Transliterated country names into Chinese Language use pre-existing characters that already has its own meaning, therefore native Chinese speakers have a subconcious impression based on country names.
Example:
USA 美国 - 美 mean "beautiful" and 国 is "country"
So when my mom told me we were going to move to 美国, I, having never heard of anything about this country ever before, already had a positive impression of this "beautiful country".
France 法国 - 法 is one of the characters in 法律, law, so my first impression was, that these people probably have very strict rules and are law abiders
Britain/UK 英国 - 英 is one of the characters in 英雄, hero, so I just imagine British people like to help the innocent (this was before I learned about British colonialism lol, but I guess the 英 character still sort of partly relevent, as in they view themselves as "hero", aka: they interfere with other's countries bussiness a lot)
Germany 德国 - 德 is one of the characters in 道德, morality, so I had a subconcious belief they were very moral people. I didn't even know about the holocaust yet. 💀
Mexico 墨西哥 - 墨 is ink, 哥 is brother, so I though these are dark-skinned people that value brotherhood, masculinity.
South Korea 韩国 - 韩 sounds like 寒, so I just assumed it was a very cold country (isn't it tho?) Oh BTW, I was in South Korea... in the airport waiting for a transfer flight, never actually entered the country for real, that was 15 years go, the closest I've ever been to South Korea. Wanna go there someday, see the snow (cuz its a 寒国 "cold country" remember xD)
Japan 日本 - 日 is the sun, so I thought it gets like very sunny or something
These are the few on the top of my head. You can mention any below and I can tell you what my "subconcious feel" about the name is.
From what I read, a lot of these character choices (with the exception of Japan/Korea, they might have chosen those themselves) were made with the dual considerations of being similar sounding to the country name and the hanzi's meaning being flattering to the people of the country. And there are plenty of country names that are entirely phonetic (e.g. 意大利 for Italy or 澳大利亚 for Australia, Mexico, etc.).
Japan definitely chose it themselves. Before, the country was known as 倭国, with 倭 meaning something like harmonic but also submissive. Obviously one Tennō wasn't too happy about that and began signing letters to the Chinese court as "from the ruler of the land where the sun rises (日本) to the ruler of the land where the sun sets." So Japan became the "Land of the rising sun" (well literally it's the "sun's origin").
This is fascinating! Thank you for posting
The Netherlands (荷蘭), obviously is something with flowers. Google translate tells me 蘭 means "orchid". Also the sound "Hèlán" is fairly close to how the natives pronounce "Nederland".
'Holland' as some use for 'the Netherlands' is a bit of a pars pro toto as Holland is a province of the Netherlands. Is just the most well known part, and more easier pronounce with one/two syllables (depending on how well you're articulating).
Thanks for the etymology btw I was curious about it when I read the op.
This is also a huge problem when deciding how to write foreign names into Chinese: imagine the difference in public perspective when reading a news article about some country leader named "Prime Minister Sleepy Swamp Pit" vs "Prime Minister Strong Universe Zephyr" or whatever.
I Remember a decade ago i read a post on blogpost on exactly this
I wasted thirty minutes to search but I didn't find it, but it was something like Michael Jackson was shocked to learn during his First tour in mainland china that the locals gave him the Hanzi 迈克尔·杰克逊 where the last character means "inferior" or something like that, instead in Taiwan the locals chose 麦可·杰克森 which has a better meaning.
When I studied Chinese our teachers basically took the first two letters of every student's first & last names and associated it with pinyin & corresponding Chinese characters. So my Chinese name became Horse Angel.
Glorious Leader Tiny Sweat Hands
I mean the Mexico one doesn't sound too terribly far off from reality lol. Neither does Britain, with the the last sentence especially.
In all seriousness, this is a very interesting post. It's very cool to see what other languages call other countries and what it means.
Also there's 非洲 - meaning the "non-continent" directly translated. It's what they've named Africa.
Interestingly I've heard Japan called "the land of the rising sun" due to being one of the farthest east on the Mercator projection which despite its few features and many flaws is often considered the standard of map projections.
The characters for Japan literally mean sun and origin. And has been in use since the 8th century. So the Mercator projection has nothing to do with that. The origin of "land of the rising sun" is because Japan is East of China and the sun rises in the east.
