Today's winner
Jun. 28th, 2008 05:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beige_alertToday's winner in the unwieldy category of "Languages are Confusing: Best name of a country ever (depending on which languages you speak)" is "Island."
(A few of you might have already guessed what I'm getting at.)
There is this volcanic island in the north Atlantic, just slightly south of the arctic circle. This place is the country known in English as Iceland. The name is fairly descriptive, given the weather that far north.
In German, it is called "Island." If, like me, you mostly speak English, I suppose that's pretty descriptive, too. (The German word for island is Insel. In Icelandic Iceland is Ísland or Lýðveldið Ísland.)
You see, I was reading over this list of countries, in German. Some are pretty obvious (Kanada), some I already knew (Frankreich is France), and Island, um, well, it's the sort of thing that jars the brain. Though my guess, after a bit of thought, did turn out to be correct.
(A few of you might have already guessed what I'm getting at.)
There is this volcanic island in the north Atlantic, just slightly south of the arctic circle. This place is the country known in English as Iceland. The name is fairly descriptive, given the weather that far north.
In German, it is called "Island." If, like me, you mostly speak English, I suppose that's pretty descriptive, too. (The German word for island is Insel. In Icelandic Iceland is Ísland or Lýðveldið Ísland.)
You see, I was reading over this list of countries, in German. Some are pretty obvious (Kanada), some I already knew (Frankreich is France), and Island, um, well, it's the sort of thing that jars the brain. Though my guess, after a bit of thought, did turn out to be correct.
