Example:
USA 美国 - 美 mean “beautiful” and 国 is “country”
So when my mom told me we were going to move to 美国, I, having never heard of anything about this country ever before, already had a positive impression of this “beautiful country”.
France 法国 - 法 is one of the characters in 法律, law, so my first impression was, that these people probably have very strict rules and are law abiders
Britain/UK 英国 - 英 is one of the characters in 英雄, hero, so I just imagine British people like to help the innocent (this was before I learned about British colonialism lol, but I guess the 英 character still sort of partly relevent, as in they view themselves as “hero”, aka: they interfere with other’s countries bussiness a lot)
Germany 德国 - 德 is one of the characters in 道德, morality, so I had a subconcious belief they were very moral people. I didn’t even know about the holocaust yet. 💀
Mexico 墨西哥 - 墨 is ink, 哥 is brother, so I though these are dark-skinned people that value brotherhood, masculinity.
South Korea 韩国 - 韩 sounds like 寒, so I just assumed it was a very cold country (isn’t it tho?) Oh BTW, I was in South Korea… in the airport waiting for a transfer flight, never actually entered the country for real, that was 15 years go, the closest I’ve ever been to South Korea. Wanna go there someday, see the snow (cuz its a 寒国 “cold country” remember xD)
Japan 日本 - 日 is the sun, so I thought it gets like very sunny or something
These are the few on the top of my head. You can mention any below and I can tell you what my “subconcious feel” about the name is.
iirc japanese has entire vocabulary and mannerisms for formal vs casual settings. higher or lower ranking. and it shows in their culture.
it’s kind of mindblowing how language itself can shape culture, not just vice versa. the powerful even uses this to their advantage.
a language might be a tool we use, but it absolutely shapes the way we see the world itself to a significant degree, even to the point where speakers of different languages might disagree on basic physical facts
eg: if you ask an english speaker how many fingers they have - they’ll answer 10. but if you answer a polish speaker - they’ll answer 20. polish makes little linguistic distinction between fingers, and how we call them, foot fingers
this is one example of many. i find it deeply fascinating and quite scary. it feels weird to realise that my understanding of the world is broadened and structured better thanks to the fact i use a language to describe it, but there might be things i’ll never notice, or will always confuse, simply because the tool i use is not perfect, and yet, that is the basis through which i perceive the world
Interesting post, thanks for sharing
If you can separate out the politics, America really is a beautiful country. So is China, I’ve been to both. Everyone should see both at least once.
I’ma hold off till yalls stop it with the outrageous political tourist vetting.
A couple points that media routinely skips right past because the current drama is great for clicks and views.
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The current “escalation” of immigration hostility is only slightly more aggressive than it’s always been. Not counting the performative stunts ICE is doing in cities and neighborhoods, those are also just isolated cases that most people will never see in person, even ones who live in areas that have news reports showing fires and riots and standoffs… these kinds of things are happening in areas like, one square block at the most. Not downplaying it, but I do want people to have an accurate perspective.
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And that percentage of bad cases and horror stories against tourists is very, very small to begin with. At least compared to the HUGE number of people flowing in and out of the country every hour. This is why the whole spectacle being played out by this administration is so ludicrous and pointless. More people were still deported under Biden. More people still stay in the country illegally just by overstaying their permits or travel visas. Most will never be caught or prosecuted.
I’m not a Trump fan. Any review of my socials will reveal some pretty ‘strident criticism’. Do you still recommend I chance losing 5k to 10k of bookings and weeks of leave on the chance I’ll get detained and deported?
I already cancelled my Hawaii trip in Feb and my trip to Miami in April.
Nah fam you should probably wait until Trump dies, which won’t be much longer.
My point was only that a lot of the news is a little hyperbolic, you should check other sources to see exactly what people in your situation are facing, I ain’t passing out financial or travel advice, just providing perspective.
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Also there’s 非洲 - meaning the “non-continent” directly translated. It’s what they’ve named Africa.
From what I read, a lot of these character choices (with the exception of Japan/Korea, they might have chosen those themselves) were made with the dual considerations of being similar sounding to the country name and the hanzi’s meaning being flattering to the people of the country. And there are plenty of country names that are entirely phonetic (e.g. 意大利 for Italy or 澳大利亚 for Australia, Mexico, etc.).
Japan definitely chose it themselves. Before, the country was known as 倭国, with 倭 meaning something like harmonic but also submissive. Obviously one Tennō wasn’t too happy about that and began signing letters to the Chinese court as “from the ruler of the land where the sun rises (日本) to the ruler of the land where the sun sets.” So Japan became the “Land of the rising sun” (well literally it’s the “sun’s origin”).
