Why are there so many countries with names ending in "ia"?#
Created: June 16, 2021 1:39 PM
Tags: Language
Recently, relying on the stability provided by "Vltava River," I recommended it to my friend. After listening to it, he raised a question: why do so many countries have names ending in "ia"? This is because he noticed that the piece is Czech, and the choral version includes the Bohemian Mountains, which led to a random association.
But this is a good question, and I need to do something to distract myself, so let's find the answer to this question.
First, let's find some examples and find the original English names, as follows:
- 罗马尼亚 - Romania
- 波西米亚 - Bohemia
- 埃塞俄比亚 - Ethiopia
- 克罗地亚 - Croatia
From this, it can be seen that the character "亚" is a transliteration and comes from the root "ia." Although the names of these countries mostly do not originate from English, the Chinese names are basically translated according to English, so we have found the first link.
Many country names end in "亚"
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Because the English names of these countries end in "ia"
By the way, I found that there are 39 countries in the world whose names end in "ia," accounting for 17% of the total number of countries globally (a total of 230 countries). It can indeed be said that many countries end in "ia." For details, see Countries Ending in 'ia'.
It can be said that it is a coincidence that so many countries end in "ia," but I am increasingly skeptical of coincidences. There is always a common principle behind coincidences.
So I looked up the root "ia."
Translated, the root "ia" usually represents words related to countries, diseases, and flowers, originating from Latin and Greek. In Latin, it means "the place where a tribe lives." In other sources, the root "ia" also represents a state or region.
In simple terms, "ia" is similar to the character "国" in "XX 国" (meaning "country"). Therefore, when translating the names of countries from other languages, "ia" is added to indicate that the word represents a country. So the logical chain is as follows:
Many country names end in "亚"
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Because the English names of these countries end in "ia"
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"ia" is the root of words related to countries
From this, it can be inferred that the names of these countries all come from the settlement of a certain ethnic group or tribe. Let's randomly sample one and take a look.
- 罗马尼亚 (Romania) - Derived from the naming after the Eastern Roman Empire conquered the region, combining Roman (Roman) + "ia" (settlement).
- 波西米亚 (Bohemia) - The ancient Roman writer referred to the occupied area as Boihaemum, which first appeared in Tacitus' book "Germania" (written in the late 1st century). The name includes the tribal name of the Boii people, Boi-, plus the root of "homeland" in Germanic language, xaim-. It comes from Boi (Boii people) + the suffix "ia."
Since I'm not planning to write a scholarly paper on country names ending in "ia," I won't continue to delve into all the country names ending in "ia." However, it is obvious that we have found an explanation. These countries were once the settlements of a certain ethnic group, and when naming their countries, they translated them into English and added the root "ia" to indicate that it is the name of a country.
I believe that there must have been linguists who have written related papers, but obviously, the answer to this question is not difficult to find. What is difficult is discovering this question and the logic of finding the answer.