For sure, and the Pacific Ocean is vast. So you go East and find Japan, and then for a long time it's understood that there's nothing off Japan's east coast, and they're the eastern edge of the world. So they're the land of the rising sun. Seems fair!
We do call it that in German as well, I mean, not colloquially, but it's used in literature or poetry.
There are Mercator projection maps with the Americas in the center and Japan on the left edge of the map.
Most maps, regardless of projection used, cut the world through the pacific because there’s barely any land. World maps centering the Americas cut through Central Asia, making them less practical for many applications.
All map projections try to flatten a curved surface. That only works with cuts and distortions. They are all trade-offs between conserving area, angles, shapes, distances. It’s impossible to to all of that.
Better than "dipshit".
Most of those do make sense from a 19th century or older viewpoint, so I suspect that it's not just a coincidence that those words were linked to those countries. If it was only one or a few with an ulterior meaning, then I could believe it to be a coincidence, but it's most of them. I more believe that there were chinese word artists at work who looked for words with both a fitting meaning and the right sound.
When it comes to nature, the USA is a really beautiful country. France gave the world the Code Napoléon, which is one of the most influential evolutions in law systems. Britain's success in it's colonies and in the industrial revolution was very often based on the endeavours of individuals, ie heroes. Northern Germans are sticklers for following rules, politeness etc (which was back then viewed very positively by others, but has since become a bit tainted because an attitude of the law is the law will often lead to inhumanity). Mexico: not a clue. Korea: I just have vague guesses. Japan, when seen from northern China, is where the sun rises.
Interesting. In Japanese, we have the concept of ateji, where we just put Chinese characters for the sound so we just know not to take the meanings so literally. But we do tend to pick nice or neutral-sounding characters. i.e. we wouldn't use characters like 死 or 糞 for the sound lol. This is the same for peoples' names.
I'ma hold off till yalls stop it with the outrageous political tourist vetting.
I'm not a Trump fan. Any review of my socials will reveal some pretty 'strident criticism'. Do you still recommend I chance losing 5k to 10k of bookings and weeks of leave on the chance I'll get detained and deported?
I already cancelled my Hawaii trip in Feb and my trip to Miami in April.
Interesting, Japan does a similar thing I think and the US is 米国 meaning rice country. Which sort of makes sense since the US has always had a huge agricultural / grain surplus. I wonder if the japanese think / know we're fat because of the name.
Also england/ UK is the same 英国 as above so maybe they learned about them from the Chinese whereas they independently learned about the US and gave it a different name.
米国 is because of ateji, not agriculture. 米 is the second character of 亜米利加 -- an old transliteration of "a-me-ri-ka" as kanji. 亜 is the shorthand for Asia (亜細亜); the second character 米 is used as the shorthand for America. 米 is both the country (USA) and the continents -- e.g. 北米 and 南米 are sometimes used for North and South America, respectively, while 米軍 is the US military.
Katakana has mostly replaced kanji transliteration of foreign words in modern Japanese, but some uses like the 米 shorthand persist.
I wonder why it became beikoku instead of mekoku when it got shortened to 米国. I'm glad language learners at least don't have to deal with ateji anymore. What a nightmare.
Lmfao, pretty sure that's also the Chinese Nationalists' internet term for it
Do Switzerland!
Literally my mind just go straight to 瑞士糖 (the first 2 characters, 瑞士, is Switzerland), so a place with a lot of candy
Nice. The Chinese were on point with the naming. One sign is even a cross!
YouTube Video on this topic with some more details. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uzqOWFlJOA
Kind of ironic that we named the western countries with nice words and got invaded instead
美國 can be very 美, politics aside
Time Square and the surrounding area is cool, although it make me anxious as fuck since I'm an introvert and because 嗰時咁細個喺外國，英語當時亦唔係幾好, so I kinda have to stay very close to 父母 to feel safe, but its just amazing how so many people can fit in such a tiny island (Manhattan, that is)
唐人街 in 曼克頓 is a reminder that I'm not alone is this place, last I checked, there are 5 Million of us here, it's always a good reality check when faced with the constant news of political problems and the government constantly threatening to deport people.
