IIRC a lot (all?) of these come from the names of specific Germanic tribes that these languages had contact with back before Germany existed as a unified entity, which then metathesized into a demonym for the entire cultural group and then the nation state. “Saksa”, for example, is a doublet of “Saxon”.
Can we also talk about “Dutch”?
English-speakers used to use it to mean all non-Scandinavian Germanic peoples. When the Netherlanders became a distinctly separate group Britain had way more contact with them than with anyone else that the word used to cover, so we used it to refer to them specifically
interesting! thank you for the explanation :)
Yeah, it’s always so confusing
Nobody talks about the Dutch :(
So, anyone wanna revive one of the polandball communities or open a new one?
I posted a few European Polandball comics here, I think it fits the mood
Polandball on a world scale might need some heavy moderation due to potential political debates
The funny thing is that most languages in the world call Finland Finland or something adjacent (usually containing the syllable ‘Fin-’), while it’s ‘Suomi’ in Finnish. Only the Baltic states call it something similar to that.
Goes all the way back to at least Proto-Germanic *finnaz for Sami, possibly from “to travel by foot, walk”. Not terribly unrealistic given the semi-nomadic lifestyle of Sami, Sami and Suomi might just be the same word via general Uralic relatedness (and sound the same to Germanic ears anyway) also what’s now considered Finns was back then a rough assemblage of tribes consisting of multiple Uralic immigration waves known to Swedes as “Forest Finns”, as supposed to the herding Finns (ie. nowadays Sami) further north.
Which I guess makes Estonians Swamp Finns (in so far as Finland-Finns aren’t claiming that one for themselves with their swamp forests) and Hungarians… Paprika Finns.
Saksa, when the Wall fell.
Deutschland on the ocean
saksa comes from saxony, which was historically a major power in the region. (My knowledge comes from CK2)
Same for allemagne
So which country is known by the same name to the most number of other countries?
suggestions off the top of my head are countries with or near significant colonial influences, eg madagascar and indonesia seem to be pretty similar across the board
although far from comprehensive such is the case of languages listed on wiktionarys translations dropdown on the english entries of the countries at least
the only notable exception i spotted is the navajo name for indonesia apparently being “Kéyah Dah Ndaaʼeełí Łání” which is quite interesting and i dont really have an explanation for that discrepancy (perhaps its pronounced similarly and orthography just isnt idunno) but navajo isnt a national language anywhere anyways so it doesnt really matter for the original question
Lithuania: Vokietija
Italian: Tedesco
Lithuania: Vokietija
Alemanha :D
Well, to this day the “allemands” keep calling us the kingdom of the Frank. Of course they have rule France from the moment it started to be France until just two centuries ago but since we were the first in our civilisation to get rid of kings and we have still for 150 years without major revolt, I believe that it may be time to update our name. You don’t hear us keep calling the German “Prussians” don’t you.
That’s an interesting point. How would you prefer to be called?
Frankland would be fine. No one is denying the place of Frank in the History. But their is no “Reich” anymore.
Netherlands getting rid of their kings in 1581; England getting rid of their kings in 1649: …
Sure both went back under constitutional rather than absolute monarchies later, but so did France, and Netherlands and England have gone 229 and 364 years without major revolt (excluding Ireland, but France couldn’t claim 150 if they included Algeria)
I speak about major revolt against the monarchy. And yes, it’s my point indeed that most of the other country get a king or some sort of monarch back. If your looking for absence of major revolt in France, we’ll be out of the list for every year since 2019…
You’re literally calling yourself France too…
Yeah, France, short form for République française not Royaume de France.
Japanese:
Germany - ドイツ (doitsu) - or 独逸 or 独乙 if you’re feeling nasty.
Nederlands - オランダ (oranda which comes from the word holland) - 阿蘭陀 and a few other kanji forms exist as well
