Brazil vs Brasil

[Gullflyinghigh]

Never really thought about it but why don't we call each country by its correct name

I think it's just generally accepted as being easier to anglicise the pronunciation (or indeed spelling) of some places. For example, at no point during the world cup have I heard anyone refer to Cote D'Ivoire, but the Ivory Coast has been mentioned a few times!

Plus, for any nations that use cyrillic (or anything other than the latin alphabet really) I would guess that close to none of us would have a clue how to read/say the name of each nation correctly.

 

[rcf0712]

I'm going so start calling my son James Hames

 

[The Large One]

I'm going so start calling my son James Hames

'Him' for short.

 

[stripeyshark]

because we dont pronounce words and sounds the same as other languages, sometimes dont even have the sound in our normal range of speach. they get corrupted over distance and time then fixed in writing. some are oddities of relations or history like germany or holland. the oddest is Dutch, a corruption of Deutsch, when they arent part of Deutschland, but then we call those from Deutschland German from the latin for that people.

A lot of people. From holland hate being called Dutch for that reason - it's too similar to Deutsch. They prefer the term Hollanders.

 

[Trufflehound]

A lot of people. From holland hate being called Dutch for that reason - it's too similar to Deutsch. They prefer the term Hollanders.

Never met a single Dutch person who hated being called Dutch. Only people from Holland are Hollanders. Holland is to the Netherlands what Sussex is to the UK. People from round here are very much Brabantse, or Brabanders.

 

[stripeyshark]

Never met a single Dutch person who hated being called Dutch. Only people from Holland are Hollanders. Holland is to the Netherlands what Sussex is to the UK. People from round here are very much Brabantse, or Brabanders.

I have. I still think Hollanders is the correct term too.

 

[Trufflehound]

I have. I still think Hollanders is the correct term too.

Hollanders is the term for people from the provinces of North and South Holland. Using it elsewhere in the Netherlands is like calling people from Sussex "Yorkshiremen" - i.e it won't end well.