Conlang: Re: [conculture] Names of countries and national languages (Dr. Peter E. Tarlow, Sep 23 '07, 10:55)

>Hi > >In the last episode, (On Sunday 23 September 2007 07:30:03), Benct Philip >Jonsson wrote: >> Benct Philip Jonsson skrev: >> >> Nothing... >> >> Sorry about that one. The d*****d Gmail in the mobile played >> a trick on me! >> >> What I meant to say/ask was that as far as I know it is the >> case for all the national states of Europe that the name of >> the country and the name of the national language are >> derived from the same base. Even where several languages >> share a single standard language, as with English and German >> the language name shares its base with one of the countries >> where it is spoken. >> >> The one real exception I can think of is España-- >> castellano, and even there the language is called español >> more often than not, at least outside Spain where the >> sensibilities of speakers of other languages of Spain >> isn't an issue. >> >> Even outside Europe exceptions are rare, except for Africa >> where ethnic boundaries and old colonial boundaries seldom >> coincide. Urdu in Pakistan and Hebrew in Israel are >> transparent special cases. >> >> The only exception I can think of which resembles my Borgonze- >> Rhodray case is Iran--Farsi, where the name of the language >> is derived from the name of a dominant part of the country. >> >> Can anyone think of other pertinent examples? >> >> /BP 8^)> >> -- >> Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot >> (Max Weinreich) > >There are a couple of examples if you're not just looking for native names. >Neither of the two English names for the country in which Amsterdam is >located - "The Netherlands" and "Holland" - correspond to the English name of >the language spoken there ("Dutch", which most likely comes from the >word "Deutsch", or German). AFAICR, whilst in French and Spanish the word >for "Netherlands" means "Low Countries" (as does "Netherlands"), the word for >the language is based on "Holland" (holandais/holandés). An old word for >Lithuanian (or is it Latvian?) in English is "Lettish". > >Slightly more jocular/informal examples might be the words "Teutonic" >(referring to Germany) in English and "luso" in Spanish, which >means "Portuguese" and comes from the old Roman name of the province, >Lusitania. > >Another example where the native name of a language does not correspond with >the native name of the country where it is spoken is Afghanistan, where the >languages spoken are Dari and Pashto. And of course there is India, where the >name for the country in all the European languages I know of is derived >from "Hindi" or "Hindu" (meaning the Hindu language or an Indian person, and >also referring to the Indus River), but where Hindi is not by any means the >language of all of the population, and which uses the official name "Bharat" >for the country. (Note however the expression "Jai Hind", "Long live India".) > >Going back a bit in history, the names "England"/"English" are interesting >because although they originate from Engla-land, "the land of the Angles", >most of the people, called collectively Anglo-Saxons, who gave the name to >the country were in fact not Angles but Saxons, and (perhaps because of this) >the most powerful part of the country has almost always tended to be the >South, where the East, West, and South Saxons (who gave their names to the >kingdoms - later counties or duchies - of Essex, Wessex and Sussex) settled. >There also used to be a county of "Middlesex", which you will still >sometimes see on postal addresses (most often as "Middx"), but whose >existence as an Anglo-Saxon kingdom is disputed. AFAIK there was never >any "Norsex" or Kingdom of the North Saxons, though there are Norfolk >(North-folk) and Suffolk (South Folk), old divisions of the East Anglian >kingdom which became counties. > >And of course there are the names "Wales" and "Welsh", which come from an old >Anglo-Saxon word for "foreigner" and are rejected by the inhabitants of that >country in favour of the terms "Cymri" /kumri/ and "cymraeg" /cumrEg/. Also >in that category are the reflexes of "Gaelic", used primarily in English for >the Scots Gaelic language but which also refers, in its native tongue, to >Irish, a language for which the English term was formerly "Erse". > >Finally, who could forget "(lingua) latina" "Latin (language)", named after >the region of which Ancient Rome was a part, and "Senatus Populusque >Romanus", "Pax Romana" etc. Rome of course later gave its name to the Holy >Roman Empire (which one famous wag described as "neither holy, nor Roman, nor >an empire"), Romania/Rumania, and the Byzantine Empire, which was known >as "Kingdom of the Romans" (and its habitants as "Romans") in their native >language, Greek and, IIRC, also in Arabic. > >HTH > >Jeff >-- >"Please understand that there are small >European principalities devoted to debating >Tcl vs. Perl as a tourist attraction." > > -- Cameron Laird

From:	Dr. Peter E. Tarlow <tourism@...>
Date:	Sunday, September 23, 2007, 10:55