this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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English breaks my brain... How is some languages end in -an, but others end in -ese, -ish, etc... [Open Discussion Thread on Languages and their Quirks] (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 2 months ago by IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/casualconversation@lemm.ee
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I mean:

English

Russian

French? (how did this happen? France --> French?!?)

Chinese

And someone from Afghanistan is an Afghan? How did the word get shorter not longer? 🤔

Also, why is a person from India called an Indian, but the language is called Hindi? This breaks my brain...

Philippines --> Filipino? They just saw the "Ph" and decided to use an "F"? 🤔

Okay idk how language even works anymore...

[This is an open discusssion thread on languages and their quirks...]

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[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Uh... 中国(Zhongguo) was first used in the Western Zhou period, over 3000 years ago. Other words like 诸夏(Zhuxia), 诸华 (Zhuhua), 天下 (Tianxia), 华夏 (Huaxia), 神州 (Shenzhou), 九州 (Jiuzhou), and assorted combinations or variations of these were used off and on over the time as well. (None of which sound like "China" naturally.) 大清国 (Daqing Guo) was used the Qing before they were overthrown and the Republic, and later the People's Republic, took the country over again.

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It wasn’t common though. Like everyone calls it 中國 now. Not so back then. China has fragmented and reunited many times

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It was pretty common in the Zhou Dynastic period, being the official name and all that. That's 789 years. I think we can consider it firmly established usage from that, no?

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

I can concede that