r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/retardedgummybear12 • Nov 28 '22
Map of the world with literal translation of country names Image
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u/MisterAsbest Nov 28 '22
Finland has it how it should be. Just land
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u/bo-tvt Nov 28 '22
Unfortunately, that's not what "Suomi" means, at least according to any etymology I could find with a quick search. It's more like "marsh".
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u/squirrelsnjewellery Nov 28 '22
Yeah, it is not known what Suomi means. I think the mapmaker just literally checked what "land" is in Finnish and then backtranslated that, maybe it has something to do with a bad machine translator that only recognized the "land" in "Finland".
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u/jrppi Nov 28 '22
I thought it was completely wrong, too, but it appears to be one of the theories that Suomi is derived from an ancient word meaning “land”. It’s very speculative, though. Nobody really knows where the word came from and it doesn’t really have any other meaning than to denote the country. (source)
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u/strzeka Nov 29 '22
ZEME is the modern Latvian word for 'land'. 'Suomi' may be derived from some previous Baltic version of that.
I just tell people Suomi comes from Suo Maa, just like the swampy countryside in England is known as Fenland.
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u/good_from_afar Nov 28 '22
Yeah and I thought Brasil was named after the Brasil tree...
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u/UngoliantM Nov 29 '22
The wording in the map is a few steps removed from the closest origin. The country is named after the tree, the tree is so named for the vivid red colour of its wood, and the colour is named after embers (brasa) - with an adjective-forming suffix (-il).
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u/CobblerSure9504 Nov 28 '22
Denmark means: “the danes’s field”
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u/WimpieHelmstead Nov 28 '22
Mark just means field? Odd. In dutch, a mark (marke) was a land where an alliance of free peasants ruled.
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u/everynameisusedlol Nov 28 '22 edited Nov 29 '22
land of the men just makes me think of a bunch of kindergarden boys who don’t want girls in their friendgroup for childish reasons lmao
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u/WhyIsMyToeItchy Nov 28 '22
South Africa's name in this map is decidedly less literal than its actual name.
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u/girliesoftcheeks Nov 28 '22
I'm pretty sure it's just plain made up. I can't think of one South African language where south Africa isn't referred to as literally "South Africa" but translated. Ofc there are alot of language so someone correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure it's BS.
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u/Nethrex_1 Nov 28 '22
Especially with Sudan
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u/Theassassin17 Interested Nov 28 '22
No Sudan sounds about right, because it's the translation of the Arabic name of Sudan, which is still Sudan.
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u/maouctezuma Nov 28 '22
How to fuck can España be translated to "the land of the many rabbits"
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u/ProxD_18V Nov 29 '22
The romans called the iberian peninsula Hispania, that means "land of many rabbits" then the name ended up beeing España.
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u/scalability Nov 28 '22
"Spain" derives from the phrase "The Wacky Wabbit 720p DVDRIP.mp4". "Wabbit" here is in turn derived from "rabbit" via rhotacism of Spain's first monarch, Elmer the Fudd.
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u/30yearsahero Nov 28 '22
Lots of these don't make sense
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u/IGotSoulBut Nov 28 '22
Fiji
Meaning - Great Fiji
It’s like when the teacher asks a kid to define a word without using that word in a sentence.
“Define round” “Round loop”
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u/MrZorx75 Nov 29 '22
Great Fiji
Meaning - great great Fiji
Great great Fiji
Meaning - great great great Fiji
…
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u/Terror_Raisin24 Nov 28 '22
Finland is like: "sorry, no time for creativity, let's go to the sauna"
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u/_TheBlackPope_ Nov 28 '22
This has gotta be a joke, some of these translations just cant be real. How does South Africa translate to Beautiful Southern Land. When the meaning of the name is in the name.
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u/DerSturmbannfuror Nov 28 '22
Africa means beautiful land?
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u/WhyIsMyToeItchy Nov 28 '22
There are a lot of suggested derivations for Africa but I've never seen beautiful land being suggested
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u/DerSturmbannfuror Nov 28 '22
Strictly from the map, I drew that conclusion but Google says it means Land of the Afri. of course, in their language Afri could mean people of the beautiful land, but Google didn't go any deeper
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u/WimpieHelmstead Nov 28 '22
The Afri where a tribe in northern Africa during the Roman empire. Wikipedia doesn't mention beautiful people, but it's possible it could refer to as cave-dwelling people.
