How Did Each European Country Get Its Name
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Country Timestamps:
Portugal 1:00
Spain 1:45
Andorra 3:18
France 4:41
Monaco 5:28
Iceland 6:24
Ireland 6:43
United Kingdom 7:25
Netherlands 9:14
Belgium 10:41
Luxembourg 11:03
Germany 11:43
Switzerland 12:16
Liechtenstein 12:58
Italy 13:20
The Vatican 13:44
San Marino 14:01
Austria 14:17
Czechia 14:41
Slovakia 15:08
Poland 15:19
Denmark 15:40
Norway 16:08
Sweden 16:25
Finland 17:04
Estonia 17:29
Latvia 17:47
Lithuania 17:53
Belarus 18:14
Russia 18:48
Ukraine 19:18
Moldova 19:30
Romania 20:02
Hungary 20:44
Slovenia 21:43
Croatia 21:52
Bosnia and Herzegovina 22:18
Serbia 22:59
Monten. 23:23
Kosovo 23:41
Albania 24:22
North Macedonia 25:56
Greece 25:31
Bulgaria 26:11
Turkey 26:41
Cyprus 27:00
Malta 27:26
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Did I get any country's meaning wrong? A few of them didn't have that much information available online
As i thought Portugal was named after a port, iceland after ice , then Spain should have been named after pain , Monaco named after the biscuit company monaco same for brittania , then Luxembourg should have been named after the luxury of the country , Germany should have been money , Netherlands should be like its neither land nor water , Italy should have been named after tally marks , denmark named after marks german old currency , slowakia would have been slow wake Slovenia be like slow veins , Macedonia named after apple mac , Croatia should be like named after asia , Romania named after romans , Sweden named after sweet dish like its , Switzerland named after a land where swiss people live lol , Norway named after the way of nor , Belgium named after the bells , Estonia named after stone, Hungary is simple when we are hungry, Moldova named after mold over saying it faster would sound moldova and Ukraine named after crane thats all i thought when i was kid i hope no one gets offended
You made a little mistake at 21:47 You were talking about slovenia but you wrote Slovakia next to the flag
@@Alexander-lg1pk i wanted to comment the same thing
6:51 Northern Ireland???
Slovenia you said was Slovakia.
The fact that you can't pronounce "Montenegro" because of youtube censorship is scandalous
@@RIlianP Nigeria?
@@ifeanyiobiora-okafo7017 named after same river, but different country.
Yes, its hilarious. What about sport programmes, do they ban it too?
@@11Survivor Niger has a french pronunciation and not what you think it sounds in English
@@abhiinair I am French. So?...
In Greek, France is still called Gallia.
as a frenchman, still being called a gaul is awesome !
"gallian democracy" instead of "french republic" indeed
@@expneperien 🇨🇵❤🇬🇷
@Ararune Better explained. In most Slavic languages Germans are called: Nemci, Nijemci, Njemci which means "mute people'' because they didn't speak language that Slavs could understand, or they could understand Slavs.
@@expneperien why
1:25 The idea that a place could be named "Port Port" (each half derived from a different language) is surprisingly plausible. There are many places with names like that. The Sahara Desert is one example (sahara means "desert" in Arabic). Tom Scott discussed the phenomenon in one of his videos while visiting a place that could reasonably be translated as "Hill Hill Hill Hill."
There is many hills in the Sahara but only one Port in Porto^^
@@HansWurst-bf4qg The "Hill Hill Hill Hill" is in reference to Torpenhow Hill, where supposedly "Tor" "Pen" "How" all mean hill in different languages, this is likely a myth, and does not refer to anything in regards to Sahara. But "Sahara" comes from Arabic, I think, and means "desert" , so Sahara Desert is literally "desert desert". The presense of only one port in Porto is as such irrelevant. The idea is that the locals at the time called the area "cale" from their word for "port", the Romans would not have known the meaning of this word and could so easily have called it "Portus Cale", adding their own word for "port". This is a relatively common thing when a new people encounter a place and ask for its name without knowing the local language. The Gobi desert is another one, as "gobi" means "desert" as well. And for a time Hawai'i was known as "owhyee" adding "'o", the Hawai'ian copula(to be) as the local said to the English "'o hawai'i(this is Hawai'i)".
The Romans called Cartago Nova the current Spanish city of Cartagena, but Cartago (Carthge) comes from the Phoenician Qart Hadasht, which means new city, so Cartago Nova means new new city.
Portugal became from medieval latin Portucale, Portucalis. From latin "Portus" (port)+ greek "kallos"( beautiful), so it was a Beautiful Port. Portus is now the Oporto City in north of Portugal.
Anche dire "Giardino dell'Eden" è ridondante, Eden significa a sua volta "giardino". 😂😅
No one:: The Greeks single handedly naming most of the countries in Europe:
"home of the Boii" god bless our ancestors.
Yes Boii
Oh shit, waddup
Yeah boii
i literally wanted to say that as well
Yeah Boii
"It could mean Port Port, but that makes no sense." _Lake Chad visibly fuming_
East Timor or Timor Leste too haha
I live next to a lake called Vesijärvi, which means Waterlake. Lake WaterLake.
Gobi Desert too lol
Sahara too...
There is a city in South-West of Portugal, near the Atlantic Ocean which is named "Odemira", the same name as the river that crossed the city, So, you will see a Portuguese map of the region naming this river "Rio Odemira", so the Odemira river. But the name Odemira is in fact two words, one from Visigoth language "mira" which means running water or river, and "Od", which came from the Arabic word "wad", which means also river. So, we have a city name which means River-river, and so on, this city is crossed by the river River-river!
For Bulgaria, there may be another explanation. In Greek, the second letter of the alphabet had phonetic value B, but later transitioned to V. Several words in south-eastern Europe can trace origin to this transition; for example, the city of Bethlehem is named in some old songs as Vitlaim. And bulgars use Cyrillic writing, derived from the Greek alphabet. So their name might very well be coming from the Volga River, where they were known to live before their migration to the Balkans.
There was a Bulgaria around the river Volga but it was a different one from the one on the Danube river. Both came from same older Bulgaria however very different. Also it is very easy to say Cyrillic comes from Greek but that is not true in the direct sense just because of some similarities. I can say a lot but just remembered comments are a bit pointless
Or we have the coincidence that both explanations are right.
@@user-df3uf3pj7w The moredern cyrilic alphabet is the renovated version of the "Glagolitsa" writing system made by St. Kiril and St. Metodii Brothers by their students who were sent on a pilgrimage by the Emperor of the Byzantium Empire in order to make peace with the tribes that came during the Migration Period aka as the Barbarian Invasions. The Bulgarian Kingdom at the time was the biggest one on the Balkan peninsula and since it encompassed not only people from the Bulgarian tribe but many other smaller tribes and all of them were seen as barbarians by surrounding nations and were not accepted on the International stage of Europe at the time. Both the Pope and the Emperor of Byzantine wanted to convert them to their respectful religion - Catholicism from the Pope and Eastern Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantium Empire. It also aligned withthe desire of Khan Boris I later known as Knyaz Boris Mihail I to unite his nation and make it internationally recognized by the other European countries. Before their coming to the Dunabe valley in 681AD, the Bulgarian tribe is known to have had its origins north of the Black Sea. But it is factualy known that the Cyrilic alphabet took a lot of elements from the ancient greek alphabet.
The name Volga is from 17 century,befor tne name is ITiL.In all map of Romans .End Herodot and Strabon, the ancient autors they raight Itil
@@georgiivanov1568 what's the name
It's worth noting that "Cymru" in Welsh is not pronounced like "simru" but "kummri". Also the term "Scotland" is (or was originally) an exonym. The name for Scotland in Scottish Gaelic is "Alba", which derives from Old Irish "Albu" or "Albain", which is believed to have been used to describe the lands of the Picts and and other Celtic territory of what is now Scotland.
