this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
53 points (89.6% liked)

Casual Conversation

2751 readers
494 users here now

Share a story, ask a question, or start a conversation about (almost) anything you desire. Maybe you'll make some friends in the process.


RULES (updated 01/22/25)

  1. Be respectful: no harassment, hate speech, bigotry, and/or trolling. To be concise, disrespect is defined by escalation.
  2. Encourage conversation in your OP. This means including heavily implicative subject matter when you can and also engaging in your thread when possible. You won't be punished for trying.
  3. Avoid controversial topics (politics or societal debates come to mind, though we are not saying not to talk about anything that resembles these). There's a guide in the protocol book offered as a mod model that can be used for that; it's vague until you realize it was made for things like the rule in question. At least four purple answers must apply to a "controversial" message for it to be allowed.
  4. Keep it clean and SFW: No illegal content or anything gross and inappropriate. A rule of thumb is if a recording of a conversation put on another platform would get someone a COPPA violation response, that exact exchange should be avoided when possible.
  5. No solicitation such as ads, promotional content, spam, surveys etc. The chart redirected to above applies to spam material as well, which is one of the reasons its wording is vague, as it applies to a few things. Again, a "spammy" message must be applicable to four purple answers before it's allowed.
  6. Respect privacy as well as truth: Don’t ask for or share any personal information or slander anyone. A rule of thumb is if something is enough info to go by that it "would be a copyright violation if the info was art" as another group put it, or that it alone can be used to narrow someone down to 150 physical humans (Dunbar's Number) or less, it's considered an excess breach of privacy. Slander is defined by intentional utilitarian misguidance at the expense (positive or negative) of a sentient entity. This often links back to or mixes with rule one, which implies, for example, that even something that is true can still amount to what slander is trying to achieve, and that will be looked down upon.

Casual conversation communities:

Related discussion-focused communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I mean:

English

Russian

French? (how did this happen? France --> French?!?)

Chinese

And someone from Afghanistan is an Afghan? How did the word get shorter not longer? 🤔

Also, why is a person from India called an Indian, but the language is called Hindi? This breaks my brain...

Philippines --> Filipino? They just saw the "Ph" and decided to use an "F"? 🤔

Okay idk how language even works anymore...

[This is an open discusssion thread on languages and their quirks...]

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 14 points 19 hours ago (5 children)

I've always wondered how we got Japan for a place that calls itself Nippon.

Tbf, I've looked it up a few times and forgotten, so I guess I don't feel that strongly about it.

[–] don@lemm.ee 12 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

For anyone else wondering, according to the wiki: “The name "Japan" is based on Min or Wu Chinese pronunciations of 日本 (pronounced a bit like JOO-pun)* and was introduced to European languages through early trade.”

*parentheses mine.

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Min and Wu are wildly different. Is there pronunciation similar in this case?

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I think that's why it was "Min or Wu" there.

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 1 points 6 hours ago

I can read, that’s why I’m asking this question!

Thanks for the sass

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

And why "China" instead of "Zhongguo" or "Zhonghua" or any number of words, none of which sound like "China".

[–] Redex68@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

I'm pretty sure it came from the Portuguese word for tea (chá).

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 6 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

English likely got the name from Portuguese, "Japão" *[ʒä'pɐ̃ŋ] (see note). I don't think that it's from Dutch "Japan" because otherwise the name would end as "Yapan", as Dutch uses a clear [j] ("y") sound.

In turn Portuguese got it from either Malay or some Chinese language. I think that it's from Cantonese 日本 jat⁶ bun² [jɐt˨ puːn˧˥]. Portuguese has this historical tendency to transform [j] into [ʒ] (the "g" in "genre"), and to mess with any sort of nasal ending.

The name in Chinese languages can be analysed as meaning simply "Sun origin". Because it's to the east of China.

