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Re: Country names in national languages

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Saturday, May 11, 2002, 3:28
Carlos Thompson wrote:
>I believe this is a valuable resource for all of us that are creating
Eartling languages (auxlangs, personal langs, langs for earthbased concultures, etc.)
>The idea is to have a list covering all countries (I would add main
cities if possible), including: ES - Short name in English: i.e. Columbia * EO - Long official name in English: i.e. Republic of Columbia EE - Ethimology in English: from (Christopher) Columbus NL - National language: i.e. Spanish. NS - Short name in national language: i.e. Colombia .. . - pronunciation: /ko"lom.bja/ NO - Long official name in national language: i.e. República de Colombia .. . - pronunciation: /rre"pu.Bli.ka De ko"lom.bja/ .. . - interlinear translation: i.e. Republic of Columbia NE - Ethimology in national language: from (Cristobal) Colón .. . - pronunciation: Colón: /ko"lon/ * I usually write and prefer "Colombia" (with <o>) in English, but I let the <u> for contrasting national name versus name in English. (snips) Hmm, I don't see why-- "Columbia" is sometimes used to refer to the USA ("Columbia, the gem of the ocean" etc.) and was IIRC one of the early proposals for the name of the nation. Though many N.Americans (even in High Places) pronounce Colombia as "Columbia", it's still, in my book, a mispronunciation. It is, however, usually written correctly. (end rant) It might be interesting to include the adjectival form of the various national names-- most of them (in Spanish) add -ano/a, but there are those odd ones that don't -- guatemalteco, hondureño, brasilero (brasileiro), canadense, estad(o)unidense etc.

Replies

Joe <joe@...>
Carlos Thompson <chlewey@...>