My mom always said “唔洗怕，如果係排華唔會淨係趕你一個人” (You won't be the only one to be deported, we'd all be together) lmao
I remember 啱啱來到美國嗰時 we'd use the subway a lot, but when we cross from Booklyn, where we lived, to Manhattan, the subway goes above ground to cross the water separating the two 區 on a bridge. That was the coolest scenes, just crossing the bridge, looking outside of the window of the subway. This place is so big.
I remember in 廣州, 住喺嗰啲樓，the apartment unit was 好窄好邋遢
嗰時喺布碌崙租嘅個間單位 (its a townhouse in suburban area, not a apartment building)，雖然亦係覺得好窄，但係覺得好似比較新，現代，like... it's just 睇落去好好多，睇落去順眼 know what I mean?
There are just so many cool places like there's 好多公園 and 好多樹 where 廣州到冇咁多 greenery，空氣冇咁好
It really is a beautiful country, but then you have these politicians trying to ruin it... and also um... 你知啦... foreign policy... 👀
I really like the way you wrote this comment with the languages intermingled, with a touch of translation and the rest left to context.
That's just an average Hongkonger message lol
How bout China 中国
That its in the middle of the world... which doesn't exactly make sense once I started realizing the fact that the Earth is round, so there is not really a "center" like a hypothetical flat earth would have.
Isn't 国 more like land, country or kingdom?
So less to do with being the centre of the world and more like the central region of a nation, broadly speaking. But also I'm not a native speaker so I'm not trying to argue against your observation, just looking for clarification.
I've heard it referred to as The Middle Kingdom, so this makes sense
They didn't know the earth was round when they named their own country (a looooong time ago). They really thought it was the center of the universe and their kings were sent from heaven
I don't doubt that, I'm just saying the name itself doesn't imply the centre of the world
The kingdom itself the centre of the world. OP meant that because it's called "Central Kingdom" or something, he imagined it to be at the center of the world.
Interesting post, thanks for sharing
Do more! Do more! :D
Paging Dr Chomsky.
What about Canada?
They just picked some characters that sound like 'Canada'. It probably means something nonsensical like Greedy Purple Turtle
Unfortunately, it means even less than Greedy Purple Turtle.
加 - add 拿 - grasp 大 - big
All Canadians (at least of a certain age) have learned the etymology of the word Canada from this heritage minute that used to be played all the time on TV: https://youtu.be/nfKr-D5VDBU
God, Canada is fucking awesome. I've never even been, but everything I've heard and seen about it just makes it seem insane.
I know most of the jokes on South Park are fictional, but my God if seeing this didn't remind me of the canadians' "Box of Faith" from that one episode.
Part of our national identity is not being the USA. We're like the bratty younger sister that thinks we're better, but is cut from the same cloth. Now we are getting warmer and warmer weather, that used to belong to the States. Our population hugs the Southern border, but the area with nice weather will expand as will our value and capabilities.
Ah well hopefully someone who knows the meaning can come share.
What about Norway?
The Chinese characters for Norway didn't have much of a impression, maybe because I first learned of Norway like very late into teenage years when I already used English as primary language. I already have "they treat prisoners very well" and "social welfare" into my mind, before I looked up the characters for Norway.
What’s Bulgaria? This is what translate spits out: 保加利亚
Afaik, some characters do have meanings but are sometimes used for their readings, so their literal meaning is gibberish.
保 — to protect — bǎo
加 — to add — jiā
利 — benefit, profit — lì
亚 — Asia / secondary — yà
I think this is part of why some people end up with weird gibberish tattoos when they translate things literally, because some made up alphabets try to map Western letters to some Chinese characters, but it doesn't work that way.
I attempted to learn Mandarin in 2019, at first with Duolingo with an aim to find more robust resources along the way. I had to stop because I couldn't distinguish among the characters. I've looked for resources for learning Mandarin in braille but can't find any.
I really enjoyed what I did learn though. It's such a laconic language, and I've nabbed some grammar here and there for one of my conlangs.
