# China



## Tolovaj_Mataj

Moderator Note: This thread was split from a thread in the German forum.

The topic is different words for "China" in various languages.  Another thread has been created to discuss the etymology of those names. 


beclija said:


> (Btw, I think our European names derive from Arabic (Sîn), which again picked it up in India, and it is indeed unrelated to the Chinese.)


Off the topic... I'm sorry.
Not all European languages have derived the name for China from _Sin_.
In Slovene we name it _Kitajska_ which derived from the older form _Kitaj_ which is not used anymore. I think the later word was borrowed from Russian - Китай.


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## Maja

In Serbian: Kina (Cyrillic: Кина). 
Don't know the origin!


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## claudine2006

In Italian is Cina.


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## gigi1

In Greek: Κίνα
and I also don't know the origin


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## Flaminius

*Japanese:*
中国 chūgoku
short for 中華人民共和国, the official name of Mainland China.


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## ronanpoirier

Portuguese: China (pronounced sheena)Hungarian: Kina (pronounced keena)


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## betulina

In Catalan it's "(la) Xina".

In Spanish: China.


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## Anatoli

*Chinese:*
中国 (simplified) or 中國 (traditional) Zhōngguó - China

Officially:
中华人民共和国 Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó
(or in traditional characters: 中華人民共和國)
People's Republic of China

*Russian:*
Китай (Kit*a*i)
Китайская Народная Республика (Kit*a*yskaya Nar*o*dnaya Resp*u*blika)


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## Hakro

*Finnish:*

Kiina (pronounced like 'keena')


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## Chazzwozzer

*Turkish:*
Çin


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## Thomas1

In Polish:
Chiny (_pl nonvirile_)

We also have the word _kitajce_ but it is a derogatory name for the Chinese, (it could have originated from Russia--but this is just my speculation).

French:
Chine (feminine)

Latin:
Sinae 


Tom


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## Cepkah

Bulgarian: Китай  (na latinica Kitai)


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## ireney

gigi1 said:


> In Greek: Κίνα
> and I also don't know the origin




Greeks took it from the English (China). My etymological dictionary has lots of information on the possible word the English name came from but I am not sure this is either on topic or my place to write here .


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## Lemminkäinen

In Norwegian it's *Kina*, pronounced ['çi:nɑ].


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## samanthalee

Flaminius said:


> *Japanese:*
> 中国 chūgoku
> short for 中華人民共和国, the official name of Mainland China.


 
中国 is not short for 中華人民共和国 (taking the first and last characters). It's the other way round. The official name is the expansion of 中国 .

China, in Chinese, has been called the "Middle Land" since forever (Pardon our arrogance. We were once the most technologically advanced civilisation and hence fancied ourselves to be the people which the universe revolves around). So the official name had to contain a 中 (middle) and a 国 (nation) somewhere.

Before China was called 中華人民共和国 (People's Republic of China), it was called 中華民国 (Republic of China, pre-Communist).

Both names still exist. But take note that the territory of Republic of China now contains only Taiwan. And China is telling everyone that Republic of China does not exist...the 2 China-s (ie PRC and ROC) are in a state of civil war limbo...


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## CriHart

In Romanian is still China.


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## samanthalee

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> Moderator Note: This thread was split from a thread in the German forum.
> 
> The topic is different words for "China" in various languages, and where they come from.
> 
> Off the topic... I'm sorry.
> Not all European languages have derived the name for China from _Sin_.
> In Slovene we name it _Kitajska_ which derived from the older form _Kitaj_ which is not used anymore. I think the later word was borrowed from Russian - Китай.


 
The Russian Китай refers to Khitan, a Mongolic tribe which dominated Manchuria in the 11th century.


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## Flaminius

samanthalee said:


> 中国 is not short for 中華人民共和国 (taking the first and last characters). It's the other way round. The official name is the expansion of 中国 .
> 
> China, in Chinese, has been called the "Middle Land" since forever (Pardon our arrogance. We were once the most technologically advanced civilisation and hence fancied ourselves to be the people which the universe revolves around). So the official name had to contain a 中 (middle) and a 国 (nation) somewhere.
> 
> Before China was called 中華人民共和国 (People's Republic of China), it was called 中華民国 (Republic of China, pre-Communist).
> 
> Both names still exist. But take note that the territory of Republic of China now contains only Taiwan. And China is telling everyone that Republic of China does not exist...the 2 China-s (ie PRC and ROC) are in a state of civil war limbo...


