Monday, August 11, 2003

 
[Eugene, 1:38 PM]
Which European countries have English names that have virtually nothing to do with their local names? Albania (Shqiperia), Finland (Suomi), Germany (Deutschland), Greece (Ellas), and Hungary (Magyarorszag).

     Armenia and Georgia aren't part of Europe under my definition; Austria (Oesterreich) and Croatia (Hrvatska) are indeed connected to their native language names; and Serbia and Montenegro (Srbija-Crna Gora) doesn't quite qualify largely because of the Serbia/Srbija, but also partly because Montenegro is actually a literal translation of the words "black mountain," which is what Crna Gora means in the local language (not sure how that fits within the terms of my question). Switzerland, according to the CIA factbook, is known chiefly as Schweiz, Suisse, or Svizzera, even though some items -- such as stamps -- bear the Latin name, "Confoederatio Helvetica."

UPDATE: I am told that Suomi means more or less "swamp land" or "fen land," which is also supposedly the source of "Finland." I'm skeptical that this is the origin of "Finland," since my New Shorter Oxford says that it comes from the Greek "phinnoi" (though, who knows, maybe that means swamp, too); see also this post from Sam Mikes. But if this is true, then we might have yet another "crna gora" example here, which wouldn't literally fit within my "virtually nothing to do with their local names." Still, maybe the question should have been framed as "have a different root in English than in the local language" or some such, in which case Suomi and Crna Gora would still qualify, but Serbia & Montenegro wouldn't, because of the overlap as to Serbia.