City and Nation Names in English

[Buckwheat]

6 hours ago, baxus said:

Yeah, it's the same. Still, people usually have the "u" last too long or have problems with "š" or something. It's not a problem or anything, it's just funny.

Dušan with U as in YOU? Yeah, that's odd.

2 hours ago, baxus said:

"Č" and "ć" are often quite difficult to differentiate and pronounce properly even for some native speakers. For example, quite a few Croatian people have issues with it despite those being a part of their native language.

Slovene doesn't have that difference, but I can hear it and somewhat pronounce it. Bu mostly, I just use č. Most Slovene people use č instead of ć when talking about Dončić or Dragić.

[Alester Florent]

34 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

No, there are German dialects as there are dialects in different countries. They could understand each other.

I could imagine the the origin of the "people without words" thing is that it is a differnt language family and it is always more difficult to learn a language of another family. IIRC there are three big language family groups in Europe: Romanic (like Italian, Spanisch, Portugese, rumanian, and French), Germanic (like the languages in Norway, Sweden, the netherlands, Danemark, Germany, Austria, switzerland) and the slavik languages (Polish, Russian, Croatian, serb, ...). English, because of its history, is a mixture of a Romanic and a Germanic language. and there are also totally foreign languages as Hungarian and Finnish which are originally central asian.

as such it may have been easier for a middle age Polish person to learn Russian or czch, but much more difficult to learn German, and so they called them this.

Depending how you define both "Europe" and "big language groups"... At the start of the Middle Ages the Indo-European language groups in Europe would have comprised Celtic (principally in the west, but spreading east into central Europe), Italic (of which Latin was the only survivor, and which subsequently diversified into Romance), Germanic, Baltic, Hellenic (distilling into a single Greek language), Albanian and Slavic. There were also surviving languages of other groups, like Vasconic and perhaps Tartessian, possibly Pictish (in Scotland) and if you extend far enough east there are the various Caucasian languages and a couple more Indo-European language groups like Armenian and fragments of Indo-Iranian languages.

Other than Italic, most of these groups were relatively contained, but in the migration period some of them sprawled and others contracted. Celtic was virtually overrun across most of its range by Germanic languages or abandoned in favour of Italic, as was Vasconic. Tartessian and Pictish disappeared altogether. Slavic spread a long way south. Albanian and Baltic pretty much stayed put, as did Hellenic until later in the Middle Ages when it lost much of its range to Turkish languages.

Take this with a pinch of salt, but I think there is a theory that the Slavic languages qua languages are rather younger than most of the other Indo-European language groups, perhaps splitting off from a broader Balto-Slavic group, and that as late as the early Middle Ages, the Slavic group represented more of a dialect continuum than a group of diverse languages: they were developing roughly in parallel with the Romance languages. Slavic-speakers also had their own lingua franca, Old Church Slavonic, which may have represented essentially a form of proto-Slavic. It is possible that proto-Slavic (or something close to it) was adopted as the official language of the Avars, which would have helped to spread and entrench it.

In any case there would have been a much more obvious commonality between Slavic-speakers as compared to Germanic-speakers. But really it's likely that the name for Germans was coined in one place pretty early in the development of proto-Slavic (given that Germanic and Slavic were geographically neighbours) and that word then spread along with the language.

But then insensitive names for neighbours are pretty much par for the course, as is an endonym meaning simply "the people" or the like. Europe is littered with regions named effectively "place where foreigners live" (most notably, Wales, Cornwall, Wallachia, Galatia (in Turkey), both Galicias, and formerly, Gaul).

[Alester Florent]

6 hours ago, baxus said:

I'm not a history expert but from what I remember from school, Germany and Italy as we know them today exist for a relatively short period of time, from around mid XIX century. Before that, they were made up of different smaller states. No language expert either, but I guess that played a part in different dialects.

 

Yes and no. Linguistically, it's useful to distinguish between the two, because Germany has a proliferation of dialects which are quite varied but nevertheless mutually intelligible for the most part, whereas Italy has a proliferation of languages (and dialects), many of which are not mutually intelligible. There are in fact almost as many Romance languages, conventionally defined, in Italy as in the rest of the world put together. This is essentially because the greatest diversity is usually closest to the source, and this can be seen in both linguistics and genetics: languages develop in a relatively small space, and some escape, but all languages outside that space are descended from the small number of escapees, while those at source continue to diversify. The versions of Latin that got exported to Gaul, Iberia and Dacia were thus just a couple of the much larger variety that stayed at home and continued to develop.

Germanic, meanwhile, came out of Scandinavia in two branches, one of which (the eastern) fell into practical extinction very early in the Middle Ages (notwithstanding some pockets which held out until the 18th century), and the other (the western) supplied all the surviving non-Scandinavian languages - so there was never quite the same linguistic diversity in Germany. The western branch did still produce English and Dutch, two recognisably separate languages, but the pattern across Germany itself is more of a dialect continuum with less recognisable diversity than in Italy.

