JapanForum.com - The origins of Japanese words

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Quote:

Originally Posted by anrakushi (Post 328216)

as for your point about people calling your country a name you understand in your language, my question is what does it matter? if they are talking to you they will use English and therefore call countries by their English name. a Chinese person is not going to call America 美国 "mei guo" when speaking English. Just like when i speak Japanese to Japanese people I say
日本 "nihon" so you would never have to worry about what other people call your country in their own language unless you speak it also.

That's not what I mean. It doesn't matter at all. I am just curious to know where the word "Japan" came from if the Japanese people themselves did not make such a name. If it was made by outsiders due to a mistake then that is fine, I have just always wanted to know where the word Japan came from if it is not a word they use.

I never studied language as you can see so I don't know how other countries operate. I didn't really know that countries have certain names for others. I thought they called them by what they really were...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kanji_The_Wanderer (Post 331627)

I never studied language as you can see so I don't know how other countries operate. I didn't really know that countries have certain names for others. I thought they called them by what they really were...

as i said i think the reason for you not being aware of this is because you are always interacting in english, thus people will refer to countries by their english name. swap over to another language though and things get different ^^

also names of countries are not generally made by mistake, they have reason at the time and evolve over time. they may sound quite different now from when they were initially used. there is the explanation where the name for japan came from in an earlier post. i don't see how that was at all a mistake. just evolution of a word through time :)

this might be of interest for you, im guessing you're american, sorry if i'm wrong. i'm not american myself but yeah... anyway, list of how america is known in other languages:
Saying "United States of America" in various [email protected]

This is most interesting indeed. I had no idea how many different variations there were of a countries name. (A lot of those are written similar to the actual word though) I have never had the chance to learn any other language. No school I have been to offers courses to study other languages. At least not languages that appeal to me ^__^

To answer your question, yes I happen to be American. I was lucky enough to be born here.:rolleyes:

I'm glad I finally got to find out the origin of the word "Japan". My curiosity has been satisfied now I no longer need interrupt your conversation with my inferior knowledge. Hehe