I was in the midst of a threeway (go away grubs, no flags for me), English, Polish and German and I became intrigued by the names of cities. I’m Australian, born in Melbourne; I’m Victorian but live in South Australia. What do people in other countries call my home and is it just Englishism (def: citation needed) to assume that everything should be anglicized?
I’m genuinely interested in comments that don’t include hate.
Well, it always bothered me that all the world call Giulio Cesare “Julius Ceasar”.
It’s just an example of course, just to prove that even a personal name could be “translated” even though a person name shouldn’t change in a different country.
Donald Trump is not Donaldo Tramponi.
It stays Donald Trump.
And so Venezia become Venice, Munchen Monaco and so on…
To answer your question, in Italy Australia is exactly Australia, just pronunced differently.
But go to Germany (bless their cotton socks) and Munich is Munchen and Cologne is Koln (with those little cute dots over the “O” (even though the translation is exact (no idea about Munich)). Someone from Russia is unlikely to hear a phonetic translation of Melbourne when they see the word online or used in conversation. Like in Turkey, Germans are Alman; what does that mean???
In Polish most of the English names stay the same (Australia is Australia, Sydney is Sydney, Chicago is Chicago etc.) except when they have adjectives which can be translated to Polish (New York is Nowy Jork, North Carolina is Karolina Północna). We also translate many German names (Munich is Monachium, Dresden is Drezno, Aachen is Akwizgran) and somehow London is Londyn.
But being from the Netherlands/Holland what is it it that you call it? You don’t be a Dutch person and say I am from Holland. Do you see what i am getting at? Is Amsterdam, Amsterdam for example?
Ai ai ai.
I have to teach you guys something.
Holland are two provinces in The Netherlands.
Our country is called The Netherlands and not Holland. Would be the same as calling all Americans New Yorkers.
We are Dutch or from The Netherlands.
Yeah I know, sounds complicated but it really isn’t.
I do not consider Russian/Japanese/Chinese or any other different alphabetic language in this reasoning, as probably translation on different letters/symbols is almost mandatory.
The Cologne-Koln thing is “official” or just dialectal?