Makes sense, since Japan's name in Japanese means "sun's origin," a reference to the fact that the sun rises there before anywhere else in Asia. What does 本 mean in this context?
本 is typically a more formal way of expressing "this," but in this context it's closer to "source" or "origin."
Japan's name uses the same characters in both Chinese and Japanese, but is pronounced differently: "ri ben" in Chinese and "ni hon" in Japanese.
Czech Republic?
Edit: And also Czechslovakia, and Slovakia, maybe. I'd love to hear whether there is connection between the names.
I've always found it mildly xenophobic that basically 0 nations refer to any other nation by what that nation refers to itself as.
Xenophobic is a bit much. These names were mostly probably formed out of ignorance, and once a name is established it's hard to change.
Yeah, how is that xenophobic?
I guess foggy there means it’s “mildly” xenophobic when you don’t bother to get someone’s name right.
A lot of names got changed during immigration due to wilful xenophobia last century, for example. Xenakis to Johnson, etc.
Structural linguistic problems like not having notation for foreign pronunciation isn’t necessarily xenophobic, but failure to address the problem might be.
Hi everyone, I'm from the great nation known as the Central Nation (中国, China) of Asia, known officially as, the Central Hua-People's Republic (中 华人民 共和国, PRC)
🤣
Actually that kinds sound a bit "Ancient" and cooler.
Or do I use the Pinyin pronunciation instead of translating?
Hi everyone, I'm from Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó. (Good luck pronouncing that with the tones correct 😉)
Interesting thought
I don't think the other nations are too bothered by it in most cases.
The country that comes to mind first is Germany. They call it Deutschland. I never looked into why we as English speakers call it "Germany". I just do it because everyone else does.
I haven't heard of Germans getting upset about it. If they were legitimately offended, I'd start calling it Deutschland, no problem.
The real issues come in when there's a historical context. Like, if the name contains a slur for the people in that nation. Or if you mix up the names of neighbouring Balkan countries.
IIRC Germany > Germania > Allemania > Alemanic tribes, people who lived in Germany. France calls them "Allemagne" as well, you can see where that came from.
Germany used to be a collection of tribes and depending on which of these tribes the countries around them had contact with that's the name that stuck in that language.
Yeah, many Western European maps still refer to it as Alemania, which in beer contexts is quite a hoot :)
It's been changing a bit with British English in a few places. I remember when the Netherlands was more commonly referred to as Holland, which is no longer that common at all anymore.
Netherlands isn't exact with the native name being Nederlands and is instead more of a "sound-a-like" translation as if we had it spelled in it's native way you know the lamen would instead just call it the Nedderlands.
Nederland and Netherlands both mean low country? Low as in Lower Rhine. It has an origin in the Roman name "Germania Inferior".
Nether means low in English and Nederlands is mostly below sea level, but I wonder why it's plural?
The late medieval Burgundians will have been the first to call it the low countries (les pays-bas). They acquired these territories (various duchies and counties in Belgium + Netherlands + bits around it) over time, not as one piece of land. All those different territories had different laws and traditions, different crown laws (HRE or kingdom of France), different local charters, ... It wasn't one country, so plural makes sense.
It used to be the Kingdom of the United Netherlands. I mean, it still is, but now that refers to everything including Curaçao, Saint Martin, etc
India is 'stamp limit'?
Maybe Xuanzang was annoyed by how expensive it was to send letters home.
Israel?
Neutral, 以色列 doesn't exactly make me think of anything in particular. I also learned about isrsel in the English language before I looked for the transliterated characters, so maybe that subconcious thing didn't apply.
Literally dodged a bullet there either way.
What about Brazil? What impression did you have?
Mexico is actually right
Only if you are racist
Racism is when dark skin and strong family values
Racism is believing that race has anything to do with cultural things
It's you who's treating "mexican" as a race. To me it's a nationality, which has everything to do with cultural things.
Is there an equivalent name for "the americas"? Its more like a region or whatever.