Why the hell is the u pronounced i?
@WhizzKid2012 Because Welsh orthography is different to English. An English U sound is represented by a Y I'm Welsh. W and Y are vowels in Welsh btw.
After all the nutter comes from another continent
So Norway has two names😂 😂 nutter
The n-word: *is literally the word for a very common color in many languages* KZhead: "You can't say that."
the worst part about it is the fact that the literal translation of the countries name is black mountain so who ever came up witht he name Montenegro was a racist
@@gababoy1237 I think it meant black as in the fact the mountain could be stone which is dark grey like black? Maybe not.
And it's not even the n-word. But hey, some KZheadrs even cenzor words like suicide bc it makes KZhead sad or something
@@gababoy1237 No? They just named the country like that because it was a black mountain. You do realize the people back then weren't so picky and sensitive about everything they hear, unlike nowadays.
@@gababoy1237 I hope this is a troll
"port port" makes total sense in geography, trust me
Yep, greetings from "mountain mountain mountain" (mount Fuji Yama)!
It is actually 'passage port' or the passage at the port. Portus meaning passage in latin (in french and spanish it is still used as in "port d'envalira" or "puerto de navacerrada"). Cale meaning port in latin.
@@henriqueOvermelho thanks!
The old Celtic word for "river" is "avon". In the UK, we have the River Avon. So, yep!
I'm more of a desert desert guy myself
About the name 'Belarus'. The name Ruscia Alba (Ruthenia Alba) was first mentioned in the 1250s in an anonymous geographical treatise originating in Ireland. Most likely, this name was not known in Rus' itself (the name Rus' itself had just begun to take hold in the territories from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea). Therefore, it is most likely that the name White was added to Rus by medieval European cartographers. Many regions were given the name of White Ruthenia by cartographers, but it's funny, the Novgorod Republic was called White Ruthenia the most. Over time, cartographers began to come up with new names, such as Red Ruthenia, the territory of modern Ukraine, and Black Ruthenia, the land of the Balts. And here again, the same tradition of medieval cartography was at work: whichever name I want to give it and wherever place I want to put it, I do it. In 1470, the Novgorod Republic was conquered by the Moscow principality, and after that Moscovia was called White Ruthenia. To put it quite simply, Novgorod, Moscow, and the Polotsk principality were called White Ruthenia, although no one knew of any White Ruthenia in these lands. In the second half of the 16th century, maps became more and more detailed, and the term finally settled on the lands of modern Belarus. This was facilitated by the appearance of historical chronicles by Marcin Kromer, Maciej Stryjkowski, and others. This was also influenced by the Livonian War, when in 1563 the Muscovy captured Polotsk, and since Muscovy was often called White Ruthenia, and news of this war spread throughout Europe, Polotsk also began to be called White Ruthenia. In 1579 Stefan Batory expelled the Muscovites from Polotsk, but the name remained and from the end of the 16th century Belarus began to be called the land with a predominantly Orthodox population, which had previously been simply called Ruthenia or Lithuanian Ruthenia. In the early 17th century, the name Belarus became widely accepted, for example, in 1632, King Wladyslaw 4 restored the Orthodox diocese in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and it was called White Ruthenian. At the same time, in the official documents of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the term white Ruthenia was increasingly used to refer to the lands of modern Belarus. Despite the fact that the state that included the lands of White Ruthenia was called Lithuania, Muscovy began to use the term White Rus more and more often, referring to the lands of Belarus and rarely Ukraine. Because, in their view, Ruthenia is theirs and they need to capture it. It didn't take long; in 1654, Muscovy troops under the leadership of Alexei Mikhailovich attacked the Belarusian lands of the GDL in order to "defend the Orthodox population," and he resumed his title of Tsar and Grand Duke of Great, Little, and White Russia. In the 18th century, the name Belarus became an authoritative term. The Belarusian nobility originating from Polotsk or Mogilev called themselves Belarusian, Jewish qahals in the east were called Belarusian synagogues, the National Education Commission had 2 districts, Lithuanian and Belarusian, and the word Belarus was often caricatured in the administrative division of representatives of Catholic institutions. As part of the Russian Empire, the Belarusian lands began to be referred to as the Northwestern Krai. In the 19th century, the name Belarus finally spread to all the lands of modern Belarus. This was facilitated by the growth of nationalism in Europe (due to the idea that every nation should have a language, land, religion, and of course, a name). Because before that, despite the fact that they spoke the same language, they often called themselves Litvins (not Lithuanians, but residents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania), Poles (mostly Catholics), Rusyns (residents of the Rus), but most often simply Tuteishya. Why was the name Belarus chosen when Belarus was created, and not, for example, Lithuania? First of all, this name was more often used in reference to the szlachta, but the Belarusian szlachta did not care about the restoration of the Litvin state and identity, they helped Poland to advocate statehood and increasingly called themselves Poles. And the Baltic peoples, who were experiencing a rise in nationalism at the time, appropriated the name Lithuanians, and this word was already taken. As a result, the term Litva ceased to be used and was completely replaced by Belarus, first as the name of the language spoken by the Tuteishya, and then as the name of the people. There were attempts to spread the name of the language as Kryvitskaya, the people as Kryvichs, and the name of the state as Kryvia, but this name did not catch on. Only Belarus caught on. It's a good word that unites Belarus with the history of the ancient Rus, while separating us from it with the word White :)
Ruthenia the territory of Western Ukraine, in Galicia and Transcarpathia, It is mentioned in relation to Galicia-Volhynia Rus .
@@hycylkaksenja3565And it is often labeled Russia Rubra...Red Russia
Great information! Thank you! Next time I will write something equally interesting about the history of the Hungarians = Magyar People.
@@mitchyoung93No, Red Ruthenia. Modern Russia is Rossiya with an "o". That's a big difference in the slavic language in terms of territory.
As a language lover,"Vela" means white in Tamil language. And the 'V' sound sound will deform to 'B'. Its quite intresting🙂.In Kannada language,"bela" means white. (South Indian language family)
"The origin of the word slavic is unknown" there is literally a word SŁOWO meaning WORD in polish. And all polish know that the SŁOWIANIE (slavs) means "those who speak(are understood)" in the opposite to NIEMCY (germans) which means "the unspeaking ones".
And is the same in basicly all slavic languages.
slava is russian for speak or language@@Bzhydack
@@danielhaastrup6713нет, это слова(а я подозреваю, что это имелось в виду) это множественное слова "слово", а слава, это glory... To speak это говорить.
In Greek we call Portugal “Porto-Gallia” and France is “Gallia”, so it literally translates to Port of the Gauls, aligning with the third theory more
I was thinking it was derived from "Porto Regal" ...or royal port. But that might just be my own fantasy.
@@Snaakie83 north of portugal is the spanish province of galicia (not to be confused with polish galicia).
in Italian the term "franco" can still be used for the adjective "honest"
About portugal,as our history refers,Portugal comes from Porto Calmo (Calm/quiet Harbour). Im Portuguese and thats not a theory.thats what is on our history
@@jaye20 In romanian "franc" is another word for sincere
21:43 As a Slovene, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined
😂
mate he even wrote it as Slovakia :D I almost spilled my drink when it appeared on the screen :D
I also noticed it 😅 even knowlidged people still are cofused with this names
not Slovene, but I'm totally in love with your country and yeah, it ruined my day even more.
@@radeksilar543 hey, he got the flag right, tho at least haha He was speaking of its connections with Slovakia and probably that made him mess it up.
