# Country names starting with X



## Henryk

Good evening, 

Simple question: Is there a country starting with X in any language?

Thanks in advance.


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## Outsider

I can't think of any in Portuguese, unless you count legendary lands like Shangrila (_Xangrilá_). But I'd bet you'll find one in Galician.


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## linguist786

That's a strange question. (but an interesting one nonetheless, since I can't think of any!)

One thing I can think of is the Chinese for "Singapore". If we write it in Pinyin, it begins with X.

新加玻
*xin1 jia1 po1*

Does that fit the criteria?


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## ham_let

Outsider said:


> I can't think of any in Portuguese, unless you count legendary lands like Shangrila (_Xangrilá_). But I'd bet you'll find one in Galician.


Galego (beautiful language lol <3)
Xamaica - Jamaica
Xapón - Japan
Xeorxia - Georgia
Xibuti - Djibouti
Xordania - Jordan


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## Lello4ever

No x in Italian, no countries starting with x.


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## Aurin

In Germany we have: *Xanten*


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## Outsider

How is the "x" in "Xanten" pronounced?


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## Whodunit

Like the English _x_ in _fi*x*_.


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## Aurin

Outsider said:


> How is the "x" in "Xanten" pronounced?


 
[ks]


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## Outsider

Thank you. That's an unusual initial sound for a Germanic word, isn't it? Could you tell us a bit about its etymology?


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## Aurin

Wikipedia tells you something about.


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## zazap

There must be tons in Catalan, but the first one to occur to me is Xina.


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## linguist786

Aurin said:


> In Germany we have: *Xanten*


 


Outsider said:


> How is the "x" in "Xanten" pronounced?


That's a town though. We're looking for countries, aren't we?


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## Aurin

linguist786 said:


> That's a town though. We're looking for countries, aren't we?


 
You´re right. I misred it.


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## samanthalee

linguist786 said:


> One thing I can think of is the Chinese for "Singapore". If we write it in Pinyin, it begins with X.


 
Yo! I'm most honoured that my tiny country comes to your mind.
If this fits the criteria, then I'll contribute *Syria -- *叙利亚 *xu4 li4 ya4*.


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## dn88

Henryk said:


> Simple question: Is there a country starting with X in any language?



Not in Polish, as far as I know.


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## Maja

There is no X in Serbian Latinic (neither are W, Q and Y). However, X in Serbian Cyrillic is in fact Latinic H so there are countries that start with X (H) like Hrvatska/Хрватска (Croatia) etc.


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## Staarkali

The XinJiang is a province now included within Chinese borders. Since the local population are not chinese (not han at least), they are muslims, and it's a  self ruled province, I think it might be listed here 

Note that the name come from the chinese pinyin 新疆 (xīn jiāng) , as far as I know there are no other name of this country.


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## Abbassupreme

I can't think of any in Persian. If there are, their phonetic value would probably be the "x" in Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, et cetera.  Or a more gutteral German "ch" or Scottish "ch".


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## betulina

zazap said:


> There must be tons in Catalan, but the first one to occur to me is Xina.



 Not tons, but I could think of three: (la) Xina (China), Xile (Chile) and Xipre (Cyprus). The X sounds like "sh" in "shoe", but many people pronounce it like Spanish "ch".


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## e.ma

Staarkali said:


> The XinJiang is a province now included within Chinese borders. Since the local population are not chinese (not han at least), they are muslims, and it's a  self ruled province, I think it might be listed here



In Spanish we call it "Turquestán chino"


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## Chazzwozzer

Lello4ever said:


> No x in Italian, no countries starting with x.


Same with Turkish. Simple as that!


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## finzland

Aurin said:


> In Germany we have: *Xanten*



I do not think Xanten is country, according to google Xanten is a town in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.


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## Circunflejo

ham_let said:


> Galego (beautiful language lol <3)
> Xamaica - Jamaica
> Xapón - Japan
> Xeorxia - Georgia
> Xibuti - Djibouti
> Xordania - Jordan



Same list applies to Asturian but with one more: Xipre.


