For example the word for Polish in Hungarian is Lengyel (person and language both) and the country is called Lengyelország (Polish country) while Italian is called Olasz and Italy is called Olaszország. In older times Romanians were called Oláh (from “Vlach” or “V**olá**c**h**”) and the first union of Moldova and Wallachia was called “Oláhország” in newspapers. Slovakians were called “Tót” but the country never had this name. Nowadays “Tót” is used to reffer to the Slovak minority in Hungary like Békéscsaba’s Slovaks. Also a rare and not very used exonym “Rác” was sometimes used for Serbs.
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Do you have anything like this?
23 comments
I feel that whenever Poles mention that Italy is Włochy and Italians are Włosi they pop a vein. Same etymology as your Olaszország. From Germanic Walhaz that turned into Vlach. Same root as in Wales, Walloonia, Wallachia and so on.
Hungary is Węgry but it’s the same word basically, just years of separation and language evolution made it look totally unrelated. Hungarians are called Węgrzy.
“Niemcy” for Germany is pretty universal for all Slavs, not just Poles, but it’s still interesting (from Niemy – mute, as opposed to Slovo – word).
“Włochy” for Italy, also named after the Vlachs, though people often believe it comes from “włosy” or “włochaty” (hair/hairy), which is untrue.
“Węgry” for Hungary, which came from “Ungrī”, same etymology as Hungary, but rather different than Magyarország.
“Gruzja” for Georgia, same in other Slavic languages I believe. Apparently it comes form an old Indo-European word for “wolf”. Different from both Georgia and Sakartvelo.
Nothing else that’s super unique comes to mind, other names are generally similar to what you find in other languages with some variations.
There’s a few random ones in Irish, mostly for places we had historical connections with:
– “Bhreatain Bheag” (Little Britain) for Wales.
– “Iorua” for Norway, “Sualainn” for Sweden, and “Na Scígirí” for the Faroe Islands.
– “Inis Tuile” used to be the old name for Iceland, literally “Thule Island” (like the land from Ancient Greek mythology).
– “Lochlann” (Land of lakes) for Scandinavia, and Lochlannach for Scandinavians (although this also can mean “foreigner” in general).
– “Eilvéis” for Switzerland, from “Helvetia”.
– “Talamh an Éisc” (the Land of Fish) for Newfoundland.
Rumantsch has some interesting exonyms for places that either used to be Rumantsch-speaking in the middle ages or were of particular importance to the Bishopric of Chur.
– The abbey of Einsiedeln (“hermitage”) is called *Nossadunnaun* (“our Lady”)
– The Walensee and its port Walenstad (“Welsh lake” and “Welsh shore”) are *Laj Rivaun* and *Riva* (“Shore’s lake” and “Shore”). “Welsh” means non-German in this context.
– Feldkirch (“church on the field”) in Austria is called *Sogn Pieder* (“St. Peter”). The original settlement was around that church, but today’s actual Feldkirch is some hundred meters to the left.
– Andermatt (“on the meadow”) is *Ursera* (“Bear-land”).
In some cases, this seems to have to do with the original Romance population leaving the settlement and later Allamans re-settling in the general area and using their own names.
In French, Germany is called *Allemagne*, coming a long way from the Latin name of the Germanic tribes called *Alamani.* This exonym is shared at least with Spanish: *Alemania.*
*The Netherlands* are called *Pays-Bas*, which is the literal translation for the original name of the country, ie “low lands”.
In Italian, we call Germany “Germania”, but the inhabitants are… “Tedeschi”, from “theodisce”, “people’s language” (because Germans couldn’t speak Latin, either Imperial or Vulgar). While, yes, we do have a word that’s closer to other languages, “germani”, that one’s for either male ducks or your own full-blood brothers, with the closest it gets to a population being the name given to the barbarians that used to live in the general area between modern-day Denmark and modern-day Poland.
Guatemalans, much unlike all its neighbours, are called “Guatemaltechi”, as if they were an ancient Mesoamerican civilisation (since the “-techi” suffix is usually used to transliterate the “-tech” suffix in the native populations in Central America).
One way to call people from Sri Lanka, aside from the more prosaic “srilanchesi”, is “cingalesi”, which is the result of a long game of telephone from “Siw Hala” to “Sinhala”, forward to “Cinhala” and finally “Cingala”.
Russia got it’s name from the Rus people. This is also the case in Russian, Россиа (Rassiya). It originates from the Kievan Rus, the Middle Age East Slavic kingdom. Ukraine, Russia and Belarus trace roots there.
