What does the name of your country means?

[August Borms]

Originally posted by dannubis
what i meant with 'artificial' was that during the entire period after the fall of the roman empire until the foundation of our nation Belgium did not exist. And the belgae tribes homeland was actually more to the north of our country.

Well, the XVII Provinces of the United Netherlands were also called "Belgium" on some maps...

[Az]

Carthaginians called spain the land of snakes? Funny considering how they came from Northen Africa.

thanks for the source of Hispania, yaroslav. I've been wondering about that.

I've also been wondering about the source of "Iberia". It has a common root with caucasians, which are as it is well known, proto-europeans, and has a common sound with "Hebrew" as well, and I wanted to ask, what's the source of the name.

[yaroslav]

Iberia was the name of a river in Spain, the Ebro river

A link in English: http://ancienthistory.about.com/libr...painiberia.htm

Some people support a theory that said that we came from the Easter shores of the Mediterranean Sea... I don't know it is 100% sure

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
there are several korean names:
taehan minguk translates into republic of korea. used in formal instances, patriotic things, and the like.
taehan= tae= (some sort of particle) + han= korea == [taehan] korea
min= republic + guk= country == mingukrepublic.country

Assuming that tae and min are Chinese loanwords (i.e. directly representable by Hanja), then "tae" = great, and "min" = people.

So: The People's Nation of Great Korea
or rather, more normally: the Republic of Korea

one of the nicknames for it is "land of the morning calm", as opposed to japan's "land of the rising sun" and china's "middle kingdom".

Zhongguo = "Middle Kingdom". Technically "Central Country", but what the heck, "Middle Kingdom"s got a nice ring to it.

Chin-a comes from the Qin Dynasty (pronounced Chin). Europeans stick an "a" after every country, so there it is.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by rah
Speaking of vespucciland, I am reminded of an Old comedy bit that some of you old timers may remember.
It was quite funny at the time, but it may have been due to the ingestion of massive quantities of drugs. You be the judge.


The Winning of the West.
Waiting for the True White Brother.
a Radio Play in 3 Acts
by the Firesign Theater

Copyright © 1972 by Three or Four Crazy Guys, Inc.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep! I sure do. Those were the days. I had hair then. Personally "Don't Crush that Dwarf, Pass Me the Pliers!" was my favorite album of the bunch. They always went very well with Frank Zappa and The Greatful Dead too.

[Pekka]

Finland. I don't even know Well Finland would be easy, Land of Finns or something, but the original Suomi? I have no idea..

[Plan Austral]

Originally posted by War of Art
Germany - land of the plague

After all the deaths from the bubonic plague in the 14th century it was called Germany because there were many germs there.

Indeed.

No - its true.

-Jam

Is your avatar Gustav Mahler?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Plan Austral


Is your avatar Gustav Mahler?

Of course it is!

[Q Classic]

Assuming that tae and min are Chinese loanwords (i.e. directly representable by Hanja), then "tae" = great, and "min" = people.

i wasn't sure about the tae gloss-- one, there's no hanja characterization for taehan minguk, and two, tae as an adjective, i'm not sure of the root form.
minguk is literally "republic"--however, breaking it down into roots, "people-country"... min, however, isn't your usual word for "people" in korea these days.