I can add that the region of Scandinavia got it's name from Sweden's southernmost province Scania (thought to be an island by the romans), because this was the place settlers first arrived to the region. The name is possibly derived from the Germanic root Skaðin-awjã, which appears in Old Norse as Skáney. The Germanic stem can be reconstructed as Skaðan- meaning "danger" or "damage" (English scathing, German Schaden, Swedish skada). The second segment of the name has been reconstructed as awjō, meaning "land on the water" or "island". The name Scandinavia would then mean "dangerous island", which is considered to refer to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania.
Vi er fucking farlige !
Bulgaria has many other meanings that you definitely miss bro. BULG/VOLG according to some derrives from the river VOLGA or VULGUS/VULGAR or FOLK in Latin means People. (In Bulgarian meaning VULK (Wolf), White or Bright) & Aria (Arian simply reffering to Arian race, Tall or also Aristocratic). Another meaning is Five Arrows but nobody knows its origin couse it's very ancient. In other words nothing to do with the turkic meaning Mixed let alone with Revolt or Disorder. :D
Originally Bulgars/ Vulgars were nomads that came from Volga. They had another state around Volga, Volga- Bulgaria, that stopped to exist after Mongol invasion. In Bulgaria those nomads mixed with south slavs.
Bulgaria cannot come from any Turkish word simply because the name is older than the turks
Absolutely right which answeres to the question that Bulgarians are not turkic tribe at all.@@impas
There was no Bulgarian state before the Bulgar tribes settled in the Balkans. The Byzantine Greeks named them Bulgars, because they came from the area of the river Volga. Such is the case with the Slavic tribes that settled in the Byzantine province of Macedonia. They were given names based upon the area where they settled. But because they were federation of different Slavic tribes they were reffered as Sclavenoi or Sklaveni.
NO they weren't. No nomads ever built cities or defeated the Romans @@alexzero3736
Gotta love the meaning behind Bohemia "home of the boii". Me and the boiis going to czechia
"Boi" in portuguese means 'ox', 'steer' or 'bullock'.
@@DomingosCJM Boi in romanian is the plural of bou, which means ox, so boi means oxes
Damn people don't need to travel to other countries just to graze their oxen.
Haa
in hebrew, boi ("bo-ee") means 'come' (feminine form).
KZhead seriously can't handle "Montenegro"?? FFS, a beginner level programmer could code an exception for that in the algorithm. It's a whole damn country.
And most likely there is an exemption hahah i guess hes american so he got triggered. I'm from montenegro and living in australia whenever i met someone from usa they got upset that i said (as a white dude) that im from montenegro Murica and ignorance goes together like russia and vodka
@@filipdraskovic2418 At the start of the vidoe he said he is portugese, this is thing about youtube and his ignorance, not about General Knowledge. He had to do it or youtbe algorithm would just block or demonetized his video.
@@lemonaj4408 must have missed that part There are a lot of videos on yt about montenegro One of which is from geography now and i haven't heard that he got blocked cause of that
KZhead must understand that the world doesn't speak only English.
@@filipdraskovic2418 it's not that he'd get blocked, but the video would likely get demonetised. I wonder why the country's name is translated that way though, surely Cernagora or something like that would be better and closer to how slavs call it in general.
Netherlands are named this way not because they are below the sea level, rather because the lands are at the lower flow of "the rivers" (Maas and Schelde, and Rhein, by extension) where the deltas of the revirs meet the North Sea.
More on Iceland: Icelands first name was probably Thule, then, when the papar monks came they possibly used another name, it is unknown to us. After that, Naddóður came and called the island Snæland (Snowland). Still later, a swedish man named Garðar, came and called the island after himself, Garðarshólmi (the islet of Garðar). Still later, the Norwegian Flóki Vilgerðarson came along with others, we only (I think) the names of farmers Þórólfur and Herjólfur). Flóki climbed a mountain in the Western fjords and saw hafís (sea ice) filling a fjord nearby. He then called our country Ísland (Iceland). Flóki himself is called Hrafna-Flóki in Iceland as he used three ravens to find the way to Ísland (Iceland).
General Knowledge: puts "Slovakia" instead of "Slovenia" on screen when talking about Slovenia Me: Not you too 😩😩💀
I hate this
Besides, what's that about the origin of "slav" not being known? "Slovo" means "word", "slava" is a cognate word meaning "fame". "Sloviane" meaning "people of the word", as opposed to "niemcy" (the mute ones) is obvious and I thought pretty well established.
@@ltu42 It's so obvious i never thought about that! This is exactly the thing i came for but didn't learn from the video, thank you. (but i also understand that going extra deep for every country would make this already long video twice as long...)
never was a part of Chechoslovenia
@@kleinweichkleinweich CZECHOSLOVAKIA!!!!!!!!!!
Not to be pedantic, but "Portus Cale" meaning "port port" actually makes sense; Romans often asked the locals what the name of their native places were, and the locals often responded by just mentioning the common name of the place indicated; that's why in England there are multiple "River Avon", "Avon" meaning "river" in ancient English. So that's why "port - port" could be an actual origin for the name.
Does "cale" also mean "castle"? Just curious... maybe "port-castle"?
also, ursus arctos, the grizzly bear's scientific name..stands for bear bear, in latin and greek
@@dehro Ursus Arctos, the bear bear, is actually the Brown Bear. The Latin name for the Grizzly is even better: Ursus Arctos Horribilis. Meaning "The *horrible* bear bear"!
@@kaji9704 good call.. I misremembered
Sahara desert = desert desert
"Slavs" comes probably from the slavic word for... "word" :) "Słowo", "Slovo" etc. "Słowianin" (slav) meant - "someone who speaks our tongue", "The user of the words". On the same basis many slavic languages call Germans "Niemcy", "Nijemci", "Nemci" etc. which is derived from the word "niemy" - "mute", "Someone who doesn't speak our tongue". For a long time it was a general term for any non-slavic people/foreigners.
Great video :) Cymru is pronounced 'cum-ree' in Welsh and I was always taught it meant 'countrymen', although maybe it was once used to mean friends too
In Greek, Switzerland is still called Elvetia, and as already mentioned from a fellow Greek, France is still called Gallia.
This video was more about the origin of their english or native name. A lot of countries have very different names in different languages, especially neighbours.
@@Notmyname1593 Yeah definitely, just wanted to point it out for fun.
In Portuguese (and I believe in Spanish as well) we can refer to Swiss people both as "HELVÉTICO(S)" or "SUIÇO(S)"
@@stellak.6095 funny we in Romania also call it Elveția 😂🙏🏻
In Romanian its Elvetia as well
When mentioning Slovakia, you were actually talking about Slovenia. They are two completely different countries, but often get mixed up.
Also when talking about Slovenia , the name is givien is Slovakia faceplam :D
I felt the pain, made me think if that's actually trolling or coincidence :D
And Kosovo isn't country...
@@milutinitc4937 kinda is...
@@shmo_de yes, kinda...
Im sorry but the way you pronounced Cymru had me dying 😂😂 Reminded me of all the times I've said a word wrong because I learned it by reading and had never heard anyone say it lol.
Greece is actually a totally ancient greek word, from the word Graikos (Γραικος), which means The son of the old lady in ancient greek. Caesar just used the word, but didnt created it. Beautiful video, i subscribed 👌
I love all these "river river", "hill hill", and "port port" names, but nothing beats the Yucatan peninsula which roughly means "I don't know what you're saying" in old Mayan.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 love this
Must be like how the Greeks came up with the word barbarian, as in people that go "bar bar bar" 🤣
This is everywhere in America. The explorer were asking what is that? and the translator was answering I don't know in local language.
@@user-vg6sg7kh1q yup, I live next to the "Great River" River
Sounds similar to something I heard about in that the Kangaroo name came from 'I don't understand" in Aboriginal. Explorers really didn't give much thought over the fact that foreign people of foreign lands didn't speak their languages.