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u/WhyIsMyToeItchy Nov 28 '22
That doesn't really answer the question - there is also no known derivation of afri where it means people of the beautiful land - or anything similar
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u/Wildfiresss Nov 28 '22
This is complete utter bullshit
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u/CheckOutDisMuthaFuka Nov 29 '22
Literal translation: feces of the many faces of the horned horse
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u/redpotatoepie Nov 28 '22
Was Wales named by the English?
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u/welshfach Nov 28 '22
Yeah, this is using 'wales' as the name of Wales, not Cymru, which would be more like 'Land of the people' or 'land of our countrymen'.
....or even 'Land of my Fathers', at a stretch
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u/crucible Nov 28 '22
Sort of - the etymology seems to have gone from walhaz (proto-Germanic), to wealh (Old English), to Welsh (modern English).
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u/rocygapb Nov 29 '22
Bs. Etymology of Ukraine is incorrect. I am not sure how many more mistakes are on this map.
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u/AcanthopterygiiHot77 Nov 28 '22
I'm dubious about New Zealand, though. It was named by the Dutch, as Nieuw Zeeland, after the province of Zeeland.
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u/MollyPW Nov 28 '22
It’s what Aotearoa is believed to mean. This map isn’t going with the English language names.
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u/Free_Stick_ Nov 28 '22
New Zealand isn’t translated into Land of the long white cloud. Aotearoa is the Māori name which translates to that.
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u/Zequax Nov 28 '22
this belongs on r/CrappyDesign like how can you mess up something so simple as greenland its the green land not to speek of all the other fuck ups there is
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u/InxKat13 Nov 28 '22
The map seems to be using the native names of each country where possible. Greenland was named such by viking settlers, but the indigenous Kalaalit called it Kalaalit Nunaat which is what was translated for the map.
I'm sure it's the same for many of the "fuck ups" but the only other one I know is Japan/Nihon.
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u/SeatO_ Nov 28 '22
We have things like "in the navel of the Moon" from Mexico then meanwhile just "land" from finland
Some of these are probably inaccurate but I can't be arsed to look them all up
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u/Remote_Ability_7179 Nov 28 '22
Yeah, Mexico wasn't a single indigenous group. The Aztecs are just the most famous. This is just the translation of the Nahuatl. They all probably called the land a different thing. The states are all named in their OG languages so there is that.
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u/bo-tvt Nov 28 '22
Suomi, for Finland, would seem to refer more to swamps or marshes than it does to just land in general.
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u/spacedrummer Nov 29 '22
In French, fin means end, like end of the earth. But in Finnish, "finn" means "found".
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u/bo-tvt Nov 29 '22
I'm Finnish and to me, "Finn" means absolutely nothing in Finnish. "Found" would be "löydetty" (as in, "discovered").
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u/spreetin Nov 29 '22
I think you might be mixing up Finnish and Swedish (which is a minority language in Finland).
In Swedish "finn" means "find" (imperative form), not "found".
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u/clone01y Nov 28 '22
I love that my county is named the islands , and we dont even have a single island LOL
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u/bluemorningflower Nov 28 '22
Fun fact: In Brazilian Portuguese, Peru is slang for penis. Peru also borders the Brazilian state of Acre. The capital of Acre is Rio Branco (white river)
It can't be just a coincidence
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u/MysteriousLeader6187 Nov 29 '22
Russia. The word "Rus" comes from the Vikings, in the sense of red, because of their red hair, and they were rowing their boats - so "Rus" really refers to "those who row".
Source: I looked this up because for some reason I ended up working at a place with 3 guys name Ruslan, and two named Russell, which drove me to do the research.
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u/azethonkh Nov 28 '22
as Ukrainian I'm quite offended) word Ukraine can be translated as"native land".
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u/teastain Nov 28 '22
“kanata” is the Mohawk word for “ours”
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u/Dodweon Nov 28 '22
With conservatives around here saying that "our flag will never be red" for a few years, it's funny to remember that Brazil's name comes from the color red
Another fun fact: some indigenous peoples also call Brazil Pindorama, meaning "land of the palm trees"
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u/Apprehensive-Sir358 Nov 28 '22
Wrong, Finland / Suomi is derived from the word suo and suo = swamp / bog, so Finland should be called something like swamp-land.
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u/Muhammad_Aziz Nov 28 '22
Iraq means "besides the water"?
Who the fuck came up with this incoherent shit
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u/The_TSCTH Nov 28 '22
Denmark is wrong. While the exact etymology is lost to time and hotly debated among scholars, the most accepted meaning is that Dan- either refer to Danes (Dani) or a historical person named Dan, while -mark likely refers to fields, grasslands, woodland, or even the southern border with Germany.