Historically, the modern states of Italy and Germany were unified in the late 19th century as you say. But on a longer-term scale, these were really reunifications of kingdoms that had fragmented in the later Middle Ages. Germany, as part of the Frankish Empire, started to assume a recongisable distinct form in the 800s and remained remarkably intact until about the 1240s. Arguably during much of this period it was a more centralised and unified kingdom than France, and this only changed during the 12th and 13th centuries when the French kings embarked on a concerted programme of consolidation of power at the same time as the Pope was trying to dismantle Germany (for complicated political reasons, but essentially the Emperor and the Pope each considered that they should be the top dog in Christendom and embarked on a fight to the death over it).

By the time a new Emperor was eventually crowned, Germany was more recognisably a patchwork of autonomous states, rather than the kingdom-with-some-powerful-vassals it largely had been previously.

Italy's "national" identity is older, going back to antiquity. Politically, Italy was more broken up during the early Middle Ages, as northern Italy was occupied by the Lombards while the Romans held onto (or retook) the south and much of the centre. Later, the Lombards fell to the Franks, while Normans ended up in the south, and the Pope had territory in between. The "kingdom of Italy" was the northern part of this, and remained intact until conflicts with the Pope and the city-states caused it to disintegrate as a practical entity at about the same time as Germany. The south remained independent as the Kingdom(s) of Sicily (although in the early 13th century this had the same king as the north).

Although for practical purposes both kingdoms had ceased to exist during the later Middle Ages, they continued to exist on paper until the early 19th century. The last king of Germany (formally, King of the Romans) was Francis II, who abdicated in 1806; the last King of Italy was Napoleon I, who did actually reimpose some central control before being deposed in 1814.

[kiko]

3 hours ago, JoannaL said:

No, there are German dialects as there are dialects in different countries. They could understand each other.

I challenge you 

 

Okay it is understandable, especially if you know the story, but my kids don't get a word when I read them that story.

[DMC]

10 hours ago, baxus said:

And you probably pronounce it Nikohla, right?

I pronounce it the way Vucevic does in the video you linked...or at least I think I do!  That first reporter seemed to be pronouncing it like Ricola in those old commercials which was..weird.

[Clueless Northman]

7 hours ago, JoannaL said:

About pronounication: the German pronouciation is the same as the Latin -and the modern Italian one. since our alphabet is the latin alphabet  I always feel the we pronouce it right and the french or english do really strange things with the original latin pronounciation.

Let's talk about the German 'v'

 

About "they can't speak", I think what some considered might be actually accurate: if you're not acquainted with a language, you just won't understand some sounds, they'll just appear as mumble, as people babbling without being able to pronounce proper words. The more you hear and learn the language, the more you can distinguish between specific sounds that were previously alien to you and our mother-tongue.

That's most probably the source of the Greeks' "barbaros" - whose meaning was nearly literally "those who babble". Same logic for nemeck / German, I suppose, with Germans having the dubious honour of being the living embodiment of the "barbarian" "unable to properly speak"  (at least, Greeks and Romans didn't single out a specific people or cultural group)

 

6 hours ago, Adelstein said:

At the start of the Middle Ages the Indo-European language groups in Europe would have comprised Celtic (principally in the west, but spreading east into central Europe)

There were also surviving languages of other groups, like Vasconic and perhaps Tartessian

I'm not sure there was that much Celtic left around in continental Europe outside Britanny, in 500 AD - specially in the Eastern half of Gaul and farther. Latinization seems to have been quite massive and other places had been occupied by German tribes for a long time as well. I would be even more surprised if Tartessian managed to make it that far after so many centuries of being ruled by other peoples. Though indeed there was still a diversity of languages around even at the end of the Western Empire.

[baxus]

18 hours ago, Buckwheat said:

Slovene doesn't have that difference, but I can hear it and somewhat pronounce it. Bu mostly, I just use č. Most Slovene people use č instead of ć when talking about Dončić or Dragić.

Back in 2008, I played for my national team in floorball World Championship in Bratislava and one of our coaches was Slovenian. When we got our credentials for the venue, his said "Bakonič" and he asked "Why does it say Bakonič when my last name is Bakonič?". His last name was Bakonić, but he pronounced it "Bakonič" and when our list of team members was submitted his name was written that way.

[Buckwheat]

On 2/1/2022 at 4:51 PM, Adelstein said:

Take this with a pinch of salt, but I think there is a theory that the Slavic languages qua languages are rather younger than most of the other Indo-European language groups, perhaps splitting off from a broader Balto-Slavic group, and that as late as the early Middle Ages, the Slavic group represented more of a dialect continuum than a group of diverse languages: they were developing roughly in parallel with the Romance languages. Slavic-speakers also had their own lingua franca, Old Church Slavonic, which may have represented essentially a form of proto-Slavic. It is possible that proto-Slavic (or something close to it) was adopted as the official language of the Avars, which would have helped to spread and entrench it.