In Finnish the Rus was formed to _Ruotsi_.
The kicker: Russia in Finnish is _Venäjä_. The nation the Rus gave the name to in Finnish is Sweden. As Rus were Norse (aka Viking) people from the area of modern Sweden. They ended up at Kiev by sailing down the rivers.
Others are:
Suomi – Finland. Only shared with Baltic nations, everyone else calls them by the Swedish name due to Swedish kingdom ruling modern Finnish territory.
Saksa – Germany. Shared with Estonian Saksamaa. Comes from the Saxons, with whom Baltic Finns had contact through Baltic trade.
Viro – Estonia. No idea.
Disclaimer: as with all languages, the roots are disputed and new info is unearthed all the time. There’s other theories too, some discredited nowadays.
I was first thinking there wouldn’t be any that are unique to Finnish, as Estonian usually has a similar one. For example, Sweden (Fin: *Ruotsi*, Est: *Rootsi*), or Russia (Fin: *Venäjä*, Est: *Venemaa*).
But then I realised that we call Estonia *Viro*, which I don’t think is used anywhere else. The name comes from a region of Estonia, Viru.
A lot has been said about Slavic languages here, but I’d also add that most European languages have the sound o in Rome, while, as far as I know, most Slavic languages have i/y there, so it’s more like Rim/Rym or some similar variation.
One thing that’s unique in Finnish, I think, is that we have several of these colloquial nicknames for people. They’re like an opposite to slurs, as you can use them in positive contexts or to just make your speech more playful. Common examples of these are “thaikku” for Thai, “brassi” for Brazilian, “aussi” for Australian. The last one is like the English “Aussie” of course, but I haven’t heard of the other expressions in other languages. You could also say “norski” for Norwegian or “italiaano” for Italian, but I’m not sure if they are still that positive.
Latvian has a bunch that’s not similar to other languages.
Krievija is Russia. Unclear why but a common theory is that it’s from krivichs (Кривичи), a Slavic tribal union that Baltic tribes had contact with.
Vācija is Germany. I think Lithuanian calls Germany something similar. The name Vācija is a contrast from the other common European roots like Germania/Niemcy/Deutsch.
Somija is Finland, as an adaptation of the Finnish native name Suomi. Not that unique but most languages use names closer to Finland than Suomi.
There probably is more but the most notable one is Beč instead of Vienna
So, in almost all European languages, the name for the capital of Austria reads Wien, Vienna, only South Slavic peoples, including non-Slavic Hungarians, say that the capital of Austria is Beč.
One of the “myths” related to the name Beč is that the word is of Hungarian origin, however, according to information from the Encyclopedia Britannica (1911 edition), it is a word of South Slavic origin that denotes the Avar fortress that was located in that place.
However, the absolute winners are the Slovenians who call Vienna – Dunaj, after the Danube river that flows through Vienna.
Lot of German towns and locations have a czech name.
Sometimes the resemblance is clearly there, like München/Mnichov or Leipzig/Lipsko.
Sometimes it requires a bit of thinking, e.g. Aachen/Cáchy or Görlitz/Zhořelec.
Sometimes it’s translation, like Weiswasser/Bílá Voda or Königsberg/Královec.
And sometimes it’s its own variant, like Spreewald/Blata or Oranienburg/Bocov.
Of course it goes both ways, lot of czech towns have a german name.
I like how Portugal is called in Swahili.
Countries, in Swahili, start with U-¹ (or W- in front of a vowel), so you have Ufaransa (France), Wamerika (USA), Uingereza (England)…
Well, Portugal is called Ureno. Can you guess why?
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The relation between Portuguese and Swahili speakers is about 500 years old. And, well, when Portuguese where on the Swahili they said they were coming from the «Reino de Portugal e dos Algarves». Swahili people might have thought it was too long and shortenend it to Reino, that in Portuguese heard by a Swahili (and by me even) sound Reno and applied the U-. Hence, Ureno.
^ Initial U- marks what class a noun is. Nominal classes are like genders. Well, I’d say genders are a kind of nominal classes. U- class is the class where abstract nouns are. Kireno is the language, mreno (sing.) / wareno (pl.) is the people and… what is the abstraction of a group of people with a language? Their country. Ureno.
We use different words to mean Greek minority in Turkey and Greeks in general.
In Turkey, the Greek minority are often called as “Rum”. It meant “Roman” in Medieval Turkish, due to the Byzantines self-identifying themselves as Romans.
In Turkish, we use the words “Yunan” to mean “Greek” and “Yunanistan” to mean “Greece”.
