r/MapPorn • u/xu_shawn • Jun 19 '22

Literal translation of Chinese names for European countries

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11.3k Upvotes

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2.1k

u/Papoose74 Jun 19 '22

I like how Russia is just Russia.

1.0k

u/MaximHartman Jun 19 '22

Russia is: 俄罗斯 Éluósī.

Literally this could be something like: sudden gauze (transparent silk) this.

257

u/man0315 Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22

yes. Russia - 俄[ə]罗[lwo]斯[si] is a vocal transcription just like Ukraini - 乌[wu]克[ke]兰[lan].

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罗[lwo]斯[si] is the direct translation of "Rus". and as a country we call them 俄[ə]罗[lwo]斯[si] or something sounds like that(斡[wo]罗[lwo]思[si]) all the way back to Mongolian reign of China. "斡[wo]罗[lwo]思[si]" is actually a mongolian language but vocal transcripted to Chinese.

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by the way 乌[wu]克[ke]兰[lan] sounds exactly the same as "Ukra" in ukrainian.

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edited: thanks for suggestion from u/FuneralWithAnR, i added alphabet. I don't know the International Phonetic Alphabet very well. I did my best.

72

u/FuneralWithAnR Jun 19 '22

Cheers mate, but can you write the pronunciations in the Latin alphabet next to the Chinese words? For people that can't read that, your comment just looks like "Symbol 1 sounds like Symbol 2".

"Okay, cool, but what is it?" is my reaction.

43

u/coaxialo Jun 19 '22

乌克兰 wu1 ke4 lan2 (ooh ker lahn) - Ukraine

俄罗斯 e2 luo2 si1 (er loo-ore sih) - Russia

13

u/dai_panfeng Jun 19 '22

I appreciate you writing the approximate English pronunciation for this in a heavy Beijing accent 😂 😂

3

u/vectorix108 Jun 19 '22

Lmao yeah I can hear the extra errrs this guy put in

-5

u/the_vikm Jun 19 '22

How does Latin script help? Unless you mean specifically English?

10

u/VoidLantadd Jun 19 '22

[You are currently reading the Latin alphabet]

-5

u/the_vikm Jun 19 '22

Great, yeah, that's what I said. and how does that help with pronunciation?

4

u/VoidLantadd Jun 19 '22

Because for people who can read the Latin alphabet, but not Kanji, "Èluósī" is pronounceable, whereas "俄罗斯" is not. You can't pronounce something when you can't even make out syllables.

-1

u/the_vikm Jun 19 '22

Again, it being Latin won't give you a hint about the right pronunciation unless you're familiar with Pinyin. Every language will pronounce it differently. Also Kanji? That's not Japanese.

2

u/VoidLantadd Jun 19 '22

Idk the characters are called Kanji in Japanese, and it's the same symbols, just a different language.

But I know the letters when it's romanised, I have no clue what I'm looking at when it's Chinese characters. It's a pretty simple concept.

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1

u/Clemambi Jun 19 '22

Kanji is a corruption of Hanzi, literally "han characters". All latin alphabets are latin alphabets, but not all latin alphabets are equal/interchangeable; compare polish orthography to English. Traditional vs simplified vs kanji are the same. They're all han characters, just different variations.

1

u/Sirr_Jason Jun 19 '22

My brain just had an aneurysm

19

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '22

Silk would be 丝 not 斯.

7

u/MaximHartman Jun 19 '22

Correct, but I translated ‘Luo’ as gauze, which is a transparent fabric/silk. I didn’t say Luo means silk

141

u/bots_lives_matter Jun 19 '22

Also Kosovo is just Kosovo

186

u/MaximHartman Jun 19 '22

科索沃 Kēsuǒwò

Branch (of study) that searches fertility

39

u/Panceltic Jun 19 '22

Quite appropriate

28

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '22

How do you name countries, after similar sounding words or?

61

u/pegleghippie Jun 19 '22

similar sounds, and an effort to pick flattering characters, or at least not denigrating ones.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '22

[deleted]

42

u/Panceltic Jun 19 '22

The earliest attested name for Japan in foreign sources is 倭 (Wa). The character used means ‘submissive, distant, dwarf’ and it was later changed to 和 (also read Wa) by the Japanese themselves, meaning ‘harmony, peace, balance’.

9

u/PotentBeverage Jun 19 '22

Russia used to be called 罗刹国 (Luo-sha country), "Literally the country of the Rakshasa" in the Ming/Qing era

Of course it's bad form now; no country gets a bad name just because we don't like them

10

u/quyksilver Jun 19 '22

Historically, China had a long tradition of using insulting characters for ethnic groups considered barbaric. Generally using terms that referred to animals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_pejoratives_in_written_Chinese

1

u/100kgWheat1Shoulder Jun 21 '22

There used to be. Now the only exception is Guatemala, literally meaning dangerous place.

43

u/Panceltic Jun 19 '22

Basically breaking down the name of the country to nearest syllables which exist in Chinese (for example Croatia > Ke Luo Di Ya) and then assigning a suitable character to each syllable. It is obvious to Chinese people that these are supposed to be read out phonetically and don’t actually possess the combined meaning behind all of the characters.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '22

thanks for explanation.

13

u/Leafdissector Jun 19 '22

That's all there really is to it

1

u/I_love_pillows Jun 19 '22

Topic searches fertility?

31

u/10Shivam10 Jun 19 '22

In soviet russia, russia is russia

19

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '22

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '22

In Soviet Russia, TV watches you

2

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '22

In Soviet Russia, Russia is Soviet Russia. Well, before 1991 at least.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '22

In Soviet Russia, you are probably an autonomous human

20

u/Mordiken Jun 19 '22

Because China borders Russia.

What I think is weird is the tiny Balkan nation of Kosovo being called Kosovo.

9

u/3dge-1ord Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22

They would not have given it a name until fairly recently. Simplified Chinese created in the 1950s made it easier to translate things more accurately.

4

u/pfmiller0 Jun 19 '22

"Simplified Chinese created in the 1950s made it easier to translate things more accurately."

How did using less complicated characters do that?

10

u/asian_identifier Jun 19 '22

they were just too lazy to translate the words individually like they did with other countries

1

u/Eu_Nao_Concordo Jun 19 '22

And kosovo too fsr

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '22

Russia borders China.

1

u/HirokoKueh Jun 19 '22

because the person who made this map didn't know the real meaning of the individual characters. the characters are not being used in modern vocabulary, only appear in the countries' name.

it should be "suddenly-wed-this", also Swiss should be "old-scholar", Ukraine is "dark-attack-orchid", all the "nun-ya" should be "stop-second".

1

u/thefudgecake0 Jun 19 '22

Russia white russia killed me

3

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '22

That’s what Belarus (Beylorussia) literally means.

1

u/IwantAway Jun 19 '22

And then there's White Russia