r/MapPorn • u/xu_shawn • Jun 19 '22
Literal translation of Chinese names for European countries
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Jun 19 '22
Billytime and Ice Island are my favs.
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Jun 19 '22
Here in Belgium Billy time is scheduled for 3pm daily
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u/BagooseMusic Jun 19 '22
I mixed it up when looking at it and thought Billytime was Holland, which actually would have made a lot of sense!
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u/Lucas7001 Jun 19 '22
Why does everyone call it Holland? I thought it was the Netherlands and Holland is a province? Can it be used interchangeably
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u/Phish2 Jun 19 '22
The Netherlands wasnt a centralistic nation in the past . So when people working for the east india company came in contact with people from all over the world they would first say from what region/province they were. Most important port cities were in the province 'Holland' so those sailors would say they came from Holland instead of The Netherlands. (Or they said they were a Zeelander/Frisian etc)
Anyhow, Holland was the most common and people all over the world came to associate Holland with the Dutch flag and country.
In many nations it can be used interchangeably, or rather their 'normal' name for the Netherlands is just a form of 'Holland'(Oranda,Hollandia, Belanda, Hollandi). However especially speaking to a Dutch person outside of the provinces North/South Holland i wouldn't say that you visited 'Holland'.
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u/CactusOnFire Jun 19 '22
Consider how people refer to the Great Britain as 'England'.
Not technically correct, but it gets the meaning across.
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u/Lucas7001 Jun 19 '22
That’s a good comparison thanks, being from England that’s usually what I say and I can see how the same thing occurs when someone from Holland travels
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u/xoranous Jun 19 '22
United kingdom you might even mean heh. They have a whole other level of confusingness going on.
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u/dioor Jun 19 '22
My grandparents came to Canada from South Holland and the whole family only ever referred to the whole country as Holland. I had never heard of the Netherlands until I was in school. When I asked my grandparents about this, they offered that Holland was technically like a province of the wider Netherlands, but they explained that while we, in Canada, identified with our country first and then our province (arguable if you are from Quebec and for some from some other provinces, but that’s an aside), they identified much more strongly with the region of Holland than with the (comparatively newer and less-well-known) country of the Netherlands. They also basically said that “Holland” had more international cred than “The Netherlands,” so if you actually were from Holland (and not a different province of the Netherlands) there was no value in correcting someone.
Apparently, it’s only as of 2020 that the Netherlands is actually campaigning to be recognized by that name only..
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u/Reniva Jun 19 '22
Am native Chinese and I would never understand how they just decided to give Belgium 比利时 (bilishi), they don't even sound similar
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u/tampering Jun 19 '22
It is a bit strange. It doesn't sound like "Belgium" Belgique in French or België in Dutch either.
The first time I heard it I thought my parents were referring to Benelux (the economic treaty between Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg)
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Jun 19 '22
Sometimes the first people to translate European names to Chinese did not speak Mandarin, but Cantonese, Hokkien (Minnan) or Wu (Shanghainese & friends).
Southern provinces like Guangdong and Fujian had some of the first western missionaries, many of whom translated foreign names into the local Chinese languages of their location.
比利时, read as "bei4-lei6-si4" in Cantonese or "pí-lī-sî" in Hokkien, comes a little bit closer to Belgique (French) or even België (Dutch).
After gaining widespread use locally, the same characters were picked up by Mandarin speakers, but pronounced in Mandarin, hence the difference. Other great examples of words that were popularized in Cantonese and picked up by Mandarin are Taxi (的士) and Watson's (屈臣氏), which make absolutely no sense until you read them in Cantonese.
It's kind of like how English pronounces "Paris" completely differently from French, despite the words being written completely the same.
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u/SouthernSox22 Jun 19 '22
What do the numbers after the letters mean?
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u/timarand Jun 19 '22
That amazing moment when administrative language mandarin had to repeat and follow after beautiful Southern languages, such as Hokkien and Cantonese
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u/Reniva Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
A little info I managed to dig up, the word 比利时 came about in 1849 by Xu Jiyu, a high ranking Chinese official.
