Dear Duolingo: How does a country’s name change?

Welcome to another week of Dear Duolingo, an advice column just for learners. Catch up on past installments here.

Hi again! I’m Olivia Thayer, and I’m back this week to answer your great follow-up questions about endonyms and exonyms. Even if you don’t know those words, you probably know some examples of what they mean! Let’s get started 🚀

Our question this week:

It’s true that many of the words we have for countries, regions, cities, languages, and ethnic groups sound nothing like what they call themselves. While some differences aren’t that big (it’s easy to see the similarities between “Spain” and “España,” or between “Madagascar” and “Madagasikara”), some are so different that they clearly came from completely different sources!

This question is all about exonyms (what other people call a country) and endonyms (what the people call themselves):

• Exonym: from the Greek έξω (éxo) + όνομα (ónoma), meaning “outside” + “name.”
• Endonym: from the Greek εντός (entós) + όνομα (ónoma), meaning “inside” + “name.”

Let’s explore some of the most interesting… and surprising!

In this post:

Why can endonyms and exonyms be different?
Endonyms and exonyms around the world

• Albania/Shqipëria
• Armenia/Հայաստան
• Bhutan/འབྲུག་ཡུལ
• China/中国
• Croatia/Hrvatska
• Egypt/مصر
• Finland/Suomi
• Georgia/საქართველო
• Greece/Ελλάδα
• Hungary/Magyarország
• India/भारत (+ many others!)
• Japan/日本
• New Zealand/Aotearoa
• North Korea/조선
• South Korea/한국

Why can endonyms and exonyms be different?

A place’s endonym and exonym aren’t always different from each other (compare the English word France, and the French name France), but it’s common for there to be differences between them. A single country can also have many endonyms—names for themselves— especially in multilingual or multicultural places.

There are many different reasons for a place having multiple names, but the ones we’ll focus on today include:

1. Historical reasons: Political borders and governments change considerably over time, and exonyms especially don’t always keep up to date—you’ll see many that refer to a former region, kingdom, or dynasty… or even to a mythological place associated with the country!
2. Linguistic reasons: Language is constantly changing, and words and names can change even more drastically when they’re being borrowed through multiple languages. Like a game of telephone, that can often lead to plenty of changes in spelling and pronunciation over time!
3. “Me vs. you” mentality: In the ancient world, it was natural for groups to consider themselves the default—which made everyone else foreign, different, or peripheral. As a result, many endonyms come from words just meaning “people,” “central,” or a generic term for “country,” while some exonyms come from words meaning something like “unintelligible,” “weird,” or “different.”

Let’s take a look at some examples!

Endonyms and exonyms around the world

🇦🇱 Albania/Shqipëria

English exonym: From a Greek word borrowed into Latin, probably from an ancient Illyrian tribe known as the Albanoi.

Albanian endonym: Shqipëria, from the verb shqiptoj, meaning “to speak intelligibly”… Albanians were the only ones who made sense to other Albanians (which is pretty logical, when you think about it!).

🇦🇲 Armenia/Հայաստան (Hayastán)

English exonym: Armina, from Old Persian and was adopted into Ancient Greek and Latin, probably the name of an ancient kingdom near present-day Turkey, Republic of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Iran.

Armenian endonym: Հայաստան (Hayastán), which is likely the name for a legendary figure in Armenian mythology, Hayk, the founder of Armenia. The -stan ending is common in the region, and it comes from the Persian for “place” or “land”!

🇧🇹 Bhutan/འབྲུག་ཡུལ (Druk Yul)

English exonym: Bhutan is likely related to Tibet’s endonym, Böd, possibly from Sanskrit Bhoṭa (“Bhutan”) + anta (“end”), since it’s south of Tibet.

Dzongkha endonym: In Bhutan’s national language, Dzongkha, འབྲུག་ཡུལ (Druk Yul) is related to Drukpa, the dominant branch of Buddhism practiced in Bhutan. Since Druk can be translated as “Thunder Dragon” and Yul means “land,” another name for Bhutan is “Land of the Thunder Dragon”!

🇨🇳 China/中国 (Zhōngguó)

English exonym: The name China came into English from Portuguese and before that from Persian, which may have ultimately borrowed the term from Sanskrit. The name itself probably comes from the Qin dynasty, known for unifying China in the 3rd century BCE, and this makes sense if you know that the “q” in Qin is pronounced a little bit like the “ch” sound in English!

Chinese endonym: The character 中 means “middle” or “center,” while 国 means “country,” and while this name has been used with many different connotations over the millennia, it is often thought to be another example of using your own homeland as the default: “We’re in the middle, and everyone else is on the outside.” If you were a cartographer living in China a thousand years ago, this was a reasonable perspective!

🇭🇷 Croatia/Hrvatska

English exonym: Croatia is actually related to the country’s endonym Hrvatska! Both are thought to have come from the proto-Slavic Xъrvátъ (Xurwātu).

Croatian endonym: If you know a bit about Slavic writing and sounds, you might see how Xurwātu could become both Croat and Hrvat! The “x” makes a sound like the “ch” in Bach (so, a sound that’s somewhere in between a “k” and an “h”), and “w” is made by rounding your lips, which is the same shape you make for “o” and the Croatian pronunciation of the “v” in the endonym! Finally, -ska is a Slavic suffix indicating a place name (like the Latin ending -ia).

🇪🇬 Egypt/مصر (Misr or Masr)

English exonym: From Greek Αἴγυπτος (Aígyptos), said to come from the Ancient Egyptian name for Memphis, the former capital of Egypt.