The continent of America is called 美洲, as in "the beautiful continent"
美洲
洲 is for continent I think
北美洲 North America
南美洲 South America
a language might be a tool we use, but it absolutely shapes the way we see the world itself to a significant degree, even to the point where speakers of different languages might disagree on basic physical facts
eg: if you ask an english speaker how many fingers they have - they'll answer 10. but if you answer a polish speaker - they'll answer 20. polish makes little linguistic distinction between fingers, and how we call them, foot fingers
this is one example of many. i find it deeply fascinating and quite scary. it feels weird to realise that my understanding of the world is broadened and structured better thanks to the fact i use a language to describe it, but there might be things i'll never notice, or will always confuse, simply because the tool i use is not perfect, and yet, that is the basis through which i perceive the world
OP, what do the names for Brazil and Peru mean?
Now do US actor names. Or Chinese first names. Or street names
Also, sometimes the characters just make for the sound, not the meaning. Like deguo for Germany or bali for Paris
I don't even know much actor names.
But I think the first foreign name that comes to mind was 奧斑馬 (Obama) I don't think those are the correct characters of the transliterated name, but that's how I thought heard the adults said it, I think it was like 2012, right on election year and my mom was talking to like a friend/acquaintance, and Obama was talked about. But the 馬 immediately made imagine like: does this person like horse or like come from a family that has horses, then I think later I learned about presidents in school and learned the English version of Obama and I was like: oh it sounds the same as the 奧斑馬 the adults talked about, its the same guy right?
But does Obama like horses tho? 🤔 (I was so silly as a kid lol)
Street names, there is one memorable one in Philly Chinatown called Race St or 禮士街 on the sign (it's in both languages on the street sign near the Chinatown Area).
In Cantonese, 禮士 sounds too close to 瀨屎 (to shit yourself) lmfao I always tell my dad "hey it's the 瀨屎 street" and laugh when I see that street sign, yes I'm that immature (I mean I was still a minor when I was first in the Philly Chinatown, you know, jokes like these was nornal)
As for Chinese first names, yes I joked about my parents names a lot, but unfortunately I can't share those jokes since its personal info.
I don't really have memories of names of classmates when I was in school in China, like who cares about classmates. None of the nameswere memorable or that I can make a joke out of.
As a teen, I noticed that Xi Jinping, the Xi in Mandarin sounds too close to 屎 in Cantonese so me and my brother would just call him 屎精評 in Cantonese which sounds almost the same as Xi Jinping in Mandarin. 屎 for shit and 精 is a character in 妖精 monster, and 評 is commentary, so Xi Jinping is a monster that shits itself while public speaking. xD
Your comment reminded me of a road in a suburb in Ohio I once heard about called Sharts Road. For context, in American slang to shart is to fail to merely flatulate. Every once in a while I look up if that town ever noticed and changed it. And well…
🇮🇳
In China I replied "New Zealand" when someone asked where I was from. Complete blank stare... A friend of mine said something like "Nova Zelandia" which was immediately understood
Sorry man you are probably the only one in a billion native Chinese speakers that make those connections directly, please don't make it sound like your personal shower thought apply to everyone else.
Normal native Chinese speakers learned immediately that characters used in every single country names are, as defined by "transliterate", purely based on pronunciation, and have absolutely nothing to do with the meaning of the characters.
So native speakers are trained to, and very good at, completely ignore the meaning of separate characters in transliterate words.
I personally have never ever think of American as "beautiful", or France as "lawful" since childhood. Thinking South Korea as "cold" just because "韓" sounds like "寒" is definitely the most hilariously ridiculous connection that I have every heard in my entire life.
I have also never heard of any native Chinese speaker playing these mental gymnastics for country name, or any transliterate word. Never ever read a single sentence that put Mexico and dark skinned people together, or any of those ridiculous examples. Not in real life, not on TV, not in the books, or on the vast Internet.
Note that there IS some strong propaganda going on when government choose the characters of official transliterate country names. Also there are lots of researches around this subject about how these characters affect people's impression of various things.
It's just that in real life, the effect of these country name propaganda on people's impression, is just miniscule and purely subconscious. So in my entire life I have never seen anyone, any material, that speak those impression out loud, so directly, exactly as government wanted, like this shower thought did.
Either OP is a truly unique one in a billion snowflake, or this whole thing is yet another AI generated hallucinating horse shit. That Mexico impression is so, so hilarious that I start to admire the creativity in this post.