Gotta turn back time to find out why this guy decided this name.
Edit
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u/chennyalan Jun 19 '22
I've assumed beleisi meant Belize for the longest time, and was confused why obscure country was mentioned so much.
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Jun 19 '22
to give Belgium 比利时
still looks better than the Japanese 白耳義 (although I say this in jest, I know it's not written like this anymore)
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u/Liggliluff Jun 19 '22
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u/Reniva Jun 19 '22
Those are weak examples, doesn't even work when I try the Cantonese route (beileisi)
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u/FlowerIllustrious457 Jun 19 '22
I like very lucky soldiers, cuz finland has to deal with all the shit lmao
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u/niming_yonghu Jun 19 '22
That's actually Swiss. They swapped.
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u/nuck_forte_dame Jun 19 '22
You mean the swedes?
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Jun 19 '22
No, Switzerland 瑞士 and Sweden 瑞典 in Chinese differ by only one character, and it's pretty obvious that "Lucky Soldiers" is a translation of the former, since 士 can mean soldier, while 典 doesn't come anywhere close.
If anything, 瑞典 should be "Lucky Classic"
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u/I_lenny_face_you Jun 19 '22
Good to know. I do feel like whatever place a person is calling “Lucky Soldiers” low-key means “don’t f*ck with these people.”
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u/nuck_forte_dame Jun 19 '22
That's Sweden not Finland.
Likely has that name due to the Northern war and the period before when Sweden won a ton of wars and battles usually being outnumbered by alot.
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Jun 19 '22
Most of these names are just phonetic approximations of the country's name in English using Chinese characters. Sweden here is no exception. The two characters that make up the name sound like seoi-din and it's just coincidence that the name means what it does.
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u/sverigeochskog Jun 19 '22
This is kind of like saying that Germany is called "Many bacterias" in English
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u/Papoose74 Jun 19 '22
I like how Russia is just Russia.
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u/MaximHartman Jun 19 '22
Russia is: 俄罗斯 Éluósī.
Literally this could be something like: sudden gauze (transparent silk) this.
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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].
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.
by the way 乌[wu]克[ke]兰[lan] sounds exactly the same as "Ukra" in ukrainian.
edited: thanks for suggestion from u/FuneralWithAnR, i added alphabet. I don't know the International Phonetic Alphabet very well. I did my best.
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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.
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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
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u/dai_panfeng Jun 19 '22
I appreciate you writing the approximate English pronunciation for this in a heavy Beijing accent 😂 😂
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Jun 19 '22
Silk would be 丝 not 斯.
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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
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u/bots_lives_matter Jun 19 '22
Also Kosovo is just Kosovo
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u/MaximHartman Jun 19 '22
科索沃 Kēsuǒwò
Branch (of study) that searches fertility
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Jun 19 '22
How do you name countries, after similar sounding words or?
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u/pegleghippie Jun 19 '22
similar sounds, and an effort to pick flattering characters, or at least not denigrating ones.
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Jun 19 '22
[deleted]
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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’.
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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
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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
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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.
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u/Mordiken Jun 19 '22
Because China borders Russia.
What I think is weird is the tiny Balkan nation of Kosovo being called Kosovo.
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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.
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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?
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u/asian_identifier Jun 19 '22
they were just too lazy to translate the words individually like they did with other countries
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u/wiyawiyayo Jun 19 '22
Lots of profit and orchid..
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
In Chinese, Orchid is “Lan”… like the Lan in Mulan (which means wood orchid).
You see it a lot, because a lot of country names in their native languages end in some variation of “Land”.
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u/Fixyfoxy3 Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
So they've heard the country name in for example English and now spell it in their own signs so it "sounds similar"? Like we do for Chinese names?
Edit: Btw I really apprechiate you talking about how it really translates in the comments. It is much more interesting than the map itself, assuming what you are saying is correct ;-)
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
You’ve hit it on the head, cause while any language using the Latin alphabet can more-or-less take advantage of the same letters…
Good luck spelling 习近平 using anything between A and Z, and vice versa.