Fun fact: In Polish we use the word "republika" for all the countries that have "republic" in their names but for Poland and only Poland we use word "rzeczpospolita" instead.
...rzeczpospolita of course is an polonization of the latin res publica - which in english can be translated as common good, or commonwealth
@@polishmemefactory4793 which of course goes back to the first rzeczpospolita, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
@@Morrov Which was an Oligarchy with weak king
@@alo5301 Depends on the Period, the Late Commonwealth, yes you can call it that, but not the Early and Golden Age periods.
@@polishmemefactory4793 sorry but how do you pronounce that
Correction: the low countries were not called that, because of their lowness relative to the sea level, but because the lie in the north of the HRE. Also see this with the german state lower Saxony and Saxony or with the german state of Bavaria lower Bavaria and higher Bavaria each time the north south divide.
As a Hungarian, I finally know what my country's name means! Really well made video, the research must've been crazy interesting!
NO, you don't 🤣 Your name origin is nonsense. First of all. The name was here way before Magyars arrived in Carpathian basin and it meant "Ugorsko". It was named like that by slavs, who always identified as "Ugri" later "Uhri" (Ungari/Hungari). What slavs? Slovaks, who always called themselves "Uhri" (Ungari/Hungari) after the fish "Úhor", which lived here. "Sme z väčšej časti Uhri z Uhorskými srdcami a Slovenskými jazykmi" (We are mostly Hungarians with Hungarian hearts and Slovak/Slavic languages)
@@perseus274 As I know is from the tribe Onoghuri , That's why we call you Ungarci . Ungaria. But Magyar is what real name is.
Interesting fact, when Sweden and Denmark play against each other. It is Swe:den, the remaining letters are Den:mark.
I just got that! And, the tribe the Denmark got its name from, the Danes, left the area of Sweden where the Svea were, and settled in Scania, which was then considered Denmark, and in the islands of Denmark. The Jutes had the mainland. All in all, I consider it a win for Sweden ! 😁
I'm pretty sure that works with Cyprus vs Russia too
@@lbp1672 Yes, but do they play against each other? This is in reference to football. Where they use only the first three letters.
@@Chris-bn1vt yes ik and chances are that the occasional friendly might happen between them or they play against each other in wc qualifiers
@@lbp1672 You are correct, I just checked. They do play against each other in UEFA.
There are English rivers named Avon, which is the Celtic word for river. So Avon River simply means River River. So it could be Harbour Harbour as well.
There's a hill in England whose name, if you translate it, works out to Hill hill hill hill.
@Ararune and Chad lake is just lake lake, too.
And Sahara Desert is desert desert
Caladh (pronounced cala) means Jetty in Irish. Caladhphort is used on modern Irish to mean a port, literally jetty harbour.
There's a road by me "La Rue Road". I'll let you figure that one out by yourselves.
Dutch is coming from the people living in the Netherlands, part of northern Germany, Denmark and a small part east of Denmark in Germany. It was a language spoken by them, Dietsch, Deutsch, which became by the Brits naming those people Dutch.
Another origin for the origin or Helllas (Greece): Hel (Έλ) + las (λας) = Helios (as in, the Sun, or the Greek God of the Sun), and Stone(λασ) (λασπη = mud being a derivative). This all means Land (Stone, ground) of the Bright/ Brightness. That was meant for both the actual area, due to it being sunny, and for the people who were very "bright", smart and (usually) welcoming. That however is still heavily debated as these words, especially λας, come from a veeery old fersion o Ancient Greek, that was spoken by the ealiest of Mainland Greeks, the Pelasgian tribes. Pelasgos (Pelasgian person), Πελασγός, is said to be derived by Πέλας (Πέλαγος = Sea), and Γος, (Γη, meaning Earth), as in the person that lived both on land and sea and was characterised by those two.
"Port Port" is not as unreasonable a name as you might think. There's a lot of places in England that had similar things happen. Torpenhow Hill is probably the most notable, which means Hill-hill-hill Hill in their respective languages over time.
yes, see also the sahara desert, which is the arabic word for desert followed hy the english word for desert.
@@grievuspwn4g3 Hill River River Hill Hill Hill
Found the Tom Scott viewer
Chad Lake as well is just lake lake
Actualy ireland a there is a county called waterford in irish it means portlaurge
Absolutely hilarious that you wrote Slovakia for Slovenia. Did you know their embassy’s actually arrange to meet to exchange letters that have been addressed to the wrong country because this is so common. So don’t be too hard on yourself.
Lol, didn't even notice that :D
even the flags are similar lol, the best way would be slovenia take its naval jack as country flag and the name would be slowenya
Oh, they exchange "letters". Let me guess, they exchange a and k for e and n?
@@apollon6870 I guess it's time for me to learn Slovakian language :D nobody can tell us apart anyway
@@2goXD do you think that IT IS so diferent front slovenian, that there IS something to learn?
Crazy to see just how much influence the Romans and the Greeks had on the majority of Europe’s modern country names.
Not necessarily wrong, but an alternate explanation for Iceland and Hungary. According to recent historical and archaelogical research, Iceland might've been named as such due to the Norse settlers first encountering the coastal fjords as well as something of a fumble story: apparently the first settlers in Iceland had such an easy time hunting game - since the local animals were not accustomed to humans being a threat - that they didn't harvest any hay for their livestock and when winter came, said livestock died off due to starvation. From these two factors, the settlers returning to Scandinavia gave something of a bad rep to the island calling it a land of ice and snow: which is ironic since the whole island is a volcano and geothermical hot spot. It's also hypothesized that Greenland was named for the similar reasons but opposite aim, to attract more settlers into the area. And in reality it looked like what they said Iceland to look like. As for Hungary, more specifically the native term Magyarország: according to folklore and mythology - most of it written down first in the 19th century to cement a sense of nationalism, but long present in the oral tradition - the two forefathers of the Hun and Magyar tribes were two brothers, Hunor and Magor, the sons of the Babylonian king Nimrod. You can obviously guess which tribe comes from which. And it is said that when the Hungarian tribes moved into the Carpathean basin in the late 9th century, in their own language named it Magyarország after the mythological figure of Magor (alternatively spelled as Magyar) so in that sense the name would mean rather "Land/Country of Magor (Magyar/Magor országa)" which later became a single word, than "Land of the Magyars". Of course that isn't to say that your explanation is wrong, but I felt like it'd be a fun fact to expand it with the mythology/folklore based version since you saw it fit to include that aspect in the case of other coutries such as Ireland.
It's really interesting, like nowadays countries names are just names, but in the beginning they were probably just normal words that they associated with these places
It really is!
welcome sir your now entering tree!
Yes names held more meaning in the past. I learned that with people names were an identity with power and substance almost as it explained who you was.
@@General.Knowledge 6:47 + 21:41 Arabs in Syria , Lebanon Jordan and Palestine (Israel) will get it wrong 😂 it's a 6ual pronounce ( éir air er etc..) it means p-nis 😂
@@General.Knowledge 22:03 Khoroathos kh like J in Juan , th like thunder 😘and i love you and your channel .. I'm very grateful for your work and tiredness.. God bless you
It's funny the fact that Greeks use many "original" country names (such as "Scotia", "Hispania", "Helbetia") and not their subsequent versions
In Romania those are very similar as well: Scotia (Scotzia), Spania, Elvetia (Elvetzia)...
Belarus is also called white Russia in Greek.
@@Bakerygo same in mandarin
And Gallia (France)
In Polish: Szkocja, Anglia, Hiszpania, Francja
Fantastic video!!!
