What We Call Countries VS What They Call Themselves

Fun fact: a Slavic exonym for Germany is "Niemcy" (prounounced Niem-tzy or something along those lines) and it comes from a word "niemi" which is a word that defines people without the ability to speak. Basically when Slavs started to migrate to other regions, they somewhat understood each other, but when they traveled to the west of their area, they found out that they cannot understand what the local people are saying whatsoever. Funny enough, because of that people that could've understand each other called themselves "Słowianie" (In english - Slavs), which is a derivative word from "słowo" which basically means "word". In other words "they can't speak, but we can".

Japan: Land of the rising sun 🌄 Morocco: Land of the setting sun 🌇 The first and the second oldest monarchies in the world. If that's not the most poetic thing I've heard this year!

It made me so happy when you tried to pronounce "Magyarország" (Hungary) i'm hungarian and it makes me smile when people try to speak the laungage, visit the country, or appreciate the culture

Now, Switzerland is most DEFINITELY NOT called "Helvetia" by its people. As there are four official languages, the endonyms are Schweiz (German), "Svizzera" (Italian), "Svizra" (Rumansh) and "Suisse" (French). Choseon was one of the predecessors of what is today's Korea.

Funfact : Brazil region was actually called Pindorama by the natives that speak languages from tupi guarani roots. Nowadays the population of Paraguay that speaks guarani refers to Brazil as Pindorama

Iran is an interesting example. For most of history, "Iran" was the endonym and "Persia" was the exonym, but recently (by historical standards at least) Iran asked everybody to use the name "Iran" instead, which is how we've referred to it since.

I noticed that on the second map, Belgium was called just the English name, correct me if it wasn't. In Belgium, there are 3 official languages: Dutch, French and German, which all have very similar names for the country, respectively België, /bɛlɣiə/ Belgique /bɛlʒik/ and Belgien /bɛlɡjən/, all with a different pronunciation of the G.

Fun fact 2: Luxemburg is a country and also a province of Belgium. Both Belgium and the Netherlands have "Brabant" provinces. People tend to refer to the Netherlands as "Holland," which are really just provinces (North & South) of the Netherlands. People also tend to refer to "The Ardennes" as the Belgian province through which the Germans made their Blitzkrieg. But the only political entity called "The Ardennes" is in France.

Just a side note: The UK is called by its English name, and so are the nations within it. However, since Scots Gaelic, Irish and Welsh exist we obviously have endonyms. Scotland is Alba, Wales is Cymru and Northern Ireland is Tuaisceart Éireann. What I find somewhat amusing is that the non-English nations of the UK call each other mostly similar Exonyms from their Endonyms. In Scots Gaelic, Wales is Chuimrigh and Northern Ireland is Èirinn a Tuath. In Welsh, Scotland is Yr Alban and Northern Ireland is Gogledd Iwerddon. In Irish, Scotland is Albain and Wales is An Bhreatain Bheag.

5:29 correction: Suomi does not mean "land". In fact, nobody really knows where the name comes from or what it means. There have been numerous theories linked to swamps ("suo" in Finnish), of which there are plenty in Finland. Some theories link the name to the Sami and once I've heard a theory linking the name to the scales of the fish ("suomu" in Finnish). But, at least as of right now, nobody knows the real answer.

I have wondered about this for decades! This is perfectly laid out. Thank you so much!

Scotlands endonym is Alba, pronounced Alapa, but it's more common exonym comes from the Roman name, meaning Land of the Scoti. The Scoti were Irish pirates, who would use Scoti Land as a stage for raiding smaller forts and ambushing patrols. Eventually the Irish reavers and Picts banded together and named the land Alba. It's sometimes mistakenly called Caledonia, but that name only referred to the north eastern part that was ruled by the Caledons. We have no idea what the land was called by the Picts before they formed an alliance with the Scoti, which is a shame.

Japan has two ways of reading the kanji "日本" = nippon or nihon. Either one is correct, and nobody knows which one is more "authentic" (whatever that means)

In Switzerland the endonym is actually Schweiz(Schwiiz)/Suisse/Svizzera/Svizra depending on the language region you’re from. Helvetia is only in the latin name for the Swiss confederation as in Confederatio Helvetica but nobody ever says Helvetia because it’s basically a latin exonym.

Super interesting and well made. Thank you for your work.

Love how much effort you put into the pronunciation of each name. Congrats

I always found the meaning of Austria's endonym "Österreich" very interesting as it literally means "Eastern Empire"

Although Bharata means Fire but India is named Bharat after the brave king Bharat who ruled the land. Hence even in ancient mythology books, the land between the Himalayas till the ocean in the south is mentioned as Bharatvarsha(i.e. the land of king Bharat).

I enjoyed your video. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

I wasn't expecting to be this much entertained by this video when I clicked on it. Really nice!!