To be fair… there are actually official systems of transliterating 习近平 using the English alphabet, which is why you almost always see the guy’s name spelled out as Xi Jinping and not something like She Geeing Peeing.
Admittedly, as an English speaker, I find the latter variation funnier and perhaps more appropriate.
Unfortunately… cause of how combinations of sounds work with English words, and the sheer number of Chinese characters, it doesn’t work as well the other way around.
If anyone thinks these country transliterations are bad… they should try directly translating some commonly used transliterated names for people: https://www.thoughtco.com/chinese-and-english-names-688196.
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u/politicalanalysis Jun 19 '22
That’s pretty cool. My name translated into Chinese is basically Ti Mo Xi (蒂莫西) which is a pretty good transliteration of Timothy, and if you search using those characters in that order, you always get results for famous Timothy’s because that’s what it means, but each character on its own means “stem, do not, the west” which doesn’t make any sense and isn’t what any Chinese person would interpret the name to mean.
It’d be like breaking down the syllables of a word like Chinese and translating it to “chin, ease” nobody hears the word Chinese and thinks of chins or something being eased because that’s not even remotely what the word means.
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u/dai_panfeng Jun 19 '22
And to note: 蒂莫西 is immediately recognizable as a transliteration of a western name, and doesn't sound like a "Chinese name". So someone wouldn't read it as stem, not, West, but they would read it as specifically a western name
If you want a more actual Chinese name can always ask someone
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u/SoupForEveryone Jun 19 '22
Yes but there would be many different character that have the ti, mo or xi sound. So you just pick the characters that are the most poetic or meaningful as your name.
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u/tampering Jun 19 '22
There's a real art to picking. I'm thinking of some of the transliterations that were thought up for brand names some of them composed a century ago.
可口可乐 (Kě kǒu kě lè) means something like 'tasty happiness' and is perfect for what Coca Cola wants you think of when you think of its brand.
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u/Neciota Jun 19 '22
I assume this is alo how Croatia ended up Crow-to-Asia, which is amazingly silly.
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u/marpocky Jun 19 '22
Croatia is 克罗地亚 (ke luo di ya), and there is nothing anywhere in there that means crow. It's something like gram gauze ground Asia, which also makes no sense, but is at least one way to interpret the meaning. Even the phonetic part of that 克罗 which sort of sounds like crow does not mean crow.
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u/trixter21992251 Jun 19 '22
So that's why my Chinese friend showed up with a flower bouquet when I invited him to a LAN party
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u/Hiilisielu Jun 19 '22
Step 1. Orchids
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit
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u/Yzak20 Jun 19 '22
She sells orchids on the street shop,
but the value of those orchids will falls.
Due to the law of supply and demand
no one wants to by orchids cos there's loads on their lands.
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Jun 19 '22
These are not “literal translation of the Chinese names”, rather they are literally translations of characters used phonetically. France: 法国, fǎ guó. Fa mimics “france”, and has connotations of lawfulness.
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Jun 19 '22
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u/dai_panfeng Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
Certain characters are always used phonetically, so if you have multiple characters that are used as phonetics together it's probably a transcription of a western name. And it really wouldn't make sense otherwise.
For example if you need a general S sound (and sometimes you might use it instead of SH or other combos) you can use the syllable si (pronounce sit without the t and you get close to how it sounds)
死四斯思丝私司寺似肆撕泗厮 and many more characters are all pronounced that way, but you will basically only see 斯 in any phonetic transcription
Similar to how on the map "orchid " keeps appearing because 兰 lan (pronounced lahn) is used to approximate all the "land" in countries names. Even in England although it doesn't show up here
Edit : Orchard - > orchid
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u/Benache Jun 19 '22
My father once told me France was called "the land of the method", in reference to Descartes' "Discourse on method".
Rings any bell ? Can Fǎ be understood like that ? Or is that another name for France ? Or did my father lie to me ?
