Current Events > There is only 1 US state whose name isn't the exact same in German.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Can you guess which one?

It's not New Mexico even though that one consists of 2 translatable parts (the country is Mexiko in German)

---

California = Kalifornien, don't know if that's what you mean?

---

Hexenherz posted...

California = Kalifornien, don't know if that's what you mean?

yep! topic over lol
i was just about to post an example with Florida being Floride in French

---

Lol after posting I was trying to remember all the state names thinking maybe there was one that had actually been translated, since "Kalifornien" is pretty darned close to California but obviously it's not *exactly* the same >_>

---

Arnold Schwarzenegger calls Sacramento sack of Mentos

---

Choco posted...

yep! topic over lol
i was just about to post an example with Florida being Floride in French

I think if Florida was called Floride, it'd be a much cleaner place

---

french is kind of inconsistent imo
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tats_des_%C3%89tats-Unis#Les_cinquante_%C3%89tats
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Nouveau-Mexique
New York
>_>

---

In Finnish, there's Kalifornia, the expected Pohjois-Dakota etc. compass direction states, but the surprising one is Havaiji.

---

In Russian you use the preposition ** ("in") to denote the location of something *in* one of the states, except for Alaska which uses ** (on). >_> (generally is used for island territories; also they use it as a means to say "the Ukraine" which is of course incorrect but that's the Russian perspective).

---

Hexenherz posted...

In Russian you use the preposition ** ("in") to denote the location of something *in* one of the states, except for Alaska which uses ** (on). >_> (generally is used for island territories; also they use it as a means to say "the Ukraine" which is of course incorrect but that's the Russian perspective).

i think location prepositions always suck in every language

---

Why is Sachsen-Anhalt called "Saxony-Anhalt" in English instead of Saxony-Stop?

---

How would you say "In LA we wear Chucks, not Ballys" in German?

---

How would you say "I come from East Oakland where the youngstas get hyphy" in German?


---

Turbam posted...

How would you say "In LA we wear Chucks, not Ballys" in German?

what the fuck is a ballys?

Butterfiles posted...

How would you say "I come from East Oakland where the youngstas get hyphy" in German?

what the fuck is a hyphy?

---

how would you say "there's a very heavy burtation tonight" in german

---

It irritates me that we don't call every place and country by what the inhabitants call it.

Choco posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphy

---

ghostblob posted...

It irritates me that we don't call every place and country by what the inhabitants call it.

according to a mississippian professor i had in college, mississippi is called "m'sippy" by locals

---

ghostblob posted...

It irritates me that we don't call every place and country by what the inhabitants call it.

Good luck, literally every country changes the name of every other country.

---

Italian is weird. Every state is the same as in English besides Nuovo Messico and the states with directions in their names

Carolina del Nord
Carolina del Sud
Dakota del Nord
Dakota del Sud
Virginia Occidentale

Distretto di Columbia and Porto Rico are translated though

---

ghostblob posted...

It irritates me that we don't call every place and country by what the inhabitants call it.

same but then again most people suck at pronouncing other languages properly

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

haha nice meme

---

Choco lives in Tyskland

---

Proper nouns just shouldn't be translated.

Friendly reminder that Rhode Island changed its name recently.

TheMikh posted...

according to a mississippian professor i had in college, mississippi is called "m'sippy" by locals

Can confirm.

---

BalanceLost posted...

Choco lives in Tyskland

that's kinda cute

---

Hexenherz posted...

Good luck, literally every country changes the name of every other country.

I mean Canada in Hindi is but it's still literally just Canada.
---

Choco posted...

that's kinda cute

Youre a tysk and you speak tyska.

---

Aachen is a town on Germany, near the border with Belgium and the Netherlands

In Dutch/Flemish the town is known as Aken and in French it's known as Aix-la-Chapelle

Fun fact: when travelling through Belgium east to west, the motorway straddles the Flemish/French border quite a bit in some parts. So every other sign has different names for the same place

ghostblob posted...

It irritates me that we don't call every place and country by what the inhabitants call it.

Bold of you to assume that the inhabitants all use the same name for a place
---

i been there once on my way to paris. very interesting

---

Usually there's a historic reason for these small differences, but I can't find any specific one for New Mexico besides its relatively long history.

---

teepan95 posted...

in French it's known as Aix-la-Chapelle

what the FUCK

---

Choco posted...

teepan95 posted...

in French it's known as Aix-la-Chapelle

what the FUCK

I know!

French just generally has a problem with German names: Mainz is Mayence
---

And in Spanish Aachen is Aquisgrn, which makes sense because it was Aquae Granni or Aquisgranum during the Roman Empire.

Choco posted...

Why is Sachsen-Anhalt called "Saxony-Anhalt" in English instead of Saxony-Stop?

Not sure if srs or not aware of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Anhalt

---

Math Murderer posted...

And in Spanish Aachen is Aquisgrn, which makes sense because it was Aquae Granni or Aquisgranum during the Roman Empire.

Choco posted...