Arabic endonym: مصر (pronounced Misr or Masr depending on your dialect of Arabic) comes from a word meaning “frontier” or “outpost,” and has also been said to mean “civilization.” Within Egypt itself, many Egyptians refer to the present-day capital, Cairo, as Misr, while other Arabic speakers use it to refer to Egypt as a whole!

🇫🇮 Finland/Suomi

English exonym: Finn appears to come from Old Norse, but its original meaning is unclear. The Germanic suffix -land was added to it in the same way we’ve seen -stan, -ia, or -ska added to other proper nouns in some of the explanations above!

Finnish endonym: Some think Suomi is related to the Sámi, an ethnic group from the northernmost regions of Finland, Sweden, Norway, and western Russia, while others think it’s a loanword from an Indo-European language. (Finnish is a Uralic language unrelated to the large Indo-European family of languages spoken in most of Europe!).

🇬🇪 Georgia/საქართველო (Sakartvelo)

English exonym: Georgia may have initially referred to St. George or to the agriculturalists working the land (the name George comes from the Greek word for “farmer”). A third theory states that it comes from an Old Persian term meaning “land of the wolves.”

Georgian endonym: საქართველო or Sakartvelo, literally means “land of the Georgians.” Georgians refer to themselves as Kartvel (like its Kartvelian language family!), and the prefix sa- and suffix -o can be added *around* a word to mean “the land where ___ lives.” So, sa- + kartvel + -o = Sakartvelo!

🇬🇷 Greece/Ελλάδα (Elláda)

English exonym: From the Latin Graecia, which comes from the Greek Γραικοί (Graikoí), a name for a region of Ancient Greece. So “Greece” did come from a Greek word—just not the same Greek word that became Greece’s endonym!

Greek endonym: Ελλάδα (Elláda) used to be Ελλάς, which is often transliterated as “Hellas.” This name comes from the mythological figure Hellen, said to be the ancestor of the Greeks.

🇭🇺 Hungary/Magyarország

English exonym: Refers to the people who conquered the area we know today as Hungary, known as Hungarī, Ungarī, or Ungrī, and came to us from the Latin Hungaria.

Hungarian endonym: Magyarország is a combination of Magyar, which refers to the Hungarian people, and ország, meaning “country.” Magyar is said to come from a word that simply meant “man” or “human”—in other words, Hungarians were regular people, and everyone else was something different!

🇮🇳 India/भारत (Bhārat) + many others!

English exonym… and endonym: The English name for India is both an exonym and an endonym, since English is one of India’s official languages! It came from Ancient Greek, and refers to the Indus River that flows through South Asia and was integral to many of the region’s ancient civilizations.

Hindi endonym: भारत (Bhārat) comes from Sanskrit, and is a shortened version of the ancient name for the region, Bhāratavarṣa, which encompasses present-day India and parts of several neighboring countries.

Other endonyms: India is home to hundreds of languages and dialects, so there are many other endonyms, too! Here are a few:

Language Endonym for “India” Transliteration Bengali ভারত Bhārata Gujarati ભારત Bhārata Kannada ಭಾರತ Bhārata Malayalam ഇന്ത്യ Inthya Punjabi ਭਾਰਤ Bhārata Tamil இந்தியா or பாரதம் Intiyā or Bāratham (both are used!) Telugu ఇండియా or భారతదేశం Iṇḍiyā or Bhāratadēśaṁ Urdu بھارت Bhaarat

🇯🇵 Japan/日本 (Nihon or Nippon)

English exonym: Believed to come from Marco Polo’s attempt at writing the Chinese pronunciation of “Nippon,” which sounded something like Cipan to him, and later became Japan!

Japanese endonym: 日本 (pronounced as Nippon or Nihon) denotes “the sun’s origin,” which is where Japan gets its nickname “the land of the rising sun.” This name has been in use since the 8th century CE!

🇳🇿 New Zealand/Aotearoa

English exonym (and endonym): Named by Dutch cartographers in the 17th century after the Dutch province of Zeeland.

Māori endonym: Aotearoa is usually said to mean “land of the long white cloud.” It used to refer only to the country’s North Island, but today it refers to the entire nation. Just like with Sri Lanka, Eswatini, and Türkiye, use of the endonym Aotearoa has become more commonplace in recent years, in part as a way to recognize the indigenous Māori who have lived there since before European colonization.

🇰🇵 North Korea/조선 (Joseon)

English exonym: The “North” part of North Korea’s English exonym comes from its location relative to South Korea, while the term “Korea” is adapted from “Goryeo,” the name of the Korean kingdom that was founded in the 10th century CE.

Korean endonym: The name 조선 (Joseon) includes both North and South Korea, and it comes from the Joseon dynasty, which ruled from the 14th-19th centuries BCE and adopted the name from Gojoseon, an ancient kingdom central to Korean mythology.

🇰🇷 South Korea/한국 (Hanguk)

English exonym: South Korea’s exonym, naturally, has the same etymology as North Korea’s—an adaptation of the ancient Korean kingdom of Goryeo.

Korean endonym: 한국 (Hanguk) represents a shortened version of 대한민국 (Daehanminguk), literally “the Great Han People’s Nation.” The nickname was first adopted when Korea was still a monarchy, and used to be short for 대한 제국 (Daehan jeguk), or “the Great Han Empire.”

What’s in a name, anyway?

You might be wondering what you should call a country that has multiple names 😅 The simplest answer is choose the name that your intended audience is most likely to understand and appreciate!