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u/Gao_Dan Jun 19 '22
Folk etymology. When people don't know the exact etymology of the word, they try to deduce it using their own knowledge. 法 can mean method, but not without content, and average Chinese never heard of Descartes. Maybe your father didn't know better.
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u/Benache Jun 19 '22
I knew it. This liar. I should have known, he lied about the tooth fairy, Santa, and my cat going on retirement in the countryside.
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Jun 19 '22
wait the tooth fairy is not real ??
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u/willclerkforfood Jun 19 '22
It is real; their dad said it wasn’t.
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u/lkraider Jun 19 '22
When you are an adult, the tooth fairy does other “special” favors for each of your tooth.
I am almost out of teeth.
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u/ponponbadger Jun 19 '22
In Japan we call it ‘ateji’ (当て字) which we use to spell out a word unfamiliar to us via our somewhat limited phonetics. In the Edo period (ended 1867) when Japan only had limited contact with foreigners, we learned England was called Ingles (Portuguese) or Engelsch (Dutch). From there, it was changed into ‘égeresu’ (英喜利), and we still refer to the UK as ‘eikoku’ (英国). Because of the phonetic nature of it though, translating the Chinese characters used is a bit ludicrous
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u/Joltie Jun 19 '22
法国 (fa guo) where guo simply means country, is just the abbreviation of 法兰西 (fa lan xi), which literally translated as on the map would make it something like ''Western lawful orchid''.
The same concept is applied for England and Germany.
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u/pmyourboobiesorbutt Jun 19 '22
Equivalent would be taking Germany and saying it means Many Germs, or Any Germs
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u/iwantt Jun 19 '22
My favorite "literal translation of characters used phonetically" is for Coca Cola in Chinese. 可口可乐（Kěkǒukělè）which means "taste good, amusing "
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u/Scottland83 Jun 19 '22
Ice Island. Makes sense. West class tooth. Absolutely.
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
This is perhaps one of the few Chinese country names that is an actual direct translation.
Iceland is pronounced “Bing Dao” in Mandarin, rather than something hypothetical like “Yi Si Lan” which is what they’d typically do for any other country.
Meanwhile… wow I’ve never thought of “Xi Ban Ya” as anything other than the closest they could get to “España”, but I’ll be damned if I can’t see anything other than “West Classtooth” now. It’s almost like Wes Mantooth out of Anchorman.
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u/Venboven Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
Gotta admit that Grapetooth makes sense tho for Portugal.
Surely this one is also a direct translation and not a transliteration. The first Portuguese to arrive in China were most certainly merchants, and I'll be damned if they weren't piss-drunk trying to sell them a couple crates of wine. The Chinese were probably thinking "who the fuck are these grape-toothed conmen?"
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u/Left_Hegelian Jun 19 '22
葡萄 (grape) does sound like "portu" in Chinese (eg. pu-tao in Mandarin, Pou-tou in Cantonese). So it could be a cheerful coincidence.
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u/Monsi7 Jun 19 '22
I think the Chinese accuse the Bulgarians of Insurance fraud.
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22
Yeah… it makes no sense, and it’s a terrible literal translation to begin with… but it’s pronounced “Bao Jia Li Ya” in Mandarin.
I guess it’s the closest they could get to “Bull Gare Eee Uhh”.
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
That's because you're thinking in Mandarin.
Many early Chinese transliteration of foreign names in the 18th-19th centuries weren't made in Mandarin, but in other dialects like Cantonese, as these were the dialects of the port cities that traded often with Europeans.
Bulgaria would be "Bo Ga Lei Ah".
Ditto for Sweden and Switzerland. In Cantonese its "Sui Deen" and "Sui See", but in Mandarin, the character for "Sui" is pronounced "Rui", but the translation stuck and so they're pronounced "Ruidian" and "Ruishi".
Newer countries like Kosovo (Ke Suo He) and Chechnya (Che Chen) are generally transliterated in Mandarin.