Latvian here, yeah our name derives from ancient Baltic tribe the Latgallians who still live in the Latgale region or southeastern part of Latvija. But there’s another variation for our name that I just wanted to tell just because our nation doesn’t just consist of Latgallians but also with Curonians, Selonians and Semigallians), which formed the ethnic core of modern Latvians together with the Finnic Livonians. So another belief of where our name came from is the literal translation which means “forest clearer”, because that was the main thing which the ancient tribes of our people did alongside seafaring. Overall great video, it was nice to learn about other countries meanings to, I didn’t know most of this. Cheers.
"Slav" - (or slov) in many slavic languages means "word" or "speech", so slavics name themselves this way cuz they use similar language. Also in some slavic languages germans are called "nemchy" (немцы), that mean "voiceless" cuz germans had different language, so they cant speek to slavs.
Also we have word "slava" which means "glory", but as i remember "slava" also came from "slovo" ("word")
Yeah I think that is what we learned in school... slovo=word, so peoples wich you could understand and talk to... as oposing to Nemci/Niemci/Nijemci= mutes, the peoples you vould not understand or talk to,bc they do not know your language, almost all those people being germanic trives that live close to slavic ones... It is interesting that slavic settlers of the Balkans, called latin speakers in Dacia Wlachs...and for a long time that land was called Walachia....land of romans, but in Serbian, Bulgarian... simmiliar how germanic settlers in Britain called celtic people Welsh, qnd that name kinda stuck...
I thought it came from "slave" in latin
@@LEONKING360 no it isn't -_-
@@Jukanella i found a quora page about it: www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-term-Slav#:~:text=The%20English%20word%20Slav%20could,a%20speaker%20of%20their%20own By the way i'm sorry if i offended you, i didn't meaned to
The origin of word slav is from old slavic "slovo" - "a word". Basicly slavs are different tribes that can understand each other. Their neighbours are germanic tribes, called ' nemtsi, nemeth" by the slavs. That means silent, dumb.
Yes, not dumb meaning "stupid" but dumb meaning "mute" Nemats = a mute Nemtsi = the Mutes
Slovo translates to "letter"
Coming from a Polak, I agree! Słowiańi are people of "the word" and speak a common/similar tongue. Origin known indeed. In fact "slave" was derived from us as many Slavic people were enslaved during the Roman imperial reign. Fun fact: the word "robot" was derived from the common Slavic word "robota" meaning "work". Now robots are slaves to us, but for how long? Neo save us haha.
@@mariopurisic5133 I don't know if it's like that in all the slavic languages but in Czech slovo means word. Letter is písmeno
@@jablko0075 ah ok, I didn't know that, thanks for clarifying. In croatian "slovo" translates to "letter" (as in character) and the "word" would be "riječ". And "letter" (as in the thing you mail) is "pismo".
In the case for Denmark 🇩🇰 Mark also means ground, territory, land, etc. in Scandinavian languages.
i honestly thought Denmark (or Danmark as we natives call it) was from the danish words "Dan", which means "to create" or "establish" and "Mark" which means Field, where you grow crops
"Port port would not make sense" - There is a Town in Australia called Townsville which means town's town, and there is a hill in England called Torpenhow Hill - derived from Norse, Welsh, Saxon and finally modern English this literally means hill hill hill hill. Got to love names :)
Port du Graal (french) = Portugal
That's because England and it's villages were home to many people from many cultures, basically the new inhabitants used to take the previous word for town from the original habitants as a proper name while also adding the word they used to indicate a town. So you have things like Town(English)+ville(french/norman)= Townville
So, the city of Townsville is a real place? Go figure :D
“Lake Chad” = “Lake Lake” in the local African language.
Do you mean "Welsh, Gaelic" because Welsh is not a Goidelic language and is unintelligible to the Gaelic languages.
"Port Port" makes perfect sense when you consider that Sahara means "desert" and Avon means "river."
There is a place in the Northwest of England called Pendle Hill which translates as "Hill Hill Hill"
I assume we have all seen Tom Scott's video on the Torpenhow Hill (The Hill Hill Hill Hill)? kzhead.info/sun/gbmyiM2hgHl6h6c/bejne.html How about that tweet by Neil deGrasse Tyson, about these two popular things in L.A.: The La Brea Tar Pits (The The Tar Tar Pits)? or The Los Angeles Angels (The The Angels Angels)? (I mean, California was once a part of Mexico, so no wonder they anglicise Spanish place names).
The cheapest beer in my country was simply called beer, so we had beer beer.
@@kubadzejkob332 The La Brea Tar Pits could be more like "The The Tar Tar Pits" still hilarious
@@saulocodes Corrected, thanks.
15:00 didn't actually say why we call it that, so to clarify - a legend says that our land was named after a man called praotec Čech (pater senior or old father Čech), who was a leader of a tribe who settled here as first inhabitants, but the name itself comes from old slavic word Čexъ which means younger man with hair and beard.
The example of calling the Netherlands Holland being like calling England London I think is slightly inaccurate it’s more like the very real thing of calling the entire UK England
You missed an important theory on Finland. Finland had an abundance of swamps and marshes, and "Suo" means swamp in Finnish. So "Suomi" could very possibly get its name from there.
Yes, Finland was a collection of tribes and was generally divided by Sweden and Russia after medieval period kicked in. Finns did not have a specific name to signify the area except the word Suomi that is an ancient word for swampland as Finland was mostly forests and swamps as we became an agriculture later than most european countries due to lingering ice age.
The origins of "Suomi" is just full of theories
My suggestion is that we stop calling it Finland in English and start calling it Swampy. It's phonetically more similar to Suomi, and also very cute.
@@papitata or just Swampnistan...
Finland, Fen-Land... Suomi, Suo-Maa. I don't know about you, but I find this a sensible enough correlation.
Me- Where are you from Ronaldo- Port Port
Penaldo saved me from paying fines, he stole all my pens, so my fines are not paid, and the judge was meh! Thank you, Penaldo!
And a portuguese port wine is called portportport
Spain being the land of rabbits in roman times actually makes a lot of sense. Rabbits used to be only native to the iberian peninsula and were introduced to the rest of europe by the romans. It's also possible that "spania" originally meant "hyrax" in carthaginian and later got applied to rabbits because they look somewhat similar. Also for the germany one: A better translation for "diutisc" would be "someone that belongs to our people" or "someone that speaks our language". Both meant the same in medieval times because speaking a west germanic language was the big thing the infamously fragmented germanic regions had in common.
Just letting you know that the Welsh pronunciation of 'Cymru' (Wales) is more like "kum-reeh" (not "sim-roo"), like you almost want to switch the Y with the U, & make it a hard C.
if some american find the meaning port-port for portugal strange, "ville" is the french word for "town" or "city" so townsville in Lousiana means basicly towntown
Also the much more well known Townsville in Australia.
Also the much more well known Townsville in Australia.
@@zuccyamom8485 am i stupid ?
thats dumbdumb
this guy is not american?
Every Country: Has a historic and old reson for their name San Marino and Liechtenstein: "It's a Family!"
Well, technically Serbia too then
"Historic and old reason" = Some random tribe
@@cheekibreekibree1025 old name for Serbia is servia, servants most of servants in roman empire come from there
Moldova: Named after a dog
@@Jonassoe :-)
I appreciate your hard work and a clear, warm presentation. I love geography, history and language so this hit all my sweet spots.
"Cale" may refer to the Arabic word "qalea" whitch means "fortress", since the long time arabic rule of that peninsula.
15:22 wow as a Polish i didn't know that we have kalingrad 😏
Well that's good
That's just Russia
You don't. Kaliningrad was once part of Poland, but was taken by Russia (from the Germans) at the end of World War II. Edit: I get it. It's not depicted on the map.
