# Why is Thailand morphologically Germanic?



## Catagrapha

Thailand, Thailandia, and many other forms have Germanic stem _land_, which seems exonymically unique in the region, e.g., there are Malaya (not Malayland), Laos (not Laoland), Tartary (not Tartarland), Mongolia (not Mongolland).
Why is the naming of Thailand exceptional?


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## elroy

Are you asking about the English name?


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## Treaty

The name _Thailand _was chosen in the 1930s by a regime that had desire to make the country westernized. This may explain the "land" part.


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## Catagrapha

Treaty said:


> The name _Thailand _was chosen in the 1930s by a regime that had desire to make the country westernized. This may explain the "land" part.


Regional powers like Japan and China are still referred to as their old exonyms by Westerners due to exonymic inertia.
To make the old exonym Siam obsolete and a new exonym of their own choosing recognized internationally was diplomatically brilliant on the regime's part.


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## Circunflejo

Catagrapha said:


> which seems exonymically unique in the region,


Well, there's Nagaland in India.


Catagrapha said:


> To make the old exonym Siam obsolete and a new exonym of their own choosing recognized internationally was diplomatically brilliant on the regime's part.


Their neighbours of Myanmar are trying to make the same but Burma isn't yet fully obsolete in daily speech.


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## berndf

Circunflejo said:


> Their neighbours of Myanmar are trying to make the same but Burma isn't yet fully obsolete in daily speech.


That is not quite the same thing. Myanmar and Burma are just different transcriptions for the same word reflecting register variants in pronunciation. It is as if you would transcribe the _Holborn_ as_ 'o'ben_ to reflect local pronunciation.


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## Penyafort

The problem with transcriptions comes when they're based -and traditionally most are- on languages such as English or French, so irregular in their spelling to the eyes of so many speakers from other languages.

What should languages do? Preserve the bizarre written form and pronounce it in many different ways? Or try to pronounce it as close to the original as possible by adapting it to the spelling of the language?

In Spanish, Seoul is Seúl and Jakarta is Yakarta, and no problem. Thailand was smoothly adapted to Tailandia, as most countries ending in -land except for England (Inglaterra). Côte d'Ivoire continues to be Costa de Marfil. I don't see why Birmania should change into Myanmar, to be honest. But if so, it should be Miamá or Miemá, in order to get as close as possible to the pronunciation, and not Myanmar, which looks bizarre and confusing for a Spanish speaker,  and would just give way to funny variations.


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## berndf

Penyafort said:


> In Spanish, Seoul is Seúl and Jakarta is Yakarta, and no problem. Thailand was smoothly adapted to Tailandia, as most countries ending in -land except for England (Inglaterra). Côte d'Ivoire continues to be Costa de Marfil. I don't see why Birmania should change into Myanmar, to be honest. But if so, it should be Miamá or Miemá, in order to get as close as possible to the pronunciation, and not Myanmar, which looks bizarre and confusing for a Spanish speaker, and would just give way to funny variations.


Well, they didn't have Spanish speakers in mind, neither when they developed dialect-/register-variations in their language nor when the transcriptions for those variants where created. With British English in mind those are plausible transcriptions for the Rangoon colloquial pronunciation (Burma: without de-nasalized and without palatalization) and the standard pronunciation (Myanmar: nazalized and palatalized). So, these are purely phonetic issues and different from the case in question here where an English word was used as part of the name.


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## elroy

I still don’t understand the question.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> I still don’t understand the question.


The question is how an English morpheme (_-land_) came into the official name of the country. Most languages with separate official names for foreign use have Latin or pseudo-Latin names, like _Confœderatio Helvetiva_ for _Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera_ or _Austria_ for _Österreich_.


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## elroy

berndf said:


> the official name of the country


 In what language?


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## Circunflejo

Penyafort said:


> Thailand was smoothly adapted to Tailandia, as most countries ending in -land except for England (Inglaterra).


…and Scotland (Escocia), Switzerland (Suiza), Poland (Polonia)... There are others in which the -land suffix was adapted to -landa instead of -landia like Ireland (Irlanda) or New Zealand (Nueva Zelanda).