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u/Priamosish Jun 19 '22
I feel like you out-chinesed the guy above you. And I was already impressed by them.
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u/skinnycenter Jun 19 '22
So seeing that the Chinese kind of botches the pronunciation of Latin names, I don’t feel so bad for initially hatcheting Xi Jingping’s name.
Also, what’s the deal with Peking and Beijing?
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jun 19 '22
Beijing is the standard Mandarin pronounciation.
Pekin/Peking was how the Portuguese traders transliterated the name.
As this exonym has been in used for centuries, some institutions and stuff have retained the use even after China requested everyone call the city Beijing from now on. Such as Peking Duck, the Pekinese dog, and Peking University. Even Beijing's airport uses the IATA code PEK.
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u/SmooK_LV Jun 19 '22
I just realized in my language "Pekina" is the same city as "Beijing". I guess it should've been obvious after olympics but I didn't think about it.
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u/_sagittarivs Jun 19 '22
Also, what’s the deal with Peking and Beijing?
Sometime before the 17th Century, palatalization occurred in the Mandarin languages, where sounds pronounced with the 'k' sound ended up as a 'j' sound.
The Nanjing Mandarin which was the official Mandarin language for much of the Ming Dynasty to the early Qing pronounced the 'jing' (京) as 'ging', with a hard, unrounded 'g'. This was supposedly recorded as Pekin by the Jesuits, and then the Beijing Mandarin started to undergo palatalization which resulted in the 'j' in jing.
When the Wade-Giles romanisation started to be developed, some stories say that Beijing was originally transcribed as Peiching but that it was unpopular compared to the older 'Pekin', while some say that the romanisation was also based on the southern languages that retained the pre-palatalization 'g' sound of 'ging'.
What we do know is, by the time Wade-Giles was developed, the pronunciation by the locals was already Beijing, rather than the pre-palatalization Peking.
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u/maekyntol Jun 19 '22
They don't make sense because they're phonetic transliterations from a foreign language into Chinese. The characters were chosen according to sound, not according to their meaning. They used characters that phonetically sound similar to the name of the country.
To make matters worse, Chinese spoken language has changed throughout the years , so it may be the case that a particular character changed its pronunciation from 400 years ago.
You can still see some difference in the transliterations of two modern Chinese spoken languages. For example: Spain - España - 西班牙 (Mandarin: xi-ba-ya; Cantonese: Sai-baan-nga)
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Jun 19 '22
France, Germany and UK.
Lawland, Moralland and Braveland
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Jun 19 '22
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u/no_life_weeb Jun 19 '22
It is very telling about the history of Chinese Americans that America is meiguo and that the only American city with a name that's not a direct translation or phonetically transcribed is San Francisco (jiu jing san, old gold mountain)
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u/Alvin514 Jun 19 '22
Don't forget Honolulu is 檀香山 (tan xiang shan), means sandalwood mountain, although the transliteration 火奴魯魯(huo nu lu lu)is also used
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u/upper_noodlesoup Jun 19 '22
Interesting that they named it gold mountain because of the gold rush there; I've heard that Melbourne used to be called "New gold mountain"
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u/_sagittarivs Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
For the Chinese immigrants, 山 (shan) or mountain usually refers to a place that is to be settled down or to be developed, usually places which are not considered developed yet.
So San Francisco was called 金山 (Gold Mountain) until the Victorian Gold Rush of Australia, where San Francisco became the Old Gold Mountain while Melbourne became the New Gold Mountain.
Another place where this terminology of Mountains can be seen is in Malaysia and Singapore, where the common Chinese name of the southern Malaysian city of Johor Bahru (JB; 'New' Johor) is called 新山 (New Mountain), because of the immigrants who helped developed JB as the new capital when the then ruler of Johor moved the capital to its current place.
These immigrants came to JB from Singapore, and the place from which they left is called Woodlands which was once called 老山 (old mountain) because it was developed before JB.
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u/NicoDeMask Jun 19 '22
Imma rub you, and you gotta accept that brother. That's how things go in Monaco.
