Anyone know if the map of "literal Chinese translations for country names" is accurate? Seems like there's some possible insight into Chinese culture if what it portrays is accurate.
I wonder how much business China does with Italy :D
I wonder how much business China does with Italy :D
That said, the map as a literal translation is mostly "correct", even though it is meaningless.
I might add that "Asia" also is a loan word in Chinese. If you do a literal translation of that name, it comes out as being something along the lines of "secondary/inferior continent". This does not mean that Chinese people think Asia is a bad continent. It's just a phonetic loan.
p.s. not actually illegal - just severely frowned upon.
And Canada is literally 'village.' Meaningless, but a funny bit of trivia. Which is all the literal Chinese names map is.
I'd love for someone who actually knows what they're talking about to chime in, though!
You can see that some name are purely phonetic (finland, bielarus).
A few however, ends with 国, which is the character for country. These names are actually significant (for instance, china is 中国, middle country (middle kingdom) and germany actually is brave country)