Re: CHAT National toponyms
| From: | J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, September 17, 2004, 19:57 |
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On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:17:27 +0100, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
>I am quite sure there are many more such examples. If Mach was indeed
>meaning that England got its name from the Angles who were just one of the
>several Germanic peoples that settled in England (and lowland Scotland &
>parts of Ireland) after the collapse the Roman province, then fair enough.
> But I just wondered if............
I didn't. It's just that in several languages I know (actually, all
languages I know but English (?): German, French, Spanish), the most usual
way to refer to the UK is by saying _England_ (in the respective languages).
Actually, _Great Britain_ is just another such toponym, since originally,
British only referred to the Celtic people (whereas _Welsh_ could have
referred to both the Celtic and the Romance people on the island if there
were any Romance at all).
It's very common that a country is named after a part of it, but a name that
goes the other way round, that a country is named after a region of which it
forms a part, seems to be the exception.
kry@s:
j. 'mach' wust