Why do we (Anglophones) use the native language name for some countries (Costa Rica, not Rich Coast), but not for others (Germany, not Deutschland)?
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Someone can correct me if I’m wrong about this, but I believe the reason is the following:
For older, (mostly) European/Asian countries, we had no international standards bodies and so would come up with names that were useful to us for labeling other nations. Colonialism was probably also a factor here.
For newer nations we had a lot more standardization and better communication, so we just used the name we knew they called themselves.
The difference is mostly from when the English speakers first encountered a place, and the name comes from what it was being called at the time, So many European Countries there are still names from a very long time ago, Germany is one of the primary origin places of the English language and its people, so our name for it is basically ancient (predates modern languages).
But Costa Rica was a Spanish Colony when the English first discovered, and that was some time in the last 500 years, And English hasn’t changed that much since then (ignoring the vowel shift 😛 ) So we still have the Spanish colonists word for the place.
The name a foriegn language has for another country or region is called an exonym (outside name.)
Language is always evolving and sometimes the exonym evolves with the language or is borrowed from another language.
English speakers call Deutschland “Germany” because the region near modern day Deutschland was called “Germania” in Latin, which means “where the Germani live.” And Germani basically means “neighbor” in Latin.
Roughly similar lineage of people stayed living there and the Latin name wasn’t forced to change, so the Latin name stuck in English (and Italian). However, not all Latin influenced languages used the same name. The French call Deutschland “Allemagne” from the name Alemmani which were a group of tribes in the area.
Then, you have exonyms that a country or people wants to change. For example, modern Iran used to be called “Persia” in English from Greek Persís from Old Persian name for Cyrus the Great’s people. Officially the name was changed to Iran by request of one of Iran’s old leaders. Iran is roughly a changed spelling of the old Iranian word ērān which describes a people who lived in the area. However, during WW2, the Allies changed the name on maps back to Persia to avoid confusing it with Iraq, then it changed back to Iran, then some Iranians wanted to bring back the name Persia to connect Iran back to the old glory of the “Persian Empire” (and distance from the current Iranian government). Now the name Iran and Persia are both acceptable. So, for political and historic reasons, the exonym for Iran changed multiple times, often because people wanted actively to change the name for various reasons.
So… Exonyms are complex. They are often transmitted across languages and history and thus morph with time like all language. But country names are also political so sometimes exonyms are officially changed by governments or people.
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it’s Turkish delight on a moonlit night.
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam. Why they changed it I can’t say, I guess people just liked it better that way!
I wondered the same thing, but about Taco Bell sauce packets. Why is one “Salsa Verde” and right next to it is “Fire Sauce?”
Because we wont change it until the war ends between Germany and Costa Rica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_extended_by_diplomatic_irregularity
It’s not only English doing it. If you check how European countries call each other you would find a lot of even more interesting things. Examples from my own language – Polish – is Niemcy for Germany and Włochy for Italy. We also call Hungary Węgry – with both names somehow different from Magyarorszag as they call themselves.
Stores behind each of those are interesting and often different, but tend to boil down to “people of X called people from Y name Z, as they have always done it because of some historic reason, and noone cared to change it”.
Then there are modern days name changes, where diplomats or tourism notices that name is problematic and starts a campaign. This recently happened in few countries, like Republic of Cabo Verde. The poor guys were called Cape Verde (Verde is green in Portuguese), which ended up being translated to specific languages, for example Wyspy Zielonego Przylądka in Polish. Which as you can imagine may be problematic, give that it’s only one of hundreds of translations from around the world. Solution worked, and they are now Cabo Verde for everyone.
The other funny one is Eswatini, which used to have a name very similar to the one of small European alpine country starting with S. Until their diplomacy said enough after one too many awkward situations.
Sometimes we use both languages in English. For instance if an English-speaking person is talking about Italian football, they’d talk about a game between Napoli and Roma, for instance, never between Naples and Rome. And while we use the English word when describing the Spanish city of Sevilla, we use Spanish when speaking about the football team.
And then there’s the weird case of FC Bayern München, which is often referred to in English as Bayern Munich. Bayern is just the German word for Bavaria, so logically we should either use the German term, or translate both words and say Bavaria Munich.
Sidenote: Many of the Native American tribe names the Europeans recorded translate to “them”, “the enemy”, “other people” and the like because when the Europeans asked “Who are those people?” those were the answers.
TIL Costa Rica means “Rich Coast”. I mean I guess I’m dumb given the French (because I’m French) translation would be “Côte Riche” and it’s pretty close to Costa Rica when you think about it.
I’m always intrigued that in English we have our own names for most Italian cities, and a few German ones. But for France and Spain we just use their correct names. Allowing for our terrible pronunciation of course.
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