In turn, there are a few ways to refer to Japan in Japanese:

  • 日本 / Nihon - it's a cognate of that Cantonese jat⁶ bun². Except that it uses the Japanese rendering of Wu Chinese words.
  • 日本 / Nippon - same as above, with a slightly more conservative pronunciation (Japanese converted a lot of [p] into [h]).
  • 大和 / Yamato - it's metaphorically referring to the whole (Japan) by one of its part (the Yamato province, modern Nara).
  • 日の本の国 / Hinomoto-no-Kuni - poetic and dated name. 日/hi = Sun, 本/moto = origin, 国/kuni = land, の = an adposition**. So it also means "land of the origin of the Sun". The big difference here is that all words used are inherited from Old Japanese, so there's no Chinese borrowing involved.

*note: that [ŋ] is reconstructed for around 1500 or so (Nanban trade times), given the word was also spelled Japam back then. A more typical contemporary pronunciation would be more like [ʒä'pɜ̃ʊ̯].

**the best way I know to explain Japanese の/no is that it works like a reversed English "of": in English you'd say "origin of Sun", in Japanese you'd say "Sun no origin" (hi no moto = 日の本). I only remember this because of Boku no Hero Academia, because "boku no" = "of I" (my).

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks for the explanation. So Japan comes from Portuguese via a Chinese language?

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 5 hours ago

The opposite, it ultimately comes from a Chinese language via Portuguese.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

The way I always remembered の is that it’s much like ’s in English. In other words 日の本 would be“sun’s origin.”

At first I tried to remember it like a reversed Spanish de but that didn’t work because I got it confused with で.

[–] Forester@pawb.social 6 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

The Dutch you can blame the Dutch.

I may be conflating, Japan and China. Whoops

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

I mean... similarly: How did we get "China" from ZhongGuo? 🤔

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 4 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

We didn’t. 中國likely became the most common name with 中華民國(present day commonly known as Taiwan). What you now know as China is 中華人民共和國, so 中國 carries on. During dynasty periods that was not the common name.

China comes from sina/sino. I don’t remember where this comes from. Sanskrit?

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Uh... 中国(Zhongguo) was first used in the Western Zhou period, over 3000 years ago. Other words like 诸夏(Zhuxia), 诸华 (Zhuhua), 天下 (Tianxia), 华夏 (Huaxia), 神州 (Shenzhou), 九州 (Jiuzhou), and assorted combinations or variations of these were used off and on over the time as well. (None of which sound like "China" naturally.) 大清国 (Daqing Guo) was used the Qing before they were overthrown and the Republic, and later the People's Republic, took the country over again.

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago

It wasn’t common though. Like everyone calls it 中國 now. Not so back then. China has fragmented and reunited many times

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

China comes from sina/sino. I don’t remember where this comes from. Sanskrit?

Odds are that both were independently borrowed from Sanskrit चीन / Cīna:

  • China: Sanskrit, then Persian, Portuguese, English. By then Portuguese likely still had the [tʃ] "tch" sound.
  • Sina: Sanskrit, then Persian, Arabic, Greek, Latin, English. Arabic converted Sanskrit [tɕ] into [sˤ], then Greek into [s].

Note: dunno in English but at least in Latin "Sina" (often Sinae, the plural) refers specifically to southern China. The north is typically called Serica (roughly "of the silk").

[–] Limitless_screaming@kbin.earth 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

In Arabic it's "Seen" (صين) with a Saad (ص) ‎[sˤ]. It came from Persian "چین" (Cheen). Which came from Sanskrit.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 15 hours ago

My bad, and thanks for the info! I'll correct my comment, I kind of rushed checking the etymologies.

[–] themoken@startrek.website 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Wikipedia says from Portuguese, through Persian, back to Sanskrit, being the grand daddy of English, calling it "cina", and/or it has to do with Qin Dynasty that unified China.

Probably better than whatever bullshit they would have gotten from Zhongguo if "Peking" was as good as they could do with "Beijing"

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 17 hours ago

back to Sanskrit, being the grand daddy of English

Sanskrit is more like English's uncle than granddaddy: English is from Proto-Germanic, and both Proto-Germanic and Sanskrit are from Proto-Indo-European.

[–] SGforce@lemmy.ca 2 points 18 hours ago

Or that soy beans are actually named after the sauce, since English didn't have a word for the bean yet.