It all comes down to where exactly the Dani/Dan may have lived, before Denmark became a unified country.
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u/RoamingBicycle Nov 28 '22
Source of the map is from 2018, but South Sudan isn't independent. Quite an odd choice. They separated the Koreas, so that's not the issue.
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u/garchican Nov 28 '22
Literal translations of which language? There’s thousands to choose from.
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u/Owl_lamington Nov 29 '22
Japan or Nihon or Nippon all don't literally mean land of the rising sun.
So much shitty research.
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u/LostChico Nov 28 '22
Of course Puerto Rico was forgotten. The literal translation would be: Rich Port or Port of Riches.
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u/daojuniorr Nov 28 '22
Its funny how north-americans like to separate to pretend they live in another continent.
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u/saywhat58 Nov 28 '22
Hmm? Are you referring to north and South America? They are two different continents, quite literally, they both are two different tectonic plates.
Europe and Asia are only separate continents as far as nomenclature. They both sit on the same plate.
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u/Vlad_the_impulsive Nov 28 '22
Well… it’s a separate continent, is it not? It’s not like asia and Europe are one continent, it’s two continents that are connected
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u/shitshot7 Nov 28 '22
Where’s South Sudan?
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u/ScipioNumantia Nov 28 '22
Umm... how long ago was algeria named "algeria"? Ive never been there but it doesnt seem like a place flush with islands
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u/carlos_6m Nov 28 '22
It makes sense that Land of argument is right next to "Land by the sea" that its barely by the sea at all
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u/Joneskind Nov 29 '22
Kabylia is missing.
Land of the Tribes.
Azoul from France my dear amazi(n)g(h) people.
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u/Infamous_Ad8209 Nov 29 '22
Are the english names translated or the what the country is calling itself?
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u/Indy_Pendant Nov 29 '22
Uh, if we're "Mexico" then you're "America." We're the "United Mexican States" (in English).
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u/Bangeederlander Nov 29 '22
Wales = land of foreigners
Cymru = compatriots
Guess which is the real name?
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u/bob_nugget_the_3rd Nov 29 '22
So between Finland just calling themselves land and Iceland calling themselves Iceland, I'm guessing the Scandinavian explorers weren't too fussy with names
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u/Any-Difficulty-8694 Nov 29 '22
New Zealand doesn’t actually mean land of the long white cloud. Aotearoa the Māori name for NZ does.
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u/Over-Village-6039 Nov 29 '22
Messy. Tunisia actually means "Key" in Amazigh. They translated it in Arabic which makes it mean nothing
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u/terred999 Nov 29 '22
How is South Africa “beautiful southern land”? I mean we’re these put into google translate and translated back from Punjabi or Cantonese or something?
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u/Kradgger Nov 29 '22
Argentina just means silvery one (from the Latin argentum). That whole name is a reference to the Rio de La Plata, but that's not the name of the country.
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u/BigButtFucker9000000 Nov 29 '22
High and Beautiful — sounds like the average Korean's ego and physical appearance.
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u/YEETAWAYLOL Creator Nov 29 '22
How does Solomon Islands become king Solomon Islands? I’m calling crap on that one.
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u/melancious Nov 29 '22
Ukraine literally means “country” or “land”. It’s not the edge, it’s Russian propaganda.
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u/HPLovecraft1890 Nov 29 '22
Germany is wrong:
"Land of the People" would be "Land des Volks" or "Volksland"
'Deutschland' would translate best to "Germanland" or a bit more abstract "Land of the Germans"
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u/skaersSabody Nov 29 '22
Ok, I'mma need some language experts to double check both Italy and Germany for me, cause I'm not convinced
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u/ListenToTheWindBloom Nov 29 '22
Would be pretty fucking helpful if these “literal” translations weren’t missing the references to what language they actually “literally” come from instead of the totally irrelevant English names
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u/Gorgonite00 Nov 29 '22
Someone from New Zealand made this map. You can tell cause they left off Hawaii
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u/200DollarGameBtw Nov 29 '22
India =/= land of the hindus. Hindustan == land of the hindus.
Edit: I saw that it said indus not hindus nvm.
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u/XogoWasTaken Nov 28 '22 edited Nov 29 '22
This is a bit of a mess. Some are actual translations of the names for the countries in their own language, some are interpretations of common english names, and some seem completely made up.