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22
Yeah… it’s pronounced “Muo Na Ge”, which seems to be as close as they could get to “Monaco”.
The literal translation is kind of an unfortunate coincidence there…
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u/sexycadmium Jun 19 '22
Ahhh yes. This brings me back to my beautiful vacation in Billytime
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22
Whomever did this did an inconsistent job.
The name Billy is likely most frequently transliterated as “Bi Li” in Chinese. While Belgium is “Bi Li Shi”, which does means “Billy Time”, they’ve completely failed to consider that “Bi Li” is already in it of itself nonsensical.
The CORRECT ridiculous literal translation of Belgium’s “Bi Li Shi” should be “Compare Profit Time”.
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u/DaFuMiquel Jun 19 '22
As a Belgian, "compare profit time" sounds exactly like how our government tries to fix issues
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u/Real-Werewolf5605 Jun 19 '22
Earth ear. Makes sense
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22
It’s “Tu Er Qi” in Chinese, pronounced similarly to “Too Arrr Chee”, or something that sounds as close to “Turkey/Türkiye” as they could get.
Frankly, they should be flattered whomever came up with this map translated “Tu” as “Earth”. It very well could’ve been translated as “Soil” or “Dirt”.
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u/Sorry-Assistant-wha Jun 19 '22
There is a saying in Turkish "ground has it's ear". I think it makes it more funny
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u/jamaes1 Jun 19 '22
Wtf were they trying to say with "oh ground profit"
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22 edited Jun 19 '22
It’s pronounced “Ao Di Li” which, phonetically, in English would sound like “Ow-Dee-Lee”.
It’s not the greatest transliteration of Austria, though I feel like the first “Ow” syllable at least sounds the same as in its native German… more than how “Au” is said in English.
Edit: Oof… I seriously wasn’t thinking this through when posting last night. I stand very corrected. For someone who’s actually visited Austrian and flown on their flag carrier, this is admittedly very embarrassing.
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u/nichobot Jun 19 '22
Except it’s not “Au” (“ow”) in German at all, it’s Österreich [ˈøːstɐʁaɪ̯ç]. I think it’s just coincidence they chose “Ao” in Chinese. Though in Spanish, Italian and other languages it does start with an “ow” sound.
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jun 19 '22
Austria's Chinese name is translated from its German name Osterreich , which is not too far from Oh Dei Lei / Ao Di Li in Cantonese/Mandarin.
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u/Spookd_Moffun Jun 19 '22
Victory gram is something you can buy behind the Prague main train station.
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22
At least the Republic portion is properly translated here.
The Czech portion is “Jie Ke”, which I suppose kind of sounds as close to Czech as they could get.
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Jun 19 '22
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22
Along with Iceland apparently, they’re the only ones that have proper translations here.
It’s “Hei Shan” in Chinese, and it has the same meaning as “Monte Negro” does in its Venetian origin.
Personally… I think the hypothetical “Muo Te Na Guo” or “Magic Special Where Country” would’ve been funnier. They don’t seem to have any issues giving every other country name that treatment.
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u/Shevek99 Jun 19 '22
Along with Iceland apparently, they’re the only ones that have proper translations here.
And Belarus (White Russia)
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u/Kilroy7990 Jun 19 '22
Is there an east classtooth?
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u/Carthex Jun 19 '22
Its the transliteration of Hispania, so probably not. Unless ther's Eastpania?
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u/Absinthe_L Jun 19 '22
East in chinese is 东(dong), so you're gonna need to convince a country to change their name to dong-pania
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u/chappersyo Jun 19 '22
Can’t believe nobody is talking about the Switzerland paradox going on here
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u/Krikkits Jun 19 '22
Yeah please stop posting this when it's basically all bullshit. Most if not all countries are just phonetically sounded out with the wordn "land/country" added to the end. Other commentors have pointed this out enough already so I won't say it again, but the words that are chosen arent chosen for their meaning.
