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From: karn@eagle.UUCP (Phil Karn)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Translated Country Names
Message-ID: <1068@eagle.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Aug-83 03:41:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: eagle.1068
Posted: Mon Aug 15 03:41:19 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Aug-83 01:38:09 EDT
Lines: 14

Here's a trivia question for you all:

I had always thought that it is common practice when translating from one
language to another to leave proper names unchanged, except perhaps to
transliterate letters when the alphabets are different.

Question: why are some country names completely different in certain
languages?  Excepting literal translations of multi-word names, I which
concede make sense (e.g., the French "Les E'tats Unis" and the English
"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics") the best example of what I mean
is "Germany" vs "Deutschland".  Were these names derived independently
by two groups of people to describe the same thing?

Phil