Russell Coker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 10:05, Erik Steffl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> and while we're at it - netherlands is really holland. >> > >> > No, it's not, actually. Holland is only part of the Netherlands. >> >> well, yes. but: in slovakia the name for the country is holandsko >> (slovak spelling for holland). maybe it insults some people in >> netherlands but that's how it is. so for me it makes perfect sense to >> call that country holland, I didn't even knew it's called netherlands >> until I learned english... > > People from the Netherlands (spelt Nederland in the local language) who > incidentally are referred to as "Dutch" in all English speaking countries > generally don't tend to get offended by such things. > > "North Holland" (Noord Holland) and "South Holland" (Zuid Holland) are two > provinces of the Netherlands, the people in those provinces tend to not mind > the entire country being mis-named, while people who live in other provinces > are more interested in correcting it. > > Below is a URL containing a map of the provinces of the Netherlands, it was > the first result that google returned... > > http://www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com/General/Provinces.html > > Nederland means "low land". The Slovak term for "low land" would be another > possible name for the country.
I am surprised to hear there is no official translation of Netherlands in Slovakia. I have done just a search with google, and found on the following page <http://monyr.webpark.cz/nizozemsko.htm> titled "Nizozemsko-Holandsko (Nederland-Holland)...". If the author of the page is not dumb, I guess that Nizozemsko have something to do with Netherland. > >> I am sure that is not the only example where the name of the country >> is confused or country has completely different names in different >> languages. Well, French often refers to England when they talk about United Kingdom. And many people call Americans people of the United-States of America. But these mistakes should be avoided. > In the case of an installer or any other software which offers a selection of > languages the right thing to do is to display every name in it's local form. > So refer to Germany as Deutschland, South Africa as Zuid Africa, etc. When > someone is installing software you can assume that they know the local form > of their country's name and the representation of their language's name in > that language, they can not be expected to know other forms. Certainly. Regards, -- Mathieu Roy +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | General Homepage: http://yeupou.coleumes.org/ | | Computing Homepage: http://alberich.coleumes.org/ | | Not a native english speaker: | | http://stock.coleumes.org/doc.php?i=/misc-files/flawed-english | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