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## OBrasilo

_Thailand_ is only the country's English name, in Thai, from what I remember, it has two official names - _Muang Thai_ and _Pratchet Thai_.
Also, the Slovenian name of the country is a simple feminine adjective - _Tajska_. This causes some confusion, because it is similar to _Kitajska_, the Slovenian name of China.


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## Treaty

OBrasilo said:


> _Thailand_ is only the country's English name


Your second language is listed as Portuguese which calls the country _Tai*land*ia_. Probably 90% of languages have this "land" or a corrupted version in the name.


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## Catagrapha

Penyafort said:


> Thailand was smoothly adapted to Tailandia, as most countries ending in -land except for England (Inglaterra).





Circunflejo said:


> There are others in which the -land suffix was adapted to -landa instead of -landia like Ireland (Irlanda) or New Zealand (Nueva Zelanda).


Is England being referred to as -terra rather than -landa in Romance because England became known to Romance speakers earlier than the -landa names?
Is Finlandia, Islandia, and Tailandia being referred to as -landia rather than -landa because they became known later than the -landa names?


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## Olaszinhok

Catagrapha said:


> Islandia,


In Italian it is Is*landa*


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## Catagrapha

Is it because Island became known to the Italians earlier than Finland did?
-ia often becomes -a in the ones inherited and the ones borrowed early like ecclesia > chiesa, Ferraria > Ferrara


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## berndf

elroy said:


> In what language?


Various Western languages. Not only Germanic ones.


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## elroy

Borrowings?  Sorry, I see this as wholly unremarkable.


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## Penyafort

berndf said:


> Well, they didn't have Spanish speakers in mind, neither when they developed dialect-/register-variations in their language nor when the transcriptions for those variants where created. With British English in mind those are plausible transcriptions



Yes, that's exactly what I meant. That's why languages other than English should not necessarily follow those. 

It can be difficult now with Chinese, as they've managed to impose their pinyin quite effectively. But that's not the case with the rest of languages.



Circunflejo said:


> …and Scotland (Escocia), Switzerland (Suiza), Poland (Polonia)...



But those are not adaptations from English. They're directly inherited from the Medieval Latin forms (_Scotia, Polonia, Suitia_). In the case of Switzerland, only English adds that -land to the name. German, French or Italian don't.

The -landa/landia variants are interesting, though. I wonder if they're mere inconsistencies or if the difference is due to the language or time of origin.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Borrowings?  Sorry, I see this as wholly unremarkable.


Not mind-boggling. But also unspectacular questions can deserve to be answered. Borrowings from English is not very common for names of countries that are not English speaking or are or were dependencies of English speaking countries. I personally am quite satisfied with the answer in #3 and find it interesting.


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## Circunflejo

Penyafort said:


> In the case of Switzerland, only English adds that -land to the name.


Dutch and Scots too.


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## berndf

Circunflejo said:


> Dutch and Scots too.


Dutch is probably the origin.


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## elroy

berndf said:


> Borrowings from English is not very common for names of countries that are not English speaking or are or were dependencies of English speaking countries.


 Are you sure?

Arabic has "land" or "landa" for most geographical names with _-land_ in English:

Finland > "finlanda"
Poland > "polanda"
Holland > "holanda"
Iceland > "ayslanda"
Ireland > "īrlanda" 
Swaziland > "swāziland" 
Greenland > "grīnland" 
Thailand > "tāyland"

(Exceptions: England > "ingeltra", Switzerland > "swīsra") 

Maybe that's why I see this as totally unremarkable.


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## berndf

Except for _Thailand_ itself, only _Poland_ is a valid example in your list. For all other countries you mentioned, -_land_ occurs in the endonym itself and Swaziland once was a British dependency.


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## AndrasBP

The "land" element was translated in Hungarian: "Thai*föld*" and Latvian: "Tai*zeme*".


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## elroy

@berndf *shrug* I still don’t see the big deal.  I’m sure we could find _dozens_ of examples of country names borrowed from intermediary languages.