POLSKA GUROM
Not the only mistake (visually) in this video. Like the slovakian slovenia or moldova stealing sum ukrainian lands
15:14 The word Slav comes from "slovo", which means "word" in slavic languages. The Slavs are those, who can speak words (understandable for other slavs), while "niemec" ("German") means "the dumb one", i. e. one who can't speak a Slavic language.
I'm glad you explained that, I was taught that it derived from the word slave,after the turk invasion.
@@steveholmes3471 Yes it is a Greek (Byzantine) word for slave - Σκλάβος (Sklávos), which is why it is being promoted. Slovo is spelled with an "o" and "slava" (fame) would be highly unlikely. This "Slavic/Germanic" bullshit, dates back from the Victorian era, when the City decided to divide Europe to protect its own hegemony from European challengers.
@@julianpetkov8320 thank you I clearly need to read up on the subject and educate myself, I thank you your words of wisdom.
@@steveholmes3471 Not at all, I'm glad if you found it informative. Cheers.
In Slovene, "nem" means "mute", so a person that is not able to speak. So "nemci" would be, "people who are not able to speak (our language)".
Poland has been set on 966 ( name Polonorum was first time written on 1112 - 150 years later) -> Older names : Wends , Vistula Veneti , Lehistan , Lenkija, Lachestan , etc . Word "Pole" -field comes from Word "Lęda" which means the same - land from burn and slash farming cultivation - the place created for farming after burning forest in the result of "Polana" - clearing ,".Lęda" came to the English under world "LAND" . Lęda also comes from tribe Lędzianie/ Lendzenoi which were known across entire Europe, from Greece to Rome , and from Kiev to Stockholm, also in Iran , Georgia and Turkey. Slavs name comes from tribe Sklavinoi not from slovo.
First notices about Spain, far before Rome, are related to a Celtiberic town. That town was named "Tartessos" which associated territory would eventually extend frm the actual Gibraltar strait to the portugese Algarve. The town was known for their metal works. By the way it was, for Mediterranean cultures, (greeks and phoenicians) the western most known land at the time. So, both meanings, Town at the West and Metal workers" make a lot of sence.
Missing on purpose the “negro” from Montenegro is actually very alarming about the conformism that we live in today. You should be an absolute idiot to relate this with the history of enslavement of African people by the colonial powers in the past. Montenegro is a slavic country with absolutely nothing related in their history with African slaves… Banning words because you want to express your empathy is actually not doing anything. This is another nonsense that white people came up with to show how progressive and forward thinking they are, but in fact it does not solve any issue, exactly the opposite - creates a bigger issue - censorship and conformism.
this is why I call the country "Monteneggroll"
This is all because most internet pop culture is heavy USA influenced and so we import all their shit. Major socials platforms are Americans, and so they apply their kind of politically correct. In my language (romanian) , black is said "negru", So on YT I couldn't even say "I have a black cat" 🤣🤣
Nobody is trying to "cancel" Montenegro. The reason General Knowledge is self-censoring is because KZhead's software is bad at distinguishing between similar sounding words, so there's a small chance that saying 'Montenegro' could result in the automated system demonetizing it. Its just bad programming, not 'nonsense made up by white people'.
@@BioTheHuman If it detected you were speaking Romanian then you could say that without needing to worry. KZhead's slur-detection software is very poorly built, but it can at least tell the differences between common languages. You wouldn't need to self-censor in that case.
and the name is literally a Venetian translation of the local name "Crna Gora." Perhaps updating it to the modern "Montenero" might placate the censors?
Fun fact: the reason Norwegian has two writing systems is because when Norway decided to develop its own writing system rather than using danish, two people started work on it. One person named Knut Knudsen decided to norwegianify the danish language, while Ivar Aasen decided to go around the entire county and turn the dialects into a written form
They should’ve committed to one or the other... I don’t see anything wrong with danish influence anyway
@@frostie7359 u danish?
@@Ossian-dr1vr probably
@@Ossian-dr1vr I’m American
@@frostie7359 😬
The origin of Switzerland listed here is wrong. "Switzerland" comes from the ancient germanic word “swidz”, which means “mountainous woodland”.
I think alot of these names get their names from different blends of the different ideas you proposed. I.e. they pronounce it “xyz” in one culture and “xxz” in another etc… These things were addressed as a multitude of things globally and probably merged and blended especially in the territories themselves. In sum, i think alot of these names didnt come from one specific place, but alot of places and converged.
21:47 As a proud Slovenian, i am extremly triggered.
lol i didnt even notice until u pointed out he literally spelled it wrong lmao
Hi stef
Nisam slovenac ali i mene je mater mu jbm😂
You dont need to feel offended, Im a Slovak citizen and my colleagues at work never learn the difference between Slovakia and Slovenia and at some point I just gave up to correct them. It doesnt matter though because both countries are beautiful in nature, people and history. What bugs me more is that mostly US people consider both Slovakia and Slovenia to be former soviet states or "the eastern europe" which is untrue.
Slovenoslovakia...... Still, didn't get butchered as much as Montenegro.
14:53 Boiiii
saturdays are for the boiis
In Slovenian dialect there's a word čeh that not only translates to Czech person but is also used for the word boy. Coincidence?
As a greek I felt offended at you time reference ,use 14:54 or 14:52
@@manolisbach2380 Omg, I just thought that to
@@manolisbach2380 as a Turk I must say I laughed really hard. ( I hope you don't get offended)
Very interesting and popular fact you didnt mention is that that viking was switching names on purpose with Greenland and Iceland, so people would go less on Iceland bcz it was very green and beautifull :D Greenland was always covered in ice and cold, and its nothing green there :D
Italia was the greek name of the extreme sourhern part of the peninsula Probably from the greek Αιθαλεια, menaing (smoky) , as there were a lot of smoke along the shores reached by greek sailors, because of many active volcanoes there (one of them named Vulcano, that gave the name to alla the volcanoes of the World)
But latinization of Aithaleia would be Aethaleia which would become Etalia,not Italia
@@galgar5660 but languages evolve. And It Is not rare that an I turn into an E ora an E into an I
"Port port" isn't so strange. In the US, flat top mountains or buttes are sometimes named "Table Mesa." Since "mesa" means "table " in Spanish, the feature is then actually called "Table table." But a lot of English speakers, especially the early settlers, didn't realize that when naming a flat-topped mountain.
One of our local rivers is called the River Avon ... which means "the river river" since Avon derives from a Brittonic word for river.
Very interesting, as usual, Meu general!
'-'
Mew 2
The reason Norway has two writing systems is that they essentially write like Danish. So to distance their written language from Danish more they made an new system, apparently that hasn't taken hold universally in Norway for some reason.
in Norway the gegoraphy or more so the typography plays a role. in the valey that that stretches from Oslo to north of Lillehammer danish was more prevalent, thus "Bokmål became a thing. The West Country is is more closely related to Faroese and islandinc, keeping more of the old norse lease affected by German
Germania comes from the roman words Gere Man, which means people from abroad and it focused to all people from abroad of the Roman Empire, also the Slavs. That is why there are many misunderstandings, which was German and what Slavic. In addition, Germans are called differently in different languages, depending on where the name was called out.
Yeah, Romans documented 2 Slovak words in Carpathian basin. Potisie (Pattisum) Pleso (Pelso) Before, we (we're also slavs)... supposedly arrived in the area.
Both in German and in Dutch, Belarus is still called white russia. "Port port" would honestly not be particularly surprising. Happens a lot when outsiders name things based on local names. For example, in the UK there's the river avon. Where "avon" is old welsh for "river". So it's "river river". I think it's mildly amusing, but also kinda obvious, that a lot of countries are basically called "our land" in same ancient tongue. Although there's also a lot that base it off the latin name for the local tribe, which also makes sense, given how much people idolized the romans in the past (and still kinda do).
Belarus is also White Russia (Valko-Venäjä) in Finnish
We call it "white russia" in Hungarian as well
This is true for Norwegian as well.
