Country's real names

So, since we have so many countries represented here, I'd love to see what everyone calls their country in their native tongue. If you happen to know earlier iterations of your country's name feel free to add it. Other members could say what they call said countries in their language. Since the United States is so young, I mean Corwin was born about that same time there really isn't much to say.

crpgnut--United States of America, USA or sometimes America though that's really wrong, since a bunch of countries are in America

crpgnut--State of Illinois in the metro east area of St. Louis, MO, USA. I thought I'd break the USA into states so we get more hits in the thread.

Ich lebe im Bundesland Nordrhein-Westfalen in Deutschland.

I'm living in the federal state North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.

Although I live in the US, Ireland is always home to me, and we call it Eire. Or at least my family always has.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Ich lebe im Bundesland Nordrhein-Westfalen in Deutschland.

I'm living in the federal state North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.

Germany is called Allemagne in French.

Which was actually one of the germanic tribes in the area and I believe the name just stayed for francophone people.



I'm from Belgium which is Belgique in French, België in Dutch and Belgiën in German, three official languages.

For Europe, Belgium is a very new country. But not compared to non European nations.

Belgium is also likely just an old name for one of the Gallic tribes in the area.

The Falen (Westfalen and Ostfalen) (english: West-Fales and East-Fales) were part of the Saxon tribes in earlier days.

The Franken (english: Franks) were a Germanic tribe as well, and France got it's name from them. Frank is another word for Frei = Free.

cute thread

I am Canadian, though technically a former citizen of Canada according to my US Citizenship papers, which aren't a legal document in Canada.

We call ourselves Canucks, though in some parts of the United States it's considered rude or even racist to say that in spite of us constantly telling them it's not. This is no different from the Canadian government calling the Eskimo "Inoo" in spite of them insisting it's okay and that they are neither Inoo nor Inuit (the Inuit also do not like being called Inoo).

We only find it rude (or stupid) if Americans pronounce it Canuke, as in "What's a Canuke?"
The answer to that of course is, "It's a Canadian. What's a Yankee?"
"Oh," is the usual reply after that.

Where did the word come from? That's another story.

I am also from British Columbia aka BC. Technically we are British Columbians but that's a mouthful so we call ourselves BCer's. My hometown is the city of Prince Rupert. We call ourselves, Rupertites. We sometimes get mixed up with our neighbour city 8 hours away, Prince George, who refer to themelves as from "Prince".

Originally Posted by Pladio
I'm from Belgium which is Belgique in French, België in Dutch and Belgiën in German, three official languages.

For Europe, Belgium is a very new country. But not compared to non European nations.

Belgium is also likely just an old name for one of the Gallic tribes in the area.

Well said.

I'm from Belgium too, a small country torn between its three languages - mostly between the French and the Dutch parts.

City of Yarra, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Originally Posted by Hurls
City of Yarra, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

City of Yarra, Melbourne, Victoria, Oz, surely?

In my native tongue, we call it Brasil with letter 's' instead of 'z'. In Portuguese the 's' between vowels (and only between vowels) always has the same sound as 'z'.

When I joined here I wrote 'Brazil' in my location profile. But since a few years ago, I updated this info to 'Brasil'.

I was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which is the capital city of the State with the same name (in Brasil, only the States of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have capital cities sharing the same name). Since 1987 I don't live there anymore; my family moved to Piauí, a State in Brasil's Northeast Region.

Bonus Info: my avatar here is the badge of my favorite football (soccer) team, called 'Fluminense' (yeah, don't try to pronounce it ), a team from Rio de Janeiro.

Originally Posted by lackblogger
City of Yarra, Melbourne, Victoria, Oz, surely?

Maybe Oztrayla, in the vernacular. My avatar is a photograph of Ernest Shackleton’s ship stuck in the ice being photographed during 24 hours I’d dark by the expedition’s photographer, Frank Hurley.