Thank you for letting me know, Samantha.  ^ ^/  

My point, however untenable, was based on the impression from the history of the word in Japanese.  The word 中国 has become the most common reference to China only after the World War II.  Japanese Wikipedia mentions that the word shows up in diplomatic documents since the 1930s at the urge of ROC government but this hardly seems the general trend in the contemporary discourse.  By the end of the war, 中国 had already become accepted as the short form for either 中華民国 or 中華人民共和国.


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## palomnik

While samanthalee has a point about the name 中国 having been around forever, Flaminius isn't wrong either.  While culturally China was always conceived as the "central nation", this didn't quite tie in with how it defined itself as a political entity.  For example, pre-1911 Chinese postage stamps give the country's name as 清国 - qing guo, named after the Qing Dynasty, just as during the wars at the end of the sixteenth century the Japanese referred to China as 明国 - minkoku (note:  _not _meikoku!), as any fan of samurai westerns can attest.  My point is that using 中国 as the name of China _as a political entity_ is not really very old.


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## jun

In Korean: " 중국 "


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## DrLindenbrock

In Arabic:
الصین / al-Sīn (S in emphatic, "al" is the definite article, which seems to always accompany the name of certain countries [correct me if I'm wrong]). 

In Persian:
چین / chin (in English it would sound like "cheen")


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## amikama

Hebrew:

*סין* (_sin_)


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## Anatoli

DrLindenbrock said:


> In Arabic:
> الصین / al-Sīn (S in emphatic, "al" is the definite article, which seems to always accompany the name of certain countries [correct me if I'm wrong]).
> ...


The Arabic writing is correct but the romanisation is not quite, the correct one would be a*S*-Sīn. S (ص) is one of the "Sun letters", which cause "al" to assimilate, so L (ل) is written but is not pronounced, yet the following letter is doubled. 

These are the so-called "Sun letters": s, S, z, Z, t, T, d, D, th, dh, DH, r, n, l

The adjective (masculine, singular) "Chinese" is صيني (Siniy).


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## Anatoli

jun said:


> In Korean: " 중국 "


Let me romanise it, since most people can't read Korean: *Junggug *(or *Chunggug *if you use a different romanisation method). In Chinese characters (in Korea) that would be written (not surprisingly) - 中國 (simplified now in mainland China to 中国). Most likely you will see it in Korean _Hangul _(Korean alphabet) as posted by Jun, not in _Hanja _(Chinese characters as they are called in Korea).


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## DrLindenbrock

Anatoli said:


> The Arabic writing is correct but the romanisation is not quite, the correct one would be a*S*-Sīn. S (ص) is one of the "Sun letters", which cause "al" to assimilate, so L (ل) is written but is not pronounced, yet the following letter is doubled.
> 
> These are the so-called "Sun letters": s, S, z, Z, t, T, d, D, th, dh, DH, r, n, l
> 
> The adjective (masculine, singular) "Chinese" is صيني (Siniy).


 
Yeah, sure! Sorry! I used my professor's method at university, which leaves the article unchanged in transliteration even when it precedes a "solar" (shamsiyy) letter in order to reflect the Arabic spelling more closely.
Of course your method of making the assimilation clear even in spelling is better in a thread like this, where many people might not be familiar with Arabic.


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## Anatoli

DrLindenbrock said:


> Yeah, sure! Sorry! I used my professor's method at university, which leaves the article unchanged in transliteration even when it precedes a "solar" (shamsiyy) letter in order to reflect the Arabic spelling more closely.
> Of course your method of making the assimilation clear even in spelling is better in a thread like this, where many people might not be familiar with Arabic.


a*s*-salaamu `alaykum 

I haven't heard of such a method (always writing al-) but it would help to remind learners what is actually written but the assimilating romanisation is much more common and helps to pronounce correctly, usually a "-" is used, which is an indicator of the article.


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## samanthalee

Flaminius said:


> Thank you for letting me know, Samantha. ^ ^/
> 
> My point, however untenable, was based on the impression from the history of the word in Japanese. The word 中国 has become the most common reference to China only after the World War II. Japanese Wikipedia mentions that the word shows up in diplomatic documents since the 1930s at the urge of ROC government but this hardly seems the general trend in the contemporary discourse. By the end of the war, 中国 had already become accepted as the short form for either 中華民国 or 中華人民共和国.


