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World map from China, first time I see this projection (files.catbox.moe)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Having a name that is an approximation of the native one is perfectly understandable, which it looks like all the Chinese examples are, but none of the ones I listed are at all. Zongo is probably how China would be transliterated in English, and Nippon and Dutchland are easy to say. of course, English has that problem of calling other people Dutch causing an issue with that last one. Sticking to the names that Portuguese explorers gave is where a lot of the weird English ones come from.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Zongo is probably how China would be transliterated in English,

Zh is a J sound. It would be more like Jong Go

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Ah, yeah, that sounds better.

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

Nonetheless, there are examples of other languages besides English messing up the name of another country. Practically no two languages call Germany or The Netherlands the same thing, and almost none call them what they call themselves. I'm not making a value judgement about this phenomenon, just saying that it's not unique to English.

For another example, Japan's name comes from the Chinese word spelled with the same characters, but it's pronounced completely differently in Chinese.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Oh, sure, other languages do the same. It's annoying when anyone does it!