Now I was born in England of Welsh and British ancestry; raised and educated in Canada; (Go the Leafs), and have lived (and worked) most of my life in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia!! Therefore, all 3 countries reject me!!

City of Punta Gorda in Florida, the state that's shaped like a big dick.

The comedian Gallagher once said: "I like Florida. It looks like we're pissing on Cuba."

Originally Posted by henriquejr
In my native tongue, we call it Brasil with letter 's' instead of 'z'. In Portuguese the 's' between vowels (and only between vowels) always has the same sound as 'z'.

When I joined here I wrote 'Brazil' in my location profile. But since a few years ago, I updated this info to 'Brasil'.

I was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which is the capital city of the State with the same name (in Brasil, only the States of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have capital cities sharing the same name). Since 1987 I don't live there anymore; my family moved to Piauí, a State in Brasil's Northeast Region.

Bonus Info: my avatar here is the badge of my favorite football (soccer) team, called 'Fluminense' (yeah, don't try to pronounce it ), a team from Rio de Janeiro.

Floo-me-ness?

In the village where I live the first vowel can be pronounced two completely different ways, and neither of them are technically correct, they are both just different accents saying the same thing & which people choose will depend on their preferred accent.

Whichever version a newsreader used would be laughed at by one or the other preference. A language pedant's nightmare.

I live in Nederland in the province Noord-Brabant.

A long time ago, what is now The Netherlands, Belgium and parts of Germany, were called the low lands, because they are in a delta area, where large rivers flow through to the sea. The western part was called 'the low lands at the sea'. In Dutch, 'low' means 'laag' and the low lands in Dutch is 'De lage landen'. In France we are still called that: Pays-Bas.
These low lands were a lot bigger than the size of my country now. However, after a lot of wars and Belgium having their own ideas of a country, the seven provinces were formed, with Holland being one of these provinces and an important one as well. My country is often also referred to as Holland. Anyway, those provinces were a cooperation and not a country yet, but as time goes on and more wars took place, it became one and as seven provinces isn't a proper name for a country they went with the other translation of 'low', which is 'neder' and it became Nederland (historically that went quite a bit different, but let's keep it short)
We share names of provinces with Belgium: Brabant and Limburg, but like I said, Belgium had its own ideas about becoming a country, so they were split up in a Dutch and Belgian part, back in the old days. In those, and some other, parts of Belgium they still speak Dutch.

The UK still uses the word nether to mean 'the low parts', the th sound replacing the d sound, as with most words. But the only way it remains in common language is, lol, when the uptight polite people don't want to say genitals and instead say "my/their nether regions".

East to the The Netherlands (German: Die Niederlande) lies the German federal state Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen).

So Neder, Nieder, Nether - have the same root.

In German we use another synonym for nieder, flach = platt (English: flat) for the low German dialect: Platt or the long version: Plattdütsch (Plattdeutsch).

Platt is spoken in many variations in Westfphalia, Lower-Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein - the old territory of the Saxons. Platt is closer to Dutch, Frisian, Danish, and English than High German.

Originally Posted by Pladio
Floo-me-ness?

An almost perfect pronounce in English would be:

Flu, like the disease (see below) + me (the pronoun) + nense, which has the same sound as 'sense', you only need to exchange the 's' by a 'n' and there you have it

My favored soccer is also widely known here as Flu (the first syllable), but this has no connection to the Influenza disease, since here in Brasil this disease is called 'gripe', which by its turn doesn't have the same meaning as the verb 'to gripe' in English, it is only a false cognate (this time not even the pronunciation is the same)

Sorry if I sounded wordy

Although I've been in the US for over 20 years ( St. Louis - MO side @crpgnut ), Nottingham, UK will always be my home. Formerly Snotingaham. I'm glad the s was dropped - don't fancy coming from the land of Snot Didn't know this though: from Wikipedia

A settlement existed before the arrival of the Anglo Saxons in the early 7th century CE because it is known in the Brythonic as Tig Guocobauc, meaning Place of Caves