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## AndrasBP

Albanian uses the digraph <*xh*> for the /ʤ/ sound, so they spell Djibouti and Jamaica as *Xhibuti *and *Xhamajka*.


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## apmoy70

dn88 said:


> Not in Polish, as far as I know.


Neither in Greek, there's only one Greek town whose name begins with [k͜s] => *«Ξάνθη»* [ˈk͜san.θi] (fem.) in NE Greece, which is the name of its eponymous prefecture (county) also.


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## elroy

What a scriptist thread.


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## Awwal12

Russian:
*Х*орватия ("Khorvátiya", "х" = [x]), i.e. Croatia.


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## apmoy70

^^Does that count? I don't think so...nevertheless, Ι see your Хорватия and follow up with *«Χιλή»* [çiˈli] (fem.) --> _Chile_. 
Χ = [x] or (before front vowels) [ç]


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## Awwal12

Well, given the history of the alphabets it's basically one and the same letter, so I personally see no problem here.


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## Penyafort

zazap said:


> There must be tons in Catalan, but the first one to occur to me is Xina.



Tons? I'd say Xina, Xipre and Xile.


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## Welsh_Sion

As in Turkish and Italian, no <x> in the Welsh alphabet, although a few sneaky, technical borrowings with this letter are used, so initial <X> for a country does not exist.

As a letter it's called 'ècs' and usually it replaces <-x-> with <-cs->.


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## elroy

locsata03 said:


> the only letter in the alphabet that is not used as the first letter of the country name


There's also W, at least if you're talking about sovereign states.  Wales is called a country, but it's not a sovereign state.


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## Circunflejo

elroy said:


> There's also W, at least if you're talking about sovereign states.


Only if you think that the part of Western Sahara controlled by the SADR isn't a sovereign state.


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## dojibear

> 新加玻 *xin1 *jia1 po1
> chinese pinyin 新疆 (*xīn* jiāng)
> Syria -- 叙利亚 *xu4 *li4 ya4.


Pinyin *x* is pronounced 'sh', not "ks". These syllables are pronounced like the English words "sheen" and "shoe".

Is that what OP is asking about? Countries whose name starts with the character *x* in some alphabet (including Chinese phonetic _pinyin_)? Or is OP asking about countries whose name starts with the sound "ks" (like *x* in English)?

I would ask OP, but OP's post was in 2007. I guess I'll never know...


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## Awwal12

dojibear said:


> Or is OP asking about countries whose name starts with the sound "ks" (like *x* in English)?


Ironically, in English words starting with the letter X apparently never start with [ks].


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## dojibear

Awwal12 said:


> Ironically, in English words starting with the letter X apparently never start with [ks].


That sure is ironic! Now, for the ironicity-impaired, which is it?


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## Awwal12

dojibear said:


> That sure is ironic! Now, for the ironicity-impaired, which is it?


Which is... what?
The trouble is, in English X prototypically represents /ks/, but word-initially (meaning, including countries hypothetically starting from the letter) it's always /z/, so regarding English that question, when taken generally, basically turns into two mutually exclusive ones.


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## Olaszinhok

Welsh_Sion said:


> s in Turkish and Italian, no <x> in the Welsh alphabet, although a few sneaky, technical borrowings with this letter are used, so initial <X> for a country does not exist.


Actually, we have some words with x in Italian. They are mostly loanwords, such as *ex, extra, xilofono*,* uxoricidio* etc.


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## Penyafort

dojibear said:


> *Pinyin x is pronounced 'sh'*, not "ks". These syllables are pronounced like the English words "sheen" and "shoe".


So do the Catalan, Galician and Asturian examples above.


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## dojibear

Awwal12 said:


> word-initially (meaning, including countries hypothetically starting from the letter) it's always /z/


What about the TV show and movie "X-files"? That wasn't /z/.


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## Awwal12

dojibear said:


> What about the TV show and movie "X-files"? That wasn't /z/.


The name of the letter itself is an obvious exception, but it actually starts from /ɛ/ anyway.


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