Who else is annoyed by countries who are anal-retentive about their name?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Coast:

"In October 1985 the government requested that the country be known as Côte d'Ivoire in every language."

Really. You don't see the Japanese demanding that everybody call their country "Nippon". Or Brazil demanding its name not be spelled with a "z".

Symptom of low self-esteem if you ask me.

[billyskank]

1. Even the French don't ask that everybody call their country "La France"

Indeed, I daresay the inhabitants of Côte d'Ivoire probably use french names for all countries. Do they call Germany "Deutschland?" Do they say "England" or Angleterre?

[achtung_circus]

2. Do they call Germany "Deutschland?"

or Allemangne??

:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:

[billyskank]

3. Who, the inhabitants of Côte d'Ivoire, or the Germans?

I dare say the former call it "Allemagne." This is the point Dirtbag and I were making.

[Hugin]

4. Didn't it's name used to be... Upper Volta?

At least part of it.

[CanuckAmok]

5. ahem... that's Volta Supérieur to you.

Philistine.

[Hugin]

6. That's Mr. Philistine to you.

:)

[achtung_circus]

8. Monsieur Philistin?? nt

[achtung_circus]

7. Or Burkina Faso

Grade 10, extra point Geography test question? What is the Capital of Upper Volta?

Ouagadougou, and I with a WAG Oogabooga got 1/2 points.

[Beware the Beast Man]

9. I'm a Turtle Islander, damnit!!!

x(

[arwalden]

10. I Have Mixed Feelings

Unless there's some reason that ordinary (non-native) people throughout the world would have difficulty in pronouncing the country name (say, for example, those folks who use a "clicking" sound as one of their consonants) then it makes sense to refer to the country as its native citizens do.

Germany SHOULD be called Deutschland... that's not too hard to pronounce. Austria SHOULD be called Österreich... a little more difficult but not impossible. A little like "Urr-stir-ryke".

The real problem comes when you encounter countries like Switzerland, which has FOUR official languages and each language has a different pronunciation for the name of the country. Which one do you choose? (German: die Schweiz, French: la Suisse, Italian: Svizzera, Romansh: Svizra) When countries like Switzerland have this type of multiple personality, language and identity problem... then they really shouldn't be concerned with how the rest of the world pronounces their country's name.

I'm not sure what we'd should with the vowel-challenged countries. For example: the official name of the Republic of Croatia is "Republika Hrvatska". Note that there are *no* vowels between the letters H, R, and V. Yet to hear a native speaker pronounce the name it sounds a little "hur-rah-VAT-ska". Where did those vowel sounds come from if there are NO VOWELS???!!!

In these cases, then we should just call the country whatever we want to call it.

This would be especially true when the country in question doesn't even BOTHER to use REAL letters. (I'm not sure if this will show up properly on your browser, but just below is how the people of Iraq spell their country's name.)

الجمهورية العراقية

And they expect us to pronounce it as "Aj-Jumhuriyah Al-'Iraqiyah" ?? And then they have the nerve to write everything BACKWARD?? You gotta be kidding me! Personally, I don't event think those are real words.

I suppose at the very least everyone should make an EFFORT to come close to the native speaker's pronunciation. At least when we say "Iraq" you know that those two syllables make up part of the country's name.

For example, when we say "Italy" it's pretty darn close to Italia (Ital-ya) and when we say "Spain"... there some slight similarity to España.

There's already a "Georgia" in the United States, so why would we want to use the same word when referring to the Republic of Georgia. The actual name of the country is: საქართველო, transliterated as "Sakartvelo". Sa-kart-velo. That's not too difficult to pronounce. Even though you can't easily read their letters, they do know how to use vowels.

Also... whenever the news anchors report about some tragic event that happened in "Georgia" ("a bomb exploded in the capital building of Georgia today") I always assume that something terrible has happened in ATLANTA. If everyone would just call it "Sakartvelo" then this type of confusion would be eliminated.

With regards to Brazil... I think they should consider themselves lucky that most Americans pronounce it correctly even if we don't spell it correctly. If you listen to a native speaker, they clearly pronounce the "S" in "Brasil" using the "Z" sound.

[arwalden]

11. Chad Should Change Its Name To David. Why Does "Filipino" BeginWith "F"...

... but the name of the country begins with "P"? Shouldn't it be "Philipino" or shouldn't it be The Filipines?

[The Deacon]

12. Actually

The name is "Tchad." French speakers have difficulty with "ch." As far as Ivory Coast goes, having heard most non-French speakers try to pronounce French names - stick with Ivory Coast.
On the subject of names of African countries, I have noticed something unusual (did the research when I lived in Ghana, btw.) Most of those who have adopted the names of ancient African kingdoms & empires adopted the wrong kingdoms or empires. Dahoumey (which was the actual name of a kngdom in that area) became Benin, which was an empire further inland. Ghana was a much feared empire - but located nowhere near the current country. More properly they should be called "Ashanti" after the Ashanti Kingdom (some of the baddest of badasses in West Africa.) Togo? They fought (and lost) the Ashanti for access to the sea - near where the modern State of Togo is, but no more so than Benin or Ghana.
Sierra Leone? Don't even go there - named by an Italian sea capitan who thought the hill above Freetown looked like a lion.
At least most of the African countries are called by either an approximation of their name or a translation of it - most of the "older" countries are completely non-plussed by what we choose to saddle them with. Where did we get "japan" out of "nippon"? Or "austria" from "osterriech"? And I love "holland" and "dutch" from "nederland."
So, Cote d'Ivoire, count yourself lucky - we haven't COMPLETELY screwed up your name.

[maveric]

13. Why do we say "Germany" and germans say "The Deutchland".

Its not even close. If they call their country The Deutchland<sp> then why dont we pronouce it the same way. Its their country and they made the damn name up.