Japan 日本 - 日 is the sun
Makes sense, since Japan’s name in Japanese means “sun’s origin,” a reference to the fact that the sun rises there before anywhere else in Asia. What does 本 mean in this context?
本 is typically a more formal way of expressing “this,” but in this context it’s closer to “source” or “origin.”
Japan’s name uses the same characters in both Chinese and Japanese, but is pronounced differently: “ri ben” in Chinese and “ni hon” in Japanese.
This is also a huge problem when deciding how to write foreign names into Chinese: imagine the difference in public perspective when reading a news article about some country leader named “Prime Minister Sleepy Swamp Pit” vs “Prime Minister Strong Universe Zephyr” or whatever.
I Remember a decade ago i read a post on blogpost on exactly this
I wasted thirty minutes to search but I didn’t find it, but it was something like Michael Jackson was shocked to learn during his First tour in mainland china that the locals gave him the Hanzi 迈克尔·杰克逊 where the last character means “inferior” or something like that, instead in Taiwan the locals chose 麦可·杰克森 which has a better meaning.
When I studied Chinese our teachers basically took the first two letters of every student’s first & last names and associated it with pinyin & corresponding Chinese characters. So my Chinese name became Horse Angel.
Glorious Leader Tiny Sweat Hands
I attempted to learn Mandarin in 2019, at first with Duolingo with an aim to find more robust resources along the way. I had to stop because I couldn’t distinguish among the characters. I’ve looked for resources for learning Mandarin in braille but can’t find any.
I really enjoyed what I did learn though. It’s such a laconic language, and I’ve nabbed some grammar here and there for one of my conlangs.
This is fascinating! Thank you for posting
In China I replied “New Zealand” when someone asked where I was from. Complete blank stare… A friend of mine said something like “Nova Zelandia” which was immediately understood
The Netherlands (荷蘭), obviously is something with flowers. Google translate tells me 蘭 means “orchid”. Also the sound “Hèlán” is fairly close to how the natives pronounce “Nederland”.
‘Holland’ as some use for ‘the Netherlands’ is a bit of a pars pro toto as Holland is a province of the Netherlands. Is just the most well known part, and more easier pronounce with one/two syllables (depending on how well you’re articulating).
Thanks for the etymology btw I was curious about it when I read the op.
Mexico is actually right
Only if you are racist
Racism is when dark skin and strong family values
Racism is believing that race has anything to do with cultural things
It’s you who’s treating “mexican” as a race. To me it’s a nationality, which has everything to do with cultural things.
Interesting. In Japanese, we have the concept of ateji, where we just put Chinese characters for the sound so we just know not to take the meanings so literally. But we do tend to pick nice or neutral-sounding characters. i.e. we wouldn’t use characters like 死 or 糞 for the sound lol. This is the same for peoples’ names.
Interesting, Japan does a similar thing I think and the US is 米国 meaning rice country. Which sort of makes sense since the US has always had a huge agricultural / grain surplus. I wonder if the japanese think / know we’re fat because of the name.
Also england/ UK is the same 英国 as above so maybe they learned about them from the Chinese whereas they independently learned about the US and gave it a different name.
Which sort of makes sense since the US has always had a huge agricultural / grain surplus.
米国 is because of ateji, not agriculture. 米 is the second character of 亜米利加 – an old transliteration of “a-me-ri-ka” as kanji. 亜 is the shorthand for Asia (亜細亜); the second character 米 is used as the shorthand for America. 米 is both the country (USA) and the continents – e.g. 北米 and 南米 are sometimes used for North and South America, respectively, while 米軍 is the US military.
Katakana has mostly replaced kanji transliteration of foreign words in modern Japanese, but some uses like the 米 shorthand persist.
米 is the second character of 亜米利加
I wonder why it became beikoku instead of mekoku when it got shortened to 米国. I’m glad language learners at least don’t have to deal with ateji anymore. What a nightmare.
I think and the US is 米国 meaning rice country.
Lmfao, pretty sure that’s also the Chinese Nationalists’ internet term for it
Most of those do make sense from a 19th century or older viewpoint, so I suspect that it’s not just a coincidence that those words were linked to those countries. If it was only one or a few with an ulterior meaning, then I could believe it to be a coincidence, but it’s most of them. I more believe that there were chinese word artists at work who looked for words with both a fitting meaning and the right sound.
When it comes to nature, the USA is a really beautiful country. France gave the world the Code Napoléon, which is one of the most influential evolutions in law systems. Britain’s success in it’s colonies and in the industrial revolution was very often based on the endeavours of individuals, ie heroes. Northern Germans are sticklers for following rules, politeness etc (which was back then viewed very positively by others, but has since become a bit tainted because an attitude of the law is the law will often lead to inhumanity). Mexico: not a clue. Korea: I just have vague guesses. Japan, when seen from northern China, is where the sun rises.
