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Comment by unstablediffusi | Hacker News Reader

>Czech Republic for Czechia

why single it out? even the countries that use (mostly) latin alphabet don't necessary have the same name in english - Poland is Polska, Lithuania is Lietuva, Estonia is Eesti, Finland is Suomi, etc. And latinizations/romanizations are often wildly inaccurate - Ukraine is actually Ukraina, Russia is actually Rossia, and the english pronunciations are completely wrong. Japan is Nihon. etc etc.

>Republic of Ireland for Ireland

there are two irelands, fyi

>Türkiye

no one can type that u on a keyboard without googling and copypasting it. you might as well insist on using hieroglyphs for CJK things

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> Czechia

> why single it out?

Because the country of Czechia has asked the English-speaking world to refer to it that way.

> there are two irelands, fyi

There is Ireland, the island of Ireland, and Northern Ireland. Republic of Ireland refers to the soccer team and nothing else, FYI.

The country of Ireland has also requested that the English speaking world use its name, Ireland and specifically not the Republic of Ireland.

> no one can type that u on a keyboard without googling and copypasting it. you might as well insist on using hieroglyphs for CJK things

Ah, so we'll just decide to rename countries with inconvenient letters. How very colonial of you.

>Republic of Ireland refers to the soccer team and nothing else, FYI.

'The Republic of Ireland' is the official descriptive term for the country named 'Ireland' in English, per the Republic of Ireland Act 1948. I have certainly heard 'Republic of Ireland' used in Ireland, or just 'the Republic', but almost always in cases where the descriptive distinction is important. I'd agree that outside of those cases, using 'Republic of Ireland' by default can be a problem.

>Because the country of Czechia has asked the English-speaking world to refer to it that way.

Unlike the political complexities around 'Republic of Ireland', 'The Czech Republic' actually is the official long name of the country in English, with 'Czechia' the official short name; the country's government promotes 'Czechia', but I don't think there is a suggestion that 'Czech Republic' is no longer acceptable. I have also never actually heard anyone in the country refer to it as Czechia in English.

> The Republic of Ireland' is the official descriptive term for the country named 'Ireland' in English, per the Republic of Ireland Act 1948.

The context is important. The Act revoked dominion status and role of the British Crown in the Irish executive branch, thus making Ireland a republic, and so deserving of a new description (the previous having been the Irish Free State).

Czechia is the only way I've heard the country referred to (in the news as it rarely comes up in person).

Accusations of colonialism are preposterous. Every language has its own names for other countries and cities. These range from adaptations to the phonetic patterns of the language (pl: Warszawa -> de: Warschau; fr: Paris -> nl: Parijs) or completely different (pl: Polska -> hu: Lengyelország; cy: Cymru -> en: Wales).

This is just how language works.

No, you're completely wrong. We - as an international society - generally accept the name that countries would like to be called, even in our own languages.

In English, we say: Sri Lanka, not Ceylon, Burkina Faso, not the Republic of Upper Volta, Botswana, not the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Bangladesh, not East Pakistan, The Netherlands, not Holland, Thailamd, not Siam, Etc

Colonialism perfectly sums up the arrogant attitude that you can decide for them what another country will be called.

So Americans/Irish/English/Scots/Welsh/Australians are all being "colonialist" when they refer to Wien as 'Vienna', Čechy as 'Bohemia', Abertawe as 'Swansea' and La Manche as 'The English Channel'?

Do you know how ridiculous you sound?

Sadly, this kind of illogical and undiscerning paranoia has invaded school curricula and universities as an overreaction to imperialism. It's part of the "hermeneutic of suspicion"; behind everything lurks an insidious evil intent, whether it is self-serving power and a will to dominate others, racism, colonialism, misogyny, or whatever. Those things exist, absolutely, but minds steeped in the hermeneutic of suspicion have one track minds. They read this threat into nearly everything.

Curiously, they don't seem to notice it in the workings of the very hermeneutic itself.

> Do you know how ridiculous you sound?

Do you? Has Vienna or Swansea asked you to change how you refer to them? If they did, would you? If not, why not?

According to your logic, the Germans should harangue the Azerbaijanis till they change "Almaniya" (the word for Germany in their language, which probably derives from the French "Allemagne") to "Deutschland".

The Finns call Germany "Saksa", those Finno-imperialists!

The Poles call it "Niemcy".

Exactly. And in the case of "Niemcy" above (which ultimately comes from the proto-Slavic "*němьcь", meaning "mute"), it would be ridiculous to claim that Poles have some kind of colonial relationship with the Germans. If anything, the reverse has been true in history: it was the Germans who engaged in colonial politics toward Poland, including the enactment of cultural policies that were designed to ethnically cleanse and germanize the country.

Yes, Germany could request that all of the above rename Germany in their respective languages and at least the EU nations would.

This has already happened quite recently as the Netherlands requested that countries moved to translations of Netherlands when referring to their country (as opposed to Holland and translations thereof) and all the EU nations did. This was in 2019.

So if Germany so desired, they could make those requests and they would be honoured. In a few decades, the old names would be as antiquated as Rhodesia, Burma, or Zaire are now.

Interesting. Do Brits (still) call the inhabitants of the Netherlands the Dutch like Americans do?

If so, what does the Netherlands think of that?

We don't give a damn. But the bureau of tourism does, that's how all the 'Holland' nonsense got started because they though 'the Netherlands' is too hard for the tourists. Ironically, 'Holland' only refers to a small fraction of 'The Netherlands'.

> soccer team

I don't think anybody plays "soccer" in Ireland! (Not in NI or the Republic!)

Do you mean it's not popular or people don't use the name?

If the former, you're wrong: soccer is the most played sport in Ireland.

If the latter, you're wrong: football is Gaelic football almost universally outside Dublin and soccer is soccer. In Dublin, it's 50/50 depending on area, but no-one will blink if you say soccer.

>Republic of Ireland refers to the soccer team and nothing else, FYI.

So confidently incorrect.

> no one can type that u on a keyboard without googling and copypasting it. you might as well insist on using hieroglyphs for CJK things

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ü#Letter_Ü

> The letter Ü is present in the Hungarian, Turkish, Uyghur Latin, Estonian, Azeri, Turkmen, Crimean Tatar, Kazakh Latin and Tatar Latin alphabets

I see and generally agree with your point, however that "no one" is approx. 120 million people. Just saying.

Also easily accessible on most EU keyboards, all Macs (long press u), and all mobile devices (long press u again).

Probably 90% of people globally can input the diacritic without difficulty, but even if not, the fallback should be Turkiye, not Turkey.

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