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## AndrasBP

elroy said:


> I still don’t see the big deal.


 I think it's because as a Palestinian-American, you're less Eurocentric than many of us here. 
I do find it remarkable because no other Asian country has this element in its name in _European _languages.


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## Perseas

elroy said:


> Arabic has "land" or "landa" for most geographical names with _-land_ in English:
> 
> Finland > "finlanda"
> Poland > "polanda"
> Holland > "holanda"
> Iceland > "ayslanda"
> Ireland > "īrlanda"
> Swaziland > "swāziland"
> Greenland > "grīnland"
> Thailand > "tāyland"


I think the same applies to many other languages as well. Greek has only a different name for Poland, i.e. Polonia.


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## elroy

berndf said:


> Except for _Thailand_ itself, only _Poland_ is a valid example in your list. For all other countries you mentioned, -_land_ occurs in the endonym itself and Swaziland once was a British dependency.


 You must have missed Finland.


AndrasBP said:


> I do find it remarkable because no other Asian country has this element in its name in _European _languages.


 But no other Asian country has_ -land_ in its English name to begin with (and very few countries do period).  I think a more interesting question might be “How many geographical names in Language X are borrowed from Language Y?”.  I don’t see why the suffix_ -land_ should be of particular interest.


elroy said:


> I’m sure we could find _dozens_ of examples of country names borrowed from intermediary languages.


 For example, a number of country names in Arabic are (or seem to be) borrowed from French even though the countries in question are not French-speaking nor were they ever French colonies:

Mexico > “al-maksīk” (_Méxique_)
Sweden > “as-suwayd” (_Suède_)
Norway > “an-narwīj” (_Norvège_)


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## AndrasBP

AndrasBP said:


> no other Asian country has this element in its name in _European _languages.





elroy said:


> *But* no other Asian country has_ -land_ in its English name to begin with


I'm sorry, I can't follow your logic there. Isn't English a European language? Why "*but*"? 



elroy said:


> I think a more interesting question might be “How many geographical names in Language X are borrowed from Language Y?”.


Possibly, but that was not the question asked here.



elroy said:


> For example, a number of country names in Arabic are (or seem to be) borrowed from French even though the countries in question are not French-speaking nor were they ever French colonies


I suppose that has to do with French influence in North Africa and the Middle East. Do you think it's possible to determine which Arab country these names originate from?


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## Awwal12

elroy said:


> Are you sure?
> 
> Arabic has "land" or "landa" for most geographical names with _-land_ in English:
> 
> Finland > "finlanda"
> Poland > "polanda"
> Holland > "holanda"
> Iceland > "ayslanda"
> Ireland > "īrlanda"
> Swaziland > "swāziland"
> Greenland > "grīnland"
> Thailand > "tāyland"
> 
> (Exceptions: England > "ingeltra", Switzerland > "swīsra")
> 
> Maybe that's why I see this as totally unremarkable.


Curiously, Russian has -landiya for most (Poland is Pol'sha, but that's natural, it's a very old neighbouring kingdom) - but "-lyandiya" for Finland, "-land" for Thailand and "-lend" for Swaziland (the only direct loan from English among all these, it seems).


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## OBrasilo

I think Swaziland should be removed from our lists anyway, given that they no longer use that name and now call themselves Eswatini instead even in English.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> You must have missed Finland.


No, _Suomi_ and _Finland_ are both endonyms. The country is bilingual.



elroy said:


> *shrug* I still don’t see the big deal. I’m sure we could find _dozens_ of examples of country names borrowed from intermediary languages.


But not from *English*. That is unusual.


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## elroy

AndrasBP said:


> I'm sorry, I can't follow your logic there. Isn't English a European language? Why "*but*"?


 It seems that (at least) two things are being discussed in this thread:
1.) Why does “Thailand” have the suffix “-land” in English?
and
2.) Why have so many other languages borrowed the English name?

I was addressing #2, based on what I understood berndf to be saying is the topic of the thread.  #1 is even less remarkable to me than #2: why does the fact that the _English_ name has an _English_ suffix that other country names, like “Poland,” also have, need an explanation?  That would be like asking why some Arabic country names have an Arabic definite article when the name in the original language doesn’t have an article. 


