaschu - Scottish/Irish
Glaskovi - Greek