@@mathieunorth9147 why "Union Union"? Soviet doesn’t mean Union. You can translate it like "advice", "council" or even "recommendation". But the meaning of Soviet referring to Soviet Union has only one meaning. It is the council, which should mean it is a Republic of workers and peasants councils.
Belarus means always White Russia, no matter how political motivated some changes are. Because there is always the Slavic word, that means «White» and the word «Rus», which is «Russia» in Latin language. Germany call it since the protests not Weissrussland anymore, but Belarus(Russland is Russia in German). It’s not officially changed in the language, just politically motivated to split it from Russia and popularized in German media. But if they follow this "logic", they should rename most of the countries in their language.
I love how every other country has countless theories and opinions about the name origins, while Romania is like : "yep, the Roman Empire, Rome... so Romania it is🤷🏻"
Thats because, the Winner takes it all.They kill the Language and Culture. It gave many Tribes in pre-roman Italy and Greece Colonys too. The Indians(native Americans) had 500 Nations, now they count only 50 States and the Indians get only what?
@@kallejodelbauer2955 uhmm no, actually that's wrong, the Romans didn't have great control of Dacia, but they managed to coexist peacefully with the Dacians and many Romans fell in love with the land and people there and moved permanently, or simply wanted to get as far away from Rome as possible and a land The Romans could barely control was perfect, they didn't ruin Dacian culture, they merged with it, this is probably the most peaceful takeover in history :) it's quite wholesome actually...and it was all good until the Huns, Magyars and more came and burned everything xD
@@birisuandrei1551 In French they did them be part of Rome too.But only after 1/3 get killed and another 1/3 get into Slavery. And didnt came Spartacus from Thracia?
@@celestindimitriu3675 It was an Order.I would say, thats the worst what a Culture could happend. A hole Country that by Order, didnt talk anymore his own Name.Thats like in the 70s TV-Series "Roots".You dont be called Kunta Kinte anymore,i had give you the new Name Toby.This must be a slavery Regime,or they dont care anything at all.
@@celestindimitriu3675 That they did on every Country.Dacia had no written language at all.If it give no written proofs, all History came from the Romans.Dacia had good Fighters,thats what the Romans needed. They fight a War with a Country,get all the Gold to make Streets and Buildings and with the Rest of it they make a Aggrement.Its like under new Management,but they fight now for them.If they like the Dacia People and want let fight them for them,they can make a aggrement with them, without a war against him.After a lost War then you dont have a Choice anymore.They had co-operate with them,the same what French do in WW2.But they, had a Choice,they didnt fight with Germany. Forget what the Romans wrote,think what had you do, if you should fight for them.History is allways written by the Winner.Ok they can had a good Time in this Empire,but no written proofs came from thenself.Its like Trumps 20000 Fake-News wich he had make in only 4 Years.A Roman Cesar had even more Control of the People, then Trump now.
You seem to have mixed up Slovakia (to the East of Czech Republic) with Slovenia (between Italy and Croatia, with around 25 km of coast on the Adriatic Sea
i never thought about it but yeah osten is the german word for east so öster is just a morphed form of that with vowels often turning to umlauten in german when you do something with the word while richi just transformed with the word to reich, the problem is just that it really doesn't feels east of anything
In most slavic languages Slavs are ``those who use words`` And they call germans ``speechless`` I first found this about czech language slavs= slované| slovo=word germans= němci | němý=mute And i soon found out lot of other slavic languages share this phenomenon and i think its hilarious
Bro this is hilarious
Berlin comes from ancient Sorbian (Slavs from Germany, also known as Wends) word "brljin" which means "mud hole". Like the place where pigs roll in mud. True story.
@@PokojniToza1804 The name still holds true
@@PokojniToza1804Serbia got the name from Byzantine Empire. From the latin word: Servus(engl. servants). They were neither warriors or skilled in anything,they were useless(just like today)so Byzantines called them "servants". True story.
The czechs can regularly talk to Slovaks and Slovenes with no issue and can sometimes understand Poles and Russians The languages arent that diffrent ( i am czech )
There's a lot of tautological placenames. Roman shows up, asks a Celt "what do you call that?", Celt says "(celtic word of port)", Roman writes down Port Port.
I see you watch those Tom Scott videos too, lol
You‘re implying that the either the Celts or the Romans or both had an understanding of what the original celtic name for that region (celtic port) meant at that time.
And then they stab each other for 400 years.
Even if they did understand the language (and likely they did or had translators), the sound of a name is more important for communication than its meaning. A complete translation into the empire's official language would create a communication barrier with the locals. It would also be uselessly generic for a large empire with many ports, while for the locals it may be the only port. On the other hand, the use of the name untranslated would fail to highlight the strategic information that there is a port there. And so, bastardized tautological names are born.
@@KimonFrousios brilliantly explained, exactly what you said. Language barriers were quite extreme back in the day, it is my assumption that it was extremely difficult to find someone fluent in both the Roman Languague and some far away Tribal Language the Romans barely have any contact with, therefore ltranslation and naming oddities would be pretty common.
I'm pretty sure the "mark" in Denmark means something closer to field/field of grass, not woodland, borderland or march/marsh
France got its name further back in time actually. France started existing through the Franks, a germanic tribe that invaded Gaule, and with Clovis making himself King, and the influence of latin language over the time, the newly created Frankish kingdom became more known as "France" depending on the language you spoke back then
There is still a region in Germany called Franken (part of Bavaria) and two cities called Frankfurt (the place where the Franks crossed the River).
"Port Port" actually makes the most sense to me for Portugal. After all, tautological names originally deriving from translation confusion are relatively common.
yeah, like the original word for port could've been forgotten or ignored over time so they added the more modern word port in front of it and decided it was good
@@kirtil5177 It's the same when one says "Sahara desert", as "Sahara" means "desert" in Arabian
@@JossLun 'Torpenhow Hill' is a hill in England, where 'Tor', 'Pen', and 'How' all mean hill
Also, Portugal named East Timor (the portugese word for East) and Timor means in the lokal language east as well, soo East East. Good job, Port Port
@@noahsimon7658 That's my favorite one. Also the multiple rivers named "Avon" ("river").
It's also interesting, that Poland in Hungarian is Lengyelország. While most nations made contact with the Polanie tribe, Hungarians met the Lędzianie tribe, and named country after them.
There is a lot of misconception about Poland names origins also among our borders. In fact it wasn't named after Polanie Tribe but "Polacy" means "those who came after Lech" our mythical king. We are sometimes called "Lechici" or "Lechistan". It was an communist interpretation because they didn't wanted us to reffer to kings but to commoners. Still many of us believes it. "Polacy" basically means the same as "Szlachta". One is "after Lech" and the other is "from Lech".
I cant pronounce any word that have more than 3 consoants in a row(something common in eastern european languages)
@@Pedrinho8080 In polish, for example, consonants in a row (sz, cz, dz, dź, ch, rz...) most of the time creates one sound, without knowing a rule you naturally can't read it, just like it is in english (sh, ch, ck, gh, kn, th...) and in other languages, so it's not a thing only in est. european languages. The cyrillic alphabet simplified those consonants by writing them as a one letter, for ex. polish "szcz" sound is wrote as "щ" (similiar sound) in russian.
@@Pedrinho8080 it is pronounced like lyAkhi lyAkhy, accent on the big A
@@Rubashny_czerep I speak portuguese and here we have only a little of examples of this
Hard C on Cymru. The u at the end can also be pronounced as a y and sometimes depending on which version of Welsh.you use, it can be spelt with a G instead of a C.