Old Church Slavonic did indeed exist, but don't confuse it with Proto-Slavic. These are two different terms. Proto-Slavic is the common ancestor of all of today's Slavic languages. It can only be reconstructed, but there are no material proofs of what it was like. Old Church Slavonic, however, is a written language that was constructed on the basis of the South Slavic dialects and it was mostly used in church services (missionary work) and religious writings. It isn't a direct ancestor of most of today's Slavic languages.

[IheartIheartTesla]

On 2/1/2022 at 4:37 AM, baxus said:

And you probably pronounce it Nikohla, right?

I just pronounce it as 'Tesla'. Oh wait, you are talking about other people. (And I think Tesla is a hard name to mess up pronunciation wise)

Just thought I'd chime in with the perspective on Indian city names, which in recent history has undergone quite a few changes (Bombay to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, Bangalore to Bengaluru and Calcutta to Kolkatta - among others). I grew up in Mumbai/Bombay and have a hard time calling it the former when we invariably used the latter through my youth, but almost everyone in the West exclusively has called it 'Mumbai' whenever I talk to them about my origins.

I was asked about the name change from Bombay to Mumbai, weirdly enough, by a immigration official in the US, and I tried to give as succinct an answer as I could about removing the vestiges of colonialism and reverting to indigenous name forms as I could in 2-3 sentences.

Oh and lastly, the Guardian seems to be using the Kyiv spelling, so that should make some people happy.

[mcbigski]

8 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

 

Just thought I'd chime in with the perspective on Indian city names, which in recent history has undergone quite a few changes (Bombay to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, Bangalore to Bengaluru and Calcutta to Kolkatta - among others). I grew up in Mumbai/Bombay and have a hard time calling it the former when we invariably used the latter through my youth, but almost everyone in the West exclusively has called it 'Mumbai' whenever I talk to them about my origins.

My sister lived in Madras around 2004 or so.  Phonetically, Madras to Chennai seems like about the largest written shift for English that I've seen in this thread.  Of course my last name is Polish and is neither spelled or pronounced like you might think in English, and I've had numerous Polish born folks tell me how we have it wrong.  tripthongs don't translate easily.  But still that sounds like not just a small correction but a what the fuck did you think was said in the first place?

But really, I don't get that worried if English has a different conventional name than native speakers in that locality.  Does the average German/Deuchtlander use the same word as I do for elbow?  When the winter olympics were in Turin and all the media jackasses had to say Turino or whatever that was very grating.  At least Italy isn't a slave state.

 

[Filippa Eilhart]

on the subject of names, what's with the English pronunciation of Ibiza? That one always annoys me. It's like you're trying to be Spanish, but only half way.

[baxus]

13 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I grew up in Mumbai/Bombay and have a hard time calling it the former when we invariably used the latter through my youth, but almost everyone in the West exclusively has called it 'Mumbai' whenever I talk to them about my origins.

I have problem adapting to new names when street names are changed. Changing cities' names would cause my brain to short circuit.

[john]

5 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

on the subject of names, what's with the English pronunciation of Ibiza? That one always annoys me. It's like you're trying to be Spanish, but only half way.

On the other hand, we’ve done great work with Polish cities - a wicked implement for battle woodworking WAR-SAW and a bovine drug fiend CRACK-COW. You’re welcome.

[3CityApache]

On 1/28/2022 at 5:06 PM, polishgenius said:

This is also I'd imagine why capitals and major cities usually have a variant in other languages but the less reason there's been for one language to have sustained exposure to the name of another city, the less likely it is to have a variant name (for example, in Polish we change London (Londyn) and Edinburgh (Edynburg, pronounced as you see it) but not Manchester or Birmingham or, apparently, Glasgow (though I'm half-sure we at least used to have declensions for Glasgow - whereas I'd never think of using any for Manchester). 

This is an interesting observation, though for example in the case of US we have a variant name not only for Washington (Waszyngton), but also for New York, obviously (Nowy Jork), and - for some reason - Philadelphia (Filadelfia).

Also, I have never heard about declensions in regards to Glasgow. We do use declensions in regards to Dublin though.

[polishgenius]

50 minutes ago, 3CityApache said:

 and - for some reason - Philadelphia (Filadelfia).

I strongly suspect that that's coz Kosciuszko fought in the area and later lived there at a time when such thing were becoming linguistically enshrined. Pure guess though.

And well it might well have been just my family doing jokes when we were younger and on a trip up to Scotland tbqh. 

[Buckwheat]

Wait, Polish people don't make declensions (decline? What the the verb for "do declensions?)  on foreign names? In Slovene, we do that with foreign words too. Sometimes it is a nightmare to know how to write the right suffix then.

[Filippa Eilhart]

Mostly we don’t. Apparently we decline Slavic names and names that end with -a. 

I recently learned that Skopje is declined (like słońce). 

[polishgenius]

2 hours ago, Buckwheat said:

Wait, Polish people don't make declensions (decline? What the the verb for "do declensions?)  on foreign names? In Slovene, we do that with foreign words too. Sometimes it is a nightmare to know how to write the right suffix then.

 

 

We do with most loan-words, off the top of my head, and with personal names (though we have to adjust the declension rules for some) but not for most place names.

And it is decline, yeah.