Why do we have different names in different languages for different countries? Shouldn’t we all call the country by whatever name the citizens of that country call it?

Question

Like Germany vs Deutchland

In: 1

Answer 1

Because people use the words they want to use and those usually have a long history.

Germany for example. It first come from the Roman who knew they was a lot of tribes sharing similar languages around the region where Germany is today. They were not unified, yes they share some common things, but they didn’t consider themselves one nation. So the Roman did what make sense. They could just send envoy to all the tribes and try to bring them together so that they decided how to call their nation, since they were not nations. They were just a lot of independent tribes, some in wars with each other, some allied to each other.

No, they just saw a bunch of tribes sharing some common element and decided to call that Germania. Because well you do need a name for it. Different people each had their own name for the other people around them and some of those stuck more than others. By the time Deuchtland became a more known concept, well the name Germania was already well anchored in the language and the culture. Why change it, it’s complicated, it will be confusing for certain people and you gain no real benefit for doing so.