The name of Austria

[The Last Conformist]

Don't know for Marseilles, but adding the "h" after an "r" seems custom in English.

Almost all English words with "rh" come grom Greek, where the 'h' used to indicate some sort of aspirate pronunciation.

In the case of Rheims, it seems that English has simply kept an older spelling - the city got it's name from a Gallic tribe known as the Rhemi. Cf Paris, named for the Parisi.

 

[Phlegmak]

I'd like to hear you try to pronounce Shijiazhuang, Jastrzębie Zdrój, or Baktalórántháza properly.

I didn't completely write every single thing concerning my opinion about names of places in different languages. I thought it was self explanatory. I guess not.

There are plenty of sounds in one language that don't exist in others. To pronounce the Ö in Österreich, it's easiest for an English speaker to pronounce it as an O. Austria is completely different than the English pronunciation of Österreich. For an English speaker to say Österreich acceptably, at most three phonemes would change. The Ö, the r, and the ch at most. That would be much more similar to the correct pronunciation than Austria, which is completely different.

Those names you mentioned above can all be pronounced by an English speaker simply changing the phonemes that aren't in English with the closest equivalent.

What I was referring to was dramatic changes of a name from one language to another. Such as M&#252;nchen <=> Munich, &#214;sterreich <=> Austria, Deutschland <=> Germany, and Spanish Londres <=> London.

On a barely related note, Mumbai is not really the Hindi pronunciation of Bombay. Bombay was the real name of the city, until the government changed it to Mumbai. Too bad that Bombay is 600% better sounding than Mumbai.

 

[I am the Future]

Eastern Kingdom? East of what? It must be odd to have a country that defines itself by where it is relative to its neighbours. Luckily I live in Canada

Yeah, must be nice to live in North U.S.

 

[warpus]

Phlegmak

Quite frankly.. who cares?

Different people have different names for different things. That's the way it's always been and that's the way it's always going to be.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I care. I hate to hear people butchering foreign names that they've got perfectly good names for in their own language.

 

[warpus]

I care. I hate to hear people butchering foreign names that they've got perfectly good names for in their own language.

So I'm assuming that you refer to India as Bh&#257;rat Ganar&#257;jya, to Morocco as Al-Mamlakah al-Ma&#289;ribiyyah, and to South Korea as Daehan Minguk?

 

[The Last Conformist]

So I'm assuming that you refer to India as Bh&#257;rat Ganar&#257;jya, to Morocco as Al-Mamlakah al-Ma&#289;ribiyyah, and to South Korea as Daehan Minguk?

I can only attribute that assumption to lacking reading comprehension.

 

[warpus]

Or too many beers and a tired mind!

That's it, I'm going to bed...

 

[Grisu]

I agree that it's kinda cute to have different names in different languages.

Bâle or Basilea sounds somewhat more appealing than Basel.

then, of course, there's the linguistic issues. it would be kinda hard to refer to Switzerland as Schweiz. it would just sound wrong, since Schweiz needs an article in front of it, while switzerland doesn't. so you'd have to say something like "the Schweiz" which sounds just as stupid.
Plus, there'd probably be a war over which out of Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera, Svizra should be used

 

[The Last Conformist]

I agree that it's kinda cute to have different names in different languages.

Bâle or Basilea sounds somewhat more appealing than Basel.

then, of course, there's the linguistic issues. it would be kinda hard to refer to Switzerland as Schweiz. it would just sound wrong, since Schweiz needs an article in front of it, while switzerland doesn't. so you'd have to say something like "the Schweiz" which sounds just as stupid.
Plus, there'd probably be a war over which out of Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera, Svizra should be used

In Swedish, we call it "Schweiz" without an article, and pronounce the diphthong like in English "rein".

 

[Jeff Yu]

Just a small rant, but I have never understood why each nation has its own words for the names of other nations.

Often, part of the reason for that are linguistic ones. Often, the rules of a language aren't as flexible as in English, and words must be pronounced certain ways. For example, Latin nouns tend to be required to end in certain letters, Turkish words require vowel harmony, Middle Eastern languages aren't able to write out vowels in names, and East Asian languages tend to be syllabic rather than consonental. So part of the reason is that a name might simply not be pronouncible in another language. This is the case with many German names that have been Latinized.

Another reason why they may look different is that even if it's pronounced the same in a different language, it might be spelled differently. Not all alphabets are as loose with rules as English; some are stricter and words are actually spelled as they are pronounced, so the spelling of a name might change to reflect how it's pronounced.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

If it makes you feel any better, the astonishingly small number of sounds in Japanese leads to the butchering of pretty much every foreign word ever used, including place names.

England is Igirisu (&#12452;&#12462;&#12522;&#12473, Germany is Doitsu (&#12489;&#12452;&#12484 and France is Furansu (&#12501;&#12521;&#12531;&#12473. Austria is Oosutoria (&#12458;&#12540;&#12473;&#12488;&#12522;&#12450, where the double o is just an o held for twice as long.

As a small measure of consolation, the English pronunciation of karaoke is way off.

 

[Veritass]

So I'm assuming that you refer to India as Bh&#257;rat Ganar&#257;jya, to Morocco as Al-Mamlakah al-Ma&#289;ribiyyah, and to South Korea as Daehan Minguk?

Well, back when I was first learning geography and place names throughout school, why would it be any harder to learn the agreed-upon name of Daehan Minguk as compared to South Korea? Yes, as someone else said, we may not get the pronunciation just right, but we would be a lot closer. It would sure be easier on the South Koreans (excuse me, the Daehan Mingukians) to know they only had one name throughout the world.

 

[Che Guava]

Yeah, must be nice to live in North U.S.

Yup, that was the joke.....

 

[Phlegmak]

Phlegmak

Quite frankly.. who cares?

Different people have different names for different things. That's the way it's always been and that's the way it's always going to be.

Actually, I don't care much. It would simply make much more sense.

On a related note, I will NEVER call North Korea the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It insults my own intelligence as well as the rest of humanity's to call it a "Democratic People's Republic."

 

[Mise]

What would make more sense is if, instead of just place names being the same in different languages, nouns, verbs, hell even entire phrases were the same in all languages. Yeah, that would make a lot of sense...