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   Antiqueight (antiqueight@mastodon.ie)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Mar-2024 19:25:35 JST Antiqueight

   in reply to

   • Paul-Gabriel Wiener

   @WearsHats when i worked for British steel we used to do technology exchanges with nippon steel. Which was when i learned the name for Japan.
   Of course then there's Germany, aka Deutschland. Or even more thus, Holland aka the Netherlands. So it's not like we do it to only Japan...

   • Embed this notice
     Paul-Gabriel Wiener (wearshats@realsocial.life)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Mar-2024 19:25:36 JST Paul-Gabriel Wiener

     Let me see if I've got this right:

     There were many names for the islands. But the Chinese called them Nippon/Nihon ("sun origin") because it's east of them.

     Italian merchants wrote down the Indonesian pronunciation of the Chinese name as Gaipan, which became Japan in English.

     When a 1943 Batman movie villain said "Actually, I prefer to be called Nipponese," there was a pause for the audience to boo. Because we'd been asked to correct it and didn't want to.

     So we still call Nippon "Japan."