this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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chapotraphouse

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https://www.reuters.com/article/world/ukraine-passes-language-law-irritating-president-elect-and-russia-idUSKCN1S110Y/

Literally the whole media switched spelling around this time.

iRaq and iRan are silly but the "Kyiv" stuff is different.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Chinese names for countries are cool. They try to be nice about it when there's more than one set of characters for something that sounds right (America is from the characters for "beautiful country" instead of "mildew country"), but when that's not possible you get really silly like Portugal being named "grape tooth." (There are also countries with literal translations.)

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (9 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't know why Greece (Hope Wax) is labelled Hope December

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

the La (腊) in Xi La (Greece or Hellas) can mean wax but it also refers to method of food preservation in China called Waxing where meat is dried and cured to have a waxy exterior, this is commonly done in the winter and hence the 12th month in the Chinese Lunar calender (actually usually in January rather than December) is sometimes colloquially called the wax month

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

很有意思,谢谢

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I hope that's real because it's fucking hilarious 🤣

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It is.

Kosovo is {科索沃|kē suǒ wò}

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I mean they probably tried to be nice, how else they would have to call it, nato-puppet-ethnically-cleansed-mafia-land or what?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

B I L L Y T I M E

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

germany
moral land

what the fuck

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

These are literal translations of names mostly chosen for sounding at least a little like the country's name in its own language

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Deutschland

Deutsch

De

{德|dé} (meaning moral or virtuous)

{德国|déguó}

[–] kzhe 7 points 1 month ago

I assume it's because it's like "de" or something i.e. Deutschland

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

They should really fucking change it for Germany. Also Sweden, didn't they heard about Poltava? And France after what happened after last election. And UK ffs.

Bulgaria is spot on though, their insurance companies are fucked up.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Tbf that's a literal translation of Belarus. It means 'white Russia'.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

We call it that in Norwegian as well

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Red Wheat sounds like the title of a kickass video game, a fantastic western novel, a decent 80's action movie and an absolutely horrendous metaphor for menstruation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

name for sweden sounds like they're still kinda mad about a very odd war that happened at some point