Talk:List of etymologies of country subdivision names

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1. If every state/province/other region in every country were to be added, this list would become enormous.
2. Should we have separate articles for the etymology of place names in various countries?

1. It would indeed.
2. We should.
I added two towns in New Zealand then saw that most other countries seemed to stop at regions – but with nothing on the page to say where the limit should be. Should have a specific "towns etc" link on the page after the name of each country that does have its own towns etc list. Robin Patterson 22:20, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

3. I moved the Canada section off here into North American names, as Mexico and the US already are. Burgundavia 19:58, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC) Apr 30, 2004

Contents

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I was thinking of moving all territory/colony names (Greenland, Faroes etc.) to the List of country name etymologies. My idea is that that page covers all countries and territories (a lot of which are near independent anyway) and that this page covers only sub-national regions, states, counties, towns, cities etc. However, I don't want to move things before people have agreed to it.

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Some of these are incorrect. Gaelic Alba for Scotland comes from some unknown name that used to be for all of Britain which also gave the classical names for the island like Albion. Unrelated to "Highlands" (Gaelic doesn't even have a name for this – the Highland vs. Lowland distinction is, well, Lowland, of the Anglic peoples). "Caledonia" comes from an ethnic name for a Pictish or Brythonic people, the Caledonii, "The Hard Ones", Caledonia was their country.--172.209.252.101 03:36, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, Anonymous. I agree that some of this stuff is not very serious and that this is not the way you offer an etymology... Pasquale 23:34, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Etymologies in English?

Is this article supposed to be the etymologies of the placenames in English or in their own tongue? For example, under Germany Western Pomerania is so-called because it is the western part of Pomerania (obv!); however, the German name is Vorpommern, which by comparison with Austria's Vorarlburg, would mean "before Pomerania". Which is it? And does the German word "Pfalz" realy derive from the Latin word "palatinus"? SigPig 12:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

1- Since most English names are little more then translations and Onomastic interest is unlikely to be limited to one language (whta wouldbe the point?), best welcome both insofar as not self-evidently parallel
Agreed. I just wondered if it was trying to be anglocentric. Thanks for the clearup.
2- the German prefixes Vor- & Hinter-, while literally meaning before and behind, are used in geography for a dichotomy analogous to Latin Cis- & Trans-, as seen from an observer's position (here: Central Germany, watching its borders), there is nothing between the two Pommerns – I believe it would be best to create a separate list (to be referred to at the start of this type of lists) devoted to these recurrent geographic name component with a generic meaning, but hesitate how to organize that: single entries in alphabetical order or logical pairs etcetera, continuous or by language/context ... ?
How about explaining a particular element once, then referring to it after? Like:
  • Lower Grenovia: "Lower" due to its citizens being all tenors and contraltos, "Grenovia" from the Grenovian word for 'Where are we?'
  • Higher Grenovia: "Higher" from the vast amount of cannabis sativa grown in the province; for "Grenovia" see "Lower Grenovia", above
  • Inner Grenovia: "Inner", a corruption of "Innie", after the characteristic navels of its inhabitants; for "Grenovia" see "Lower Grenovia", above
Oh, and for your info, there is no "Outer Grenovia", since the great Umbilical Plague of 1672. But I think you get my drift. If a name referred to a name already discussed in another country's entry, you could say, for example, for Ukrainian Galicia: 'for "Galicia", see "Galicia" (Poland), above
3- Yes, it's original meaning was (imperial) palace (often rather a domanial estate, there was long no fixed capital), later its 'steward' became a comital title Pfalzgraf, whose countships sometimes became significant, one even an electorate Fastifex 08:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
No, I understand the meaning, I was just wondering at the etymology: did the word Pfalz actually derive from the Latin palatinus? Or am I misunderstanding your answer? Tks. SigPig 04:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes it does (in every language I know, though not necessarily directly) and yes you did. As you can check in EtymologyOnLine there was even an earlier form before the lautverschiebung (phonetic evolution from low – to high German), p -> pf being a typical shift Fastifex 11:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Great! Thanks for clearing that up for me (and the link, to boot). Cheers. SigPig 17:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grouping by continents

I foresee problems in grouping by continent: we lack universal agreed boundaries and groupings. Will Turkish subdivisions belong in Europe, in Asia, or in both? Russia already has similar problems of definition. Where does Antarctica fit in? And Georgia? And Sinai? And the Philippines? And the islands in the Indian Ocean? Does Greenland classify as a continent or not? Why gratuitously insult Australians and Americans by grouping them together? – I propose reverting to an alphabetical structure based on the names of nation-states. – Pedant17 00:37, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

  • I see your concern, but in my experience similar cases never showed such actual problems- people don't seem to care about the rarely emotional concept of continent; Turkish and Russian SUBdivisisons can easily be split; I don't see 'New World' as insulting, but if someone objects let him split; any problem can and should only be fixed when it occurs
Hi Fastifex:  – You don't appear to see my concern. – Suppose I want to look up the etymology of Sakhalin right now. I know it as an island in the Pacific, so I look up "Oceania" – even if I find "Oceania" under "New World" – nothing doing. But I know that Sakhalin lies close to Japan and to the Asian mainland, so I try looking in "Asia" – still nothing. I have to remember that the Urals may form the boundary between Asia and Europe, and that Russia might apear under Europe (rather than under Asia), and sure enough, there, awkwardly, I find "Russia (including Asian east)" – whatever that may mean. Ease of use has gone out the window. – Pedant17 05:33, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Worse, the case of Sakhalin shows how terribly Eurocentric the article has become. In pure geographic terms, Europe barely counts as a continent at all, forming a mere peninsula of the Eurasian landmass. I hadn't realised the insulting nature of 'New World' until you pointed it out – but that provides even more evidence of Eurocentric bias. – Pedant17 05:33, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Back to Sakhalin. In the final analysis, to find its etymology here without searching (and one might have difficulty in searching given the non-English-style spelling of such names), one has to know simply that Sakhalin forms part of the Russian Federation. We have a problem right now – an NPOV issue of cultural bias – compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV#Anglo-American_focus. So why not revert to putting all the countries in alphabetical order and avoiding all this rigamarole of dead ends and red-herring trails? Splitting entries for Turkey and Kazakhstan would make matters worse for navigation and for maintenance, not better! – Does anyone see advantages in subdividing the globe into debatable continents and pseudo-continents for this particular article? – Pedant17 05:33, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
So switch it back to alphabetical. That way, you won't have to divvy up multi-continental countries into separate paragraphs (Denmark/Greenland, Russia, Kazakhstan, France and her Départements d'outre-mer, etc). And if Turkey is deemed to be in Asia (as is obviously Iran), then how does one explain Armenia as a little European peninsula in an Asian Sea? Obviously because the division of "Europe" and "Asia" is political, not geographical. It would be like declaring sub-Saharan Africa as a separate continent. And the whole "Old World"/"New World" schtick is extremely Eurocentric and therefore POV (I'm sure the original inhabitants of Australia, Canada, Chile etc did not consider their lands particularly "new"). So: G'head. Be bold. SigPig 04:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion with Sanskrit / Hindi origin

The origin of names of Indian states as stated is incorrect. For example, "uttar" is "north" in Hindi, which is ultimately from "uttara" (Sanskrit). The same is true of "pradesh", which is Hindi not Sanskrit: it is "pradeza" in Sanskrit. All these need cleanup.

[edit] Andhra also denotes "south" in Sanskrit

Andhra also denotes "south" in Sanskrit

I never heard this!

Any reference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.160.166.141 (talk) 07:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)