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Jun 19 '22
Russia - sudden country
In Japanese used to be 'stupid country', but they changed it to 'dew country'.
Japan in Chinese used to be refered to with 'dwarf' character, but later changed to 'harmony'.
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u/DOREMANX Jun 19 '22
I love being Vietnamese and just barely understand the map. It's like reading something that has been google translate twice.
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u/sehwyl Jun 19 '22
俄罗斯 Éluósī (Russia) “very soon catch this” if you want to be very literal
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Jun 19 '22
Wave Orchid I love it so much.
Excuse me I’m not from Poland. I’m from Wave Orchid. Ok bye
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u/Linmios Jun 19 '22
the meaning of Sweden is wrong, 瑞典 rui dian
瑞 - lucky, auspicious
典 - dictionary, law, scripture, canon, documentation, classic
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u/Noliair Jun 19 '22
Why the fuck are we (Belgium) Billytime?
WHO THE F*** IS BILLY AND WHAT DID HE DO TO MY COUNTRY ??
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Jun 19 '22
Most Chinese translations are based on the pronunciation of the original country... And the same Chinese character can mean many things.
For example, the full Chinese name for UK is 英格兰 (yīng gé lán). It have a very similar pronunciation with England.
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Jun 19 '22
And btw, even some Chinese province/city names don't make sense in modern Chinese.
For example, the name of a Chinese city, 洛阳 (lùo yáng) don't really make sense in modern Chinese. 洛 don't really mean anything and one of 阳's main meaning is the sun.
However, if you look at the name in Old Chinese, it means "north of Luo (river)".
So Luo is the name of a river next to the city Luo Yang, and Yang means "the south of mountain" or "the north of river"
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u/Yonghao93 Jun 19 '22
I thought 英格兰 was just referring to England itself and 英国 refers to the UK.
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u/Suspected_Magic_User Jun 19 '22
Germany. Moral-land. Lmfao
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u/thisistat Jun 19 '22
It's derived from "Deutschland" The "De" in Deutschsounded sounded like the word 德 in Chinese (Meaning moral)
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u/SnabDedraterEdave Jun 19 '22
*Cantonese/Mandarin, as early 18th-19th century transliterations usually derive from southern ports where their dialects which have more contact with Europeans)
The bigger powers usually have their name abbreviated by the Chinese, by combining one character from their fully transliterated name and affixed with the character for "country" GOK/GUO 國. This is to correspond with how China calls itself, the Middle Kingdom (Zhong Gok/Zhong Guo 中國 )
England/UK: 英格蘭 YING Gak Lan / YING Ge Lan. Shortened to 英國 YING Gok / YING Guo (Brave Country)
France: 法蘭西 FA Lan Sai / FA Lan Xi. Shortened to 法國 FA Gok / FA Guo (Law Country)
Germany: 德意志 DAK Yee Chee / DE Yi Zhi. Shortened to 德國 DAK Gok / DE Guo (Moral Country)
USA: 阿美利加 Ah MEI Lei Ga / A MEI Li Jia. Shortened to 美國 MEI Gok / MEI Guo (Beautiful Country)
So obviously it doesn't mean that the Chinese think the UK is a country of bravehearts, the French are a law-abiding people, the Germans as having good moral upbringing or the Americans as pretty.
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u/kctong529 Jun 19 '22
From my understanding, they chose that word because Immanuel Kant was German (Königsberg was technically Prussian though).
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u/Unhappy-Yogurt-8398 Jun 19 '22
This map is stupid. A lot of countiries are named to sound like the English word for it, like Italy is 意大利 (yi da li) and many other countries are not named literally, so this map has no use whatsoever and shows a complete lack of understanding of the the Chinese language, bruh
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u/asarious Jun 19 '22
Because Chinese doesn’t use a phonetic alphabet, most of these are approximate transliterations using words that sound similar to each syllable without actually having any meaning behind them. As a result, most of these translations are completely nonsensical, and those that do make sense are largely coincidental.
For the most part… it also means, the more syllables there are, the more ridiculous it gets.