Why is Sachsen-Anhalt called "Saxony-Anhalt" in English instead of Saxony-Stop?

Not sure if srs or not aware of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Anhalt

Choco ist auch ein Deutscher
---

Spelling doesn't change between languages.

i googled if any state names were different in dutch and oddly enough california is the only state to have a dutch translation too

---

I think the name California is the only state with Arabic origins.

Khalifa
Khilaafat/Caliphate

---

Is that really the origin of the name?
---

@teepan95 I don't believe so...

name of an imaginary realm in "Las sergas de Esplandin" ("Exploits of Espladn"), a romance by Spanish writer Garci Ordez de Montalvo, published in 1510. It was a sequel to his "Amadis de Gaula," and was said to have been influential among Spanish explorers of the New World. It could have led them to misidentify Baja California as this mythical land and to mistake it for an island. The Amadis tales are the Iberian equivalent of the Arthurian romances; they are older than 1510 (traces of them have been found mid-14c.) and were wildly popular. That conquistadors and sailors would have known the story in all its imaginative detail is hardly surprising.

Amadis de Gaula ... set a fashion: all later Spanish writers of books of chivalry adopted the machinery of Amadis de Gaula. Later knights were not less brave (they could not be braver than) Amadis; heroines were not less lovely (they could not be lovelier) than Oriana; there was nothing for it but to make the dragons more appalling, the giants larger, the wizards craftier, the magic castles more inaccessible, the enchanted lakes deeper. Subsequent books of chivalry are simple variants of the types in Amadis de Gaula: Cervantes made his barber describe it as 'the best of all books of this kind.' This verdict is essentially just. Amadis de Gaula was read everywhere, especially in the French version of Herberay des Essarts. It was done into Hebrew during the sixteenth century, and attracted readers as different as St Ignatius of Loyola and Henry of Navarre. Its vogue perhaps somewhat exceeded its merit, but its merits are not inconsiderable. [James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, "Spanish Literature," 1922 edition]

Where Montalvo got the name and what it means, if anything, is a mystery. In reference to the native inhabitants, Californian is attested from 1785 as an adjective, 1789 as a noun. The element Californium (1950) was named in reference to University of California, where it was discovered.

edit: More:

The Esplandin novel describes a fictional island named California,[8] inhabited only by black women, ruled by Queen Calafia, and east of the Indies. When Spanish explorers, under the command of Hernn Corts, learned of an island off the coast of Western Mexico, and rumored to be ruled by Amazon women, they named it California. Believing the Pacific Ocean, then called the South Sea, was much smaller than it turned out to be, the island seemed to precisely be east of the Indies just as the island of California was described in Montalvo's novel. Once the island was determined to be a peninsula, the name California had already been adopted, and the "island" eventually became known as the Baja California Peninsula.

---

LivingLegend posted...

I dont understand why different languages change the names of countries and cities...

I don't understand why some change the names of people sometimes

---

ROBANN_88 posted...

I don't understand why some change the names of people sometimes

Sometimes the name of the people was a thing before the country ever came to be.

---

Hmm, that makes more sense

Thanks for the write up!
---

ZeldaMutant posted...

In Finnish, there's Kalifornia, the expected Pohjois-Dakota etc. compass direction states, but the surprising one is Havaiji.

Well, that is very close to the correct pronunciation of Hawai'i. "w"s make a "v" sound in Hawaiian language, and the ' is a glottal stop.
---

Hexenherz posted...

@teepan95 I don't believe so...

name of an imaginary realm in "Las sergas de Esplandin" ("Exploits of Espladn"), a romance by Spanish writer Garci Ordez de Montalvo, published in 1510. It was a sequel to his "Amadis de Gaula," and was said to have been influential among Spanish explorers of the New World. It could have led them to misidentify Baja California as this mythical land and to mistake it for an island. The Amadis tales are the Iberian equivalent of the Arthurian romances; they are older than 1510 (traces of them have been found mid-14c.) and were wildly popular. That conquistadors and sailors would have known the story in all its imaginative detail is hardly surprising.

Where Montalvo got the name and what it means, if anything, is a mystery. In reference to the native inhabitants, Californian is attested from 1785 as an adjective, 1789 as a noun. The element Californium (1950) was named in reference to University of California, where it was discovered.

edit: More:

The Esplandin novel describes a fictional island named California,[8] inhabited only by black women, ruled by Queen Calafia, and east of the Indies. When Spanish explorers, under the command of Hernn Corts, learned of an island off the coast of Western Mexico, and rumored to be ruled by Amazon women, they named it California. Believing the Pacific Ocean, then called the South Sea, was much smaller than it turned out to be, the island seemed to precisely be east of the Indies just as the island of California was described in Montalvo's novel. Once the island was determined to be a peninsula, the name California had already been adopted, and the "island" eventually became known as the Baja California Peninsula.

Spain was ruled by Muslims up until 1492, and that Montalvo guy published his book in 1510, 18 years later. For almost 800 years there was heavy Arabic influence on Spanish culture. Its origin is probably Arabic.

---