 
You are absolutely right， Flaminius. I was seeing it from the Chinese point of view which is totally irrelevant to your posting. Sorry...


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## timelife

I agree with Samathalee (4/12)(hi Samanth.  ) 
in Vietnam:
China = TRUNG QUÔC = Middle Land 
Trung means Middle and Quôc means Nation


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## john_riemann_soong

palomnik said:


> While samanthalee has a point about the name 中国 having been around forever, Flaminius isn't wrong either.  While culturally China was always conceived as the "central nation", this didn't quite tie in with how it defined itself as a political entity.  For example, pre-1911 Chinese postage stamps give the country's name as 清国 - qing guo, named after the Qing Dynasty, just as during the wars at the end of the sixteenth century the Japanese referred to China as 明国 - minkoku (note:  _not _meikoku!), as any fan of samurai westerns can attest.  My point is that using 中国 as the name of China _as a political entity_ is not really very old.



Kind of like "motherland". 

"Zhongguo" often includes both Taiwan and mainland China, as well as Hong Kong and such, while often excluding the western territories of the PRC such as Tibet. As such, I consider it a geographic term.

I prefer to use the full term for the political state.


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## Nizo

In *Esperanto*, the traditional name for the country is _Ĉinujo_ (pronouned /tʃiˈnujo/), although it's often referred to as _Ĉinio_. Many Esperanto country names come from the people that live there: _anglo_ (Englishman) > _Anglujo_ (England), _franco_ (Frenchman) > _Francujo_, _svedo_ (Swede) > _Svedujo_, _ĉino_ (Chinese man) > _Ĉinujo_. _Konciza Etimologia Vortaro_ (Concise Etymological Dictionary) by André Cherpillod traces the word back via Greek to the Qing Dynasty.


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## suslik

*In Estonian:* Hiina


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## deine

Lithuanian:

Kinija


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## noncasper

Vietnamese:
*Trung Quốc*


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## Whodunit

It's *China* in German. The _ch_ is pronounced like an exaggeratedly whispered _y_ (as in *y*es) sound, similar to the sound between the _h_ and _u_ in _*hu*ge_.


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## Qcumber

Whodunit said:


> It's *China* in German. The _ch_ is pronounced like an exaggeratedly whispered _y_ (as in *y*es) sound, similar to the sound between the _h_ and _u_ in _*hu*ge_.


My dictionary has the phonetic transcription ['çi:na] - [ç] as in ich [?Iç] "I".
Was the name borrowed from Spanish?


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## Qcumber

China was called Sungsóng in Old-Tagalog (Philippines). Now it is called China pronounced the English way ['tSaina].


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## Qcumber

In Sanskrit China is called Cīna cIn ['tši:na].


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## Qcumber

DrLindenbrock said:


> In Arabic:
> الصین / al-Sīn (S in emphatic).


It is pronounced aS-Siin (emphatic S, long /i/).
The /l/ of the article is erased and /S/ is geminated because /S/ is a solar letter.


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## Whodunit

Qcumber said:


> My dictionary has the phonetic transcription ['çi:na] - [ç] as in ich [?Iç] "I".


 
That's correct. I tried to describe the sound as best as possible for those who don't know German.

Some people (especially those from the south of Germany and from Austria, Switzerland), however, pronounce it with a _k_ sound ['ki:na]. In my region, words beginning with _ch..._ are usually pronounced like [[zfontwithcomma='Arial Unicode MS', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', 'DejaVu Sans', 'TITUS Cyberbit Basic', Code2000, 'MV Boli', 'MS Mincho', Arial, sans-serif]ʃ[/zfontwithcomma]...].



> Was the name borrowed from Spanish?


 
No, it seems to come from the Qin Dynasty.


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## macta123

In Hindi = Cheen


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## karuna

In Latvian we call it _Ķīna.


_


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## Qcumber

Whodunit said:


> No, it seems to come from the Qin Dynasty.


 There is no German word that begins with <ch>. All such words in the German dictionary are borrowings. In the case of *China*, I'd opt for Spanish as the lender because in Italian *China* is pronounced ['ki:na].


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## Jeedade

Dutch: "China" which is pronounced like sheena


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## kusurija

In Czech:
1. Čína
2. Čínská lidová republika (ČLR)
3. Tchajwan/Formosa

In Lithuanian:
1. Kinija
2. Kinijos liaudies respublika
3. Taivanas


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