AndrasBP said:


> that was not the question asked here


 No kidding.   I thought my point was clear: I don’t see anything special about borrowing English names with “-land” vs. borrowing English names in general.


AndrasBP said:


> Do you think it's possible to determine which Arab country these names originate from?


 I don’t know if it’s possible, sorry.


OBrasilo said:


> I think Swaziland should be removed from our lists anyway, given that they no longer use that name and now call themselves Eswatini instead even in English.


 That was the name for many years, and the question of what the name is in various languages is certainly relevant, even if the country now uses a different name.


berndf said:


> _Suomi_ and _Finland_ are both endonyms. The country is bilingual.


 You’re not seriously suggesting Arabic borrowed “Finland” from Swedish, are you?


berndf said:


> But not from *English*. That is unusual.


 On what basis do you make that claim?  If anything, I would expect English to be the_ most _common intermediary language — or at least one of the most common.  At least in Arabic, a large number of country names are borrowed from English.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> If anything, I would expect English to be the_ most _common intermediary language


English was until not so long ago, about 400 years, an internationally relatively unimportant language. And most country names are older. The language of diplomacy and the language of postal services was French until the early 20th century. I see no reason for such an expectation. That is why the time mentioned in #3 (as late as the 1930s) was a crucial bit of information.


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## PersoLatin

Perseas said:


> I think the same applies to many other languages as well. Greek has only a different name for Poland, i.e. Polonia.


In Persian (Iranian) we have::

Engelestān - England, also UK
Lahestān - Poland
Majārestān - Hungary
Bolghārestān - Bulgaria
Yunän - Greece
Gorjestān - Georgia
Armanestān - Armenia
Mogholestān - Mongolia

Mesr- Egypt

Arabestān So’udi - Saudi Arabia (20th century)

Serbestān - Serbia (since the breakup of Yugoslavia)

Other countries, except for those whose English names ends with -stān (Kazakhstan Afghanistan etc.), have a mixture of modern French names e.g. Suis, Aleman/Germany, Fanlānd/Finland) or modern English names, or original names e.g. Hend & Hindustān for India.

Some like _Irland_/Ireland and _Island_/Iceland are not consistent with neither French or English names.


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## OBrasilo

> Some like _Irland_/Ireland and _Island_/Iceland are not consistent with neither French or English names.


They are consistent with French - Irlande and Islande.


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## PersoLatin

OBrasilo said:


> They are consistent with French - Irlande and Islande.


I wasn’t clear enough, the -land part of both are pronounced the English way (so not lānd) and Is- and Ir- parts the French way.


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## Circunflejo

elroy said:


> But no other Asian country has_ -land_ in its English name to begin with


That's true if you take country as a synonym of (sovereign) state. Otherwise, there's also Nagaland.


AndrasBP said:


> I do find it remarkable because no other Asian country has this element in its name in _European _languages.


Well, in Icelandic there's Indland (India) and Sýrland (Syria). And if we include countries that have most of its territory in Asia, Russia is named Rus(s)land in several European languages and Turkey has the land suffix both in Icelandic and in Faroese.


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## elroy

Circunflejo said:


> in Icelandic there's Indland (India) and Sýrland (Syria)





Circunflejo said:


> Turkey has the land suffix both in Icelandic and in Faroese


 Those are both Germanic languages, so it seems quite ordinary for them to use a Germanic suffix.


Circunflejo said:


> Russia is named Rus(s)land in several European languages


 Are any of them non-Germanic?


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## Circunflejo

elroy said:


> Are any of them non-Germanic?


I don't think so but it's Ruslandi in West Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) althought that's more an American language than an European one.


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## AndrasBP

elroy said:


> It seems that (at least) two things are being discussed in this thread:
> 1.) Why does “Thailand” have the suffix “-land” in English?
> and
> 2.) Why have so many other languages borrowed the English name?


OK, thanks. I re-read the thread and together with your clarification, I think everything is clear to me now, including the original question and your points.



elroy said:


> You’re not seriously suggesting Arabic borrowed “Finland” from Swedish, are you?