For other minorities living in Turkey, we don’t have such a distinct word.
There are many slovenian names for italian and austrian cities, but the ones that stand out are Benetke = Venice, Rim = Rome, Tržič = Monfalcone, Trst = Trieste and for Austria Celovec= Klagenfurt, Beljak = Villach, Gradec = Graz, Solnograd(nobody calls it that anymore tho) = Salzburg and the best one, Dunaj = Vienna.
Its called Dunaj after the Danube that runs through it, and we are the only ones to call it that. Croatia is also quite unique with Beč, but that has origins in the old hungarian name for Vienna, Bècs.
Our name for Republic of Venice is “Mletačka republika”.
Venice as a city was called Mleci (Mletke) and Venetians are Mlečani.
It looks very different but it actually comes from Venetians.
Mleci ← Bneci ← Vьnetьci ← Veneti
The process is clear since Slovenians still call it Benetke (Beneška republika).
In Lithuanian
we call Poland Lenkija (similar to you)
Germany – Vokietija (unique afaik)
Montenegro – Juodkalnija (translation)
A couple of honourable mentions:
Old name for Belarus was Gudija
Finland – Suomija (same as in finnish)
Georgia – Sakartvelas (same as in georgian)
France – Prancūzija (in olden days there was no f in lithuanian so they were changed to p)
Romanian word for Germany is Germania but Germans are also called “nemți”, a slav word.
Same for Hungary, which is Ungaria, but Hungarians are both “unguri” and “maghiari”
The Netherlands is usually called Olanda (Holland)
Moldova is also called Basarabia, to differentiate from the province that is part of Romania
Wales is Tara Galilor (Land of the Gauls)
Switzerland is Elveția, from the latin Helvetica
In Swiss, the Netherlands are usually referred to as “Holland” rather than “Niederlande” (which is how the Germans and Austrians call it). I actually didn’t know until a few years ago that Holland was a province within the Netherlands. To me, “Holland” always meant the entire country.
Southern Germans and Swiss people sometimes refer to Liechtenstein as “ds’Ländle” (Germans) and “s’Ländli” (Swiss) respectively. It means “the small land/country”.
Just for some clarification:
The name “lengyel” for Polish people comes from the Lendians (Polish Lędzianie) a tribe of Lechitic (Polish speaking) people that were in direct contact with Hungarians and their tribal name was adopted for the whole nation.
The Serbian “rác” exonym comes from the name Raška, which was a medieval Serbian state.
The designation tót used to apply to almost every Western Slavic nation but in time it came to designate both Slovenes and Slovaks as the other nations around the Hungarians had more substantial cultural and political identities. The word itselt comes from the Germanic Gepids of the 5th century who possibly called themselves thuat, a cognate with the self designation of many Germans. Over time the Gepids were absorbed by the local Slavs but the name remained and was passed on to the Hungarians.
In spanish we call Germany Alemania
And in Basque
Netherlands Herbeherak
Terranova Ternua
And the cities in Basque also are very diferent
San Sebastián Donostia
Vitoria gazteiz
San Jean de luz Donibane-loitzune
San Jean pied de port Donibane-Garazi
Pamplona Iruña
Estella Lizarra
Rentería Orereta
…
Most Irish place names are similar to the English but there are some exceptions.
England – Sasana. Sasanach for people. Bearla for language.
Scotland – Albain. Albanach. Gaeilge na hAlban.
Wales – An Bhreathain Bheag. Breatnach. Breatnais
Netherlands – An Ísiltír. Ollannach. Ollainnis.
Norway – An Iorua. Ioruach. Ioruais.
Sweden – An tSualainn. Sualannach. Sualainis.
Switzerland – An Elvéis. Eilvéiseach.
Albain comes from the Scottish Gaelic for Alba, and Gaeilge na hAlban means Irish of Scotland. An Bhreathain Bheag means little Britain. The Welsh are essentially native Britons so in the Irish language they are still British. Modern Brits are referred to as “Sasanach”, the word comes from the word Saxon, relating to the Anglo-Saxons.
An Ísiltír means the lowland which is an appropriate name for the Netherlands. The term Ollannach comes from the word Holland in English.
I struggled to find anything about the name Iorua, all I could get was that it was a mispronunciation of the Old Norse word “Norðrvegr”
Sorry Sweden but I found absolutely nothing to explain your name.
Switzerland gets its name from the word Helvetica.
Edit : Fun fact I forgot to mention. Bearla used to be a derogatory word to refer to the English language. There are various translations but my personal favourite is “that shite”.