Regardless, it's too late now. This misinformation has already reached maybe thousands of people, and they are all curious about what their country's characters mean in Chinese. They will never see my comment, and continue to live with this ridiculous impression of general Chinese speakers, for the rest of their life.
Bro, not everything is AI, I'm just an introvert that think about things alot.
And it's not like I seriously think that Japan magically hides the sun inside their island because if the 日 character, its a subconcious impression because my brian automatically make that connection, so its like I just make jokes to my dad like "is it really warn in Japan"
Its kinda like "Iceland", like: "hey I bet there's a lot of ice on that island"
If I were still in China, and like someone were to ask me about my impressions of a country, and I don't have any info, I'd just say that I've never been there and never heard of anything about it, not actually say outloud the subconcious feeling about the name of the country.
Also, kid-me think really weirdly.
Also how the fuck is it misinformation?
If I said: "Native English speakers probably think Iceland has a lot of Ice" or "Native English speakers probably think Greenland has a lot of grass", is that really "misinformation"
Jesus fucking christ, why is every lemming so fucking hostile for no fucking reason.
We're not all hostile, but that one sure is acting like you pissed in his cereal.
PsychoWiz once told me that the scientific names of organisms are just letters and sounds, and have no bearing on physical traits or where the species was found. They hate linguistics and call it witchcraft.
Why is this is all too common?
So many commenters come at you like you owe them money for the stupidest inconsequential shit on Earth.
"Well ackshually..." stfu it was a joke, a subjective observation, someone sharing their experience, a different take. Whatever you want to call it, we don't need your lemmsplaining when you missed the point, random commenter on a mission.
We have some serious cynics who think everyone else is stupid who deserve the disrespect and it really irks me.
/rant
I like what you are doing with this post and appreciate it.
I hope you'll see the contradiction between these lines someday. If you know that you think "weirdly" as a kid, that, by definition, means those ideas don't apply to other native speakers, does that make sense to you?
So when your title make it sounds like some verified scientific research:
That's what I would call misinformation. And that's what rub me the wrong way.
Now from your reply I can see why you phrase your title that way. It's not even for clicks. You really do believe the equation:
because: kid-you think…
and: You are a native speaker
equals: Native speakers think…
I wouldn't mind if what kid-you think is some what close to reality.
I won't even bat an eye if your title says it's just your personal ideas from childhood. I'll 100% find it adorable.
What I couldn't stand is that you put your childish ideas, which is light years away from how others think, into every native speakers mouth, make it sounds like some interesting facts about Chinese people, and people are buying it without second thought. That make me feel violated, and my whole cultural being misrepresented.
You are still free to prove me wrong, that the majority native speakers do have these impression around country names, by start doing some research now. But we already know what makes you make those generalized claim in the post title, is all just kid's weird ideas.
Side note: There's one single comment in the whole thread that disagree with you and you are like:
Maybe online forum is not for you.
You seem mad at something...
I hate people state things about me and my people that's ridiculously untrue as facts. Did I not make it clear in previous comment?
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. While I agree there is a lot of hostility on online forms, I hope you will work with us to make Lemmy less hostile and more welcoming.
Bro it ain't that serious man
I think your perspective and critique is valid and interesting but it can be helpful to assume the best in people, especially when giving a critique.
In my experience, kids (and adults) love the fact that Iceland is greener and Greenland is icier, so it's not surprising to me that other languages have similar odd names. It's not surprising to me that some people would have a biased opinion of a place due to an odd name, but like Iceland I expect many know much more about a country than just the name and thus the name doesn't hold much weight.
Do you not know what subconscious means?
Lol man I major in psychology and I guarantee you these are not how subconscious work at all, and that's part of the reason why I find this post ridiculous:
Subconscious is all just very vague feelings, good/bad, like/dislike, warm/cold. "people probably have very strict rules and are law abiders" is way too explicit as a subconscious thought.
And you are not supposed to tell what you subconsciously think anyway. That's why it is called "sub"conscious. They'll only surface through well conducted psychology research and statistics.
If a researcher ask you "what are you thinking subconsciously?", it would be a pretty stupid psychology research.