Arab and Scandinavian merchants did have some contact as early as the Viking era, and the name "Finland" has been around for almost a thousand years, so it's not that absurd. If not directly from Swedish, perhaps through German, possibly way before English became an international language. I'm not ready to prove any of this, though.


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## berndf

AndrasBP said:


> Arab and Scandinavian merchants did have some contact as early as the Viking era, and the name "Finland" has been around for almost a thousand years, so it's not that absurd. If not directly from Swedish, perhaps through German, possibly way before English became an international


The point is that _Finland_ is an endonym and endonyms spread directly and indirectly in various ways. Sometimes you can tell which way a name took. E.g. languages that took the name from Italian know the _O*tt*oman Empire_ and languages that took it from modern Turkish or German know it as _O*s*man_.


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## berndf

Circunflejo said:


> but it's Ruslandi in West Greenlandic (Kalaallisut)


That is obviously through Danish. Native languages of Dominions of Germanic speaking countries hardly count as for this particular question.


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## Ansku89

AndrasBP said:


> The "land" element was translated in Hungarian: "Thai*föld*" and Latvian: "Tai*zeme*".


Also in Finnish: Thaimaa (maa = country, land). Most other -lands don't have this kind of translated name. Iceland = Islanti, England = Englanti, New Zealand = Uusi-Seelanti (uusi=new so that's partly translated). However, Swaziland is Swazimaa so it seems that "newer" country names and/or non "first world" countries are more likely to be translated.


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## Ben Jamin

elroy said:


> Are you sure?
> 
> Arabic has "land" or "landa" for most geographical names with _-land_ in English:
> 
> 
> Poland > "polanda"


You mean "bolanda"? Which Arabic dialects have  "p" in their phonology?


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## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> The point is that _Finland_ is an endonym and endonyms spread directly and indirectly in various ways. Sometimes you can tell which way a name took. E.g. languages that took the name from Italian know the _O*tt*oman Empire_ and languages that took it from modern Turkish or German know it as _O*s*man_.


I am not so sure that Finland can be called an endonym. It is rather a "quasi" endonym, i.e. an exonym officially adopted as a second official name, but originating outside of Finland.


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## Ben Jamin

I think that every country should be allowed to use their own language exonym for any country they choose, without the other country's interference. In Europe this functions very well, but the countries in Asia, Africa and Oceania create problems.
(Germany, for example, has maybe the largest number of exonyms, but the Germans don't complain).


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## Doraemon-

_Thailand _is the English name for the country (nothing strange in having a germanic morphology, so), and it passed to other languages through English, which was already the main international language at the time (and the most powerful colonial power in the area).
In Thai it's _Ratcha-anachak Thai_, no "land" anywhere.
There are many similar cases: former Swaziland, Zululand, Somaliland...


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## elroy

Ben Jamin said:


> You mean "bolanda"? Which Arabic dialects have  "p" in their phonology?


 Some people say “bolanda,” but many say “polanda.”  It’s not a sound native to Arabic, but it’s used in some words of foreign origin.


Doraemon- said:


> _Thailand _is the English name for the country (nothing strange in having a germanic morphology, so), and it passed to other languages through English, which was already the main international language at the time (and the most powerful colonial power in the area).


 Thank you.  You’ve summed up why I’ve had trouble seeing what the big deal is.


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## berndf

Doraemon- said:


> _Thailand _is the English name


The issue of this thread is that it isn't only English...



Doraemon- said:


> There are many similar cases: former Swaziland, Zululand, Somaliland..


... nor was it ever a British dependency as those examples of yours are.


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## elroy

Doraemon- said:


> it passed to other languages through English, which was already the main international language at the time (and the most powerful colonial power in the area).


 Is this not convincing to you, @berndf?


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Is this not convincing to you, @berndf?


Yes, of course. And the information that it is a colonial era name was given in #3. Hence A) the question is valid and B) the answer was given in #3. That is what I said from the beginning.


