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.
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