Hungarian here. So Magyar ( Hungarian) comes from the name of one of the brothers of the pair: Hunor and Magor. They were brothers. Hunor was the forefather of the Huns, Magor was the forefather of the Magyars. This " myth" is written down in our oldest chronicles the Chronicon Pictum ( képes krónika). According to myth, they both chased a magical deer. This deer symbol can be found in old Hungarian burials, and also in pre Hungarian burial grounds of the avars of pannonia..before the Hungarians came to the region. This is why we believe that we are also in connection with avars, and the huns, as they used the very same bows, and artifacts .. such as the magical deer, the turul bird... the bows...just search avar burial deer or hun burial deer, it is the very same artifact. 😅
"I thought Europe was a country" - Many Americans
Realy 🤣
Many Indians too
They think they are educated, but they don't know anything about world outside the USA
I don't believe
No
Portus Cale meaning Port Port does make sense. Stuff like this happens all the time. It did happen a fair bit when the romans settled new areas, and that makes sense. If the area was called 'Cale', and the romans knew it as such without generally recognizing its meaning, they could promptly add 'Portus'. That's because they would see 'Cale' as a proper noun on itself, therefore, it would make sense for them.
I mean Timor Leste also just means East East.
@@liltinglullaby3282 there's also lake Chad in Africa; 'chad' meaning 'lake' in kanuri
And Sahara Desert is desert desert
Port Port is nothing Compared to Capital Capital Capital (Kyoto). Which is not the capitol of Japan.
@@2009heyhow because the actual capital is Tokyo which means Eastern capital. As Tō means east/eastern and Kyō means capital. Kyoto though can be translated to Capital, Capital Capital, or more accurately as Capital City (Kyō for capital and to for city). Of-course for a short while Kyoto was known as Saikyō which meant Western Capital or it was also just simply called Kyō (capital)
Port Port makes a lot of sense (if it derives from two languages which is the case). Today in Granada you have Alhambra, in which 'al' is already the definite artcicle 'the'. In Spanish it's the 'el Alhambra', meaning the the red castle. So when we refer in English to the song the el Alhambra we're really saying 'the the the' in three diferent languages.
Okay. Here's the history version I've been told. It refers to Lithuania and Belarus. The word "Lietuva" comes from the name of the tribe "Litviny" or "Litva" that inhabited territories northwest from nowadays Minsk, Belarus. In the middle of the XII century local dukes, beginning with Mindovg (or Mindaugas in Lithuanian), started to collect nearby small Principalities, thus The Great Dutchy of Lithuania was formed. For this version several facts speak: 1) full name of the state was The Great Dutchy of Lithuania, Russia, Zhemaitia (where Lithuania is mostly catholic west, Russia - mostly orthodox east and south, Zhemaitia - northern territories inhabited by baltic tribe called "zhemoity" in eastern slavs chronicles) 2)a vast number of toponims that evidently have slavonic origin (Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, was Vilno/Vilna/Vilnia until 1939; Kaunas, until 1919 Kovno/Kovna etc.)
u are wrong
Of Ruthenia* and Rus' is old Ukrainian state.
@dungadunga4300 he is right. You just heart this version first.
How many countries can you name? Greece and Rome : hold my wine
Greeks: "Stop calling us Greece!" Norway: "Got your back, Hellas"
Funny thing is, it's still called the _HELLENIC_ Republic.
That sounds bad ass
@@nandinhocunha440 Hellas, which is how ancient Greeks called themselves(Hellenes) means “land of light”. Greece comes from Grekos( Grekòs, Γραικός) which was the first Greek tribe the Romans came in contact to. These Greki were a tribe from Epirus, region of Greece. When they met the rest of the Greeks they called them with the same name they used for the first ones they came in contact, because they realised it’s the same people.
Stop calling Montegro, Niger and Nigeria, this hose on s are racist worlds
@@francescocattaneo8256 You gotta change some languages too, how dare they use similar words to say "black". Or are you a racist and invalidate any language that isn't English?
Port port makes sense, there numerous instances throughout history where an invading force asks for the local name, combines it with their own and centuries later, you hear about the river river river city, but it using 3 different words from 3 different languages. As for netherlands, you missed the fact that nether means down/low. So yes, netherlands refers still to it's low height. In german it is Niederlande, in Dutch Nederlande and I think you can see the clear connection there. Nieder/Neder also mean "down". So yeah, no mistranslation there.
Frankfurt (Francfort - in french), a german town (today) may have also been an origin for the name of the "francs" - invaders from east ; per present-day France. You did a good job w/ your explanation of countries like Greece & United Kingdom / Ireland ! ! Bravo. Rob't. D. - from colorado ( "color red" in spanish ) Voila' tout!
Just a point on Portugal's name potentially meaning "port port", that's actually incredibly common through history for different groups to essentially use two words that mean the same thing.
Gal (galas) means end/finish - in ancient time, last land in west direction, reachable without boat
In Switzerland there are a couple of creeks called "Aa Bach" Aa is just an old word for creek or stream and Bach means creek.
in english, Lake Chad, a large lake in Africa literally translates to Lake Lake
aye one example i can think of is Timor Leste means East East
Torpenhow in Cumbria, UK, means hill hill hill.
I'm pretty sure to have learned that France is called "Frankreich" in German because a part of the "Franks", a Germanic tribe, went over to back then "Gallia" and conquered most of the land. They would also be the first kings of France. Hence they named their empire after their tribe. The original natives of France were the Gauls which is why it was called Gallia during the reign of the Roman Empire. So I find this explanation very plausible and a bit more concrete than that it's just called France because of the word "franc". I feel like this way the origin makes a lot more sense. But I haven't any research. This is just the left-overs of my history classes.
🇫🇷 = France > Frankreich > Reich der Franken > Realm of Franks 🇦🇹 = Austria > Österreich > Östliches Reich > Eastern Realm
@@urlauburlaub2222 Netherlands just means low lands. Belgium was part of it. Holland was a province and it always have been an important province of the Netherlands politically since 1011 and also because of the VOC which spreaded this name all over the world. What do you mean with Germanic Empire because it was the Holy roman empire back then.
Correct Werners Gaming Lounge! As you can see in this animation nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franken_(volk)#/media/Bestand:Franks_expansion.gif
@@urlauburlaub2222 That's a pretty confused story. The Netherlands really does literally mean the low lands. The country as a whole is a river delta where various parts used to be water bodies or subjected to flooding several months of the year. This especially relates to Holland and Zeeland which makes it pretty silly to assume that the name was derived from an old Germanic name for woodlands. Regarding the mix-up with Holland being referenced as the country's name, this hardly has anything to do with the People from Holland claiming ownership of the rest of the country. What did however happen is that Holland became prominent at sea with ships sailing from various harbours in Holland, Zeeland and Flanders (so not just Amsterdam) flying the `princenflag` which was associated with William of Orange who was of the noble House of Nassau - the proprietors of the County of Holland and Friesland. The countries that were bugged by those ships didn't really care about the petty feelings of crew that originated from further inland and the family members that they left behind and simply referred to all of them as Diutch (`the people` in accordance with the Germanic origin - only in their case used sarcastic to imply that they were all uneducated savages) and being from Holland.
"Lingua Franca" is still used nowadays, and has nothing to do with the Franks. I tend to believe the name 'France' is a mix of gallicism (or gallo-roman) and franks -- of course in german it would be frankreich, but it's franCia in spanish, italian, frança in portuguese, etc.
Great video, clearly wherever you had reliable sources you did your research well, and you generally give a good overview in cases where the situation is less clear. That said, you fell for the silliest piece of folk etymology I've ever read or heard, about Moldova the river. European river names ALL are thousands of years old, they traverse multitudes of countries through millenia. The Moldova was already named one variety or other a long time before a local aristocrat of little consequence _to other countries_ along the river lost his poor dog. If at all then the dog was named after the river, not the other way around.