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## elroy

Understood.  I’m nowhere near an expert on etymology, yet the answer has been blindingly obvious to me from the beginning, and I can’t think of any other remotely plausible answer.  That’s why I couldn’t understand this thread’s _raison d’être_.


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## AndrasBP

I believe the original question was also about what made Thailand different from other Asian countries in this respect.


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## elroy

AndrasBP said:


> I believe the original question was also about what made Thailand different from other Asian countries in this respect.


 Just chance, I would say.  Consider Poland, which, like Thailand, is not Germanic-speaking and was never a British colony.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Just chance, I would say.  Consider Poland, which, like Thailand, is not Germanic-speaking and was never a British colony.


This is a relatively rare name for the country. Most languages derive their word for that country from Latin _Polonia_. Beside a few Germanic languages, only non-European languages have names for the country containing the morpheme _-land_. And those are more certainly new (19th or 20th century) imports.


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## elroy

Yes, that’s kind of my point.  “Poland” and “Thailand” are both unusual, and it’s something I would just chalk up to chance.  For some reason, these two countries — despite not being Germanic-speaking or former British colonies — happened to get the suffix “-land” in English.  Given that English itself is Germanic, this is really not remarkable — even though it’s not a systematic process.

In Arabic, “Austria” is “an-namsa”, from the _Slavic_ name for _Germany_.  Why on earth would Arabic borrow a Slavic name for a German-speaking country and assign it to the “wrong” country?  No reason; these things just happen.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> “Poland” and “Thailand” are both unusual,


No, they are not at all similar. -_land_ occurs only in very few languages in the name for Poland while it occurs in many languages for Thailand. E.g. French _Pologne_, Italian _Polonia_, Spanish _Polonia_, German _Polen_ but French _Thaï*land*e_, Italian _T(h)ai*land*ia_, Spanish _Tai*land*ia_, German _Thai*land*_.


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## elroy

They are similar in that they have an “unexpected” “-land”* in English *— which was obviously the point I was making: 





elroy said:


> For some reason, these two countries — despite not being Germanic-speaking or former British colonies — *happened to get the suffix “-land” in English*.


 Your point about borrowings is irrelevant to the point I was making.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Your point about borrowings is irrelevant to the point I was making.


... but to the point of the thread. The question was why so many non-Germanic languages have it.


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## elroy

But you were responding to me (and you misrepresented my post by only quoting part of it).

Also, I’m not sure “the point of the thread” is only what you’re saying it is. There are at least the two topics I mentioned here and the third topic Andras mentioned here (which is the one I was addressing).


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## AndrasBP

elroy said:


> In Arabic, “Austria” is “an-namsa”, from the _Slavic_ name for _Germany_. Why on earth would Arabic borrow a Slavic name for a German-speaking country and assign it to the “wrong” country? No reason; these things just happen.


That's a very interesting example, but the case of Thailand is different because we do know the reason: if the country's leader hadn't consciously changed the name in 1939, it would still be called Siam in English and other languages.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> In Arabic, “Austria” is “an-namsa”, from the _Slavic_ name for _Germany_. Why on earth would Arabic borrow a Slavic name for a German-speaking country and assign it to the “wrong” country?


That is quite simple. The word is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish and they got it though Balkans languages and Austria is the part of Germany closest to them. Germany and Austria became different countries only later and Turkish kept the name for the part closest to them. It is the same reason why English uses the word _Dutch_ for the "wrong" country.


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## elroy

I wasn't saying the two situations were identical; I was just saying that isolated cases abound.  In other words, the fact that Thailand is the only Asian country that got the suffix "-land" in English is not particularly striking (to me).


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## OBrasilo

Thailand may never have been a British colony or dependency, but it always had strong British influence - the Rattanakosin kingdom even used a variant of God Save The King in Thai and performed on Thai instruments, as its anthem. So Thailand eventually choosing an English-based exonym for itself is not that surprising.


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## Treaty

AndrasBP said:


> I believe the original question was also about what made Thailand different from other Asian countries in this respect.


And the answer was because the Thai wanted so themselves. Otherwise we still would have called them Siam and had no reason to start this thread


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