March 4th, 2013
Never
The vote incentive is a silly doodle that ponders why Sev didn't know this yet.
Vote Incentive for This Comic.
Well, another way to pronounce it is Nippon, and according to Wikidictionary, the word "Japan" was borrowed from the Portuguese, who got it from the Malay word Jepang, who got it from Min Nan Ji̍t-pún. So it's passed through a lot of languages before it got to English.
posted at 2:20pm on March 4th, 2013
Oh come on. Nippon-Japan? Tell me how "Magyarország" became "Hungary" or "Ungarn" or "Hongrie" etc. in literally every language? When I was little I was always confused why the code of our country is "H" when there's not even a letter "h" in the name of the country.
Now I'm just settled with the answer that you guys just can't say it properly and went with something simpler. :D [Actually it's probably because they associated us with the Huns - wrongly.]
posted at 3:36pm on March 10th, 2013
Be glad yours isn't one of the countries that is basically just "foreign barbarians" in some language or other.
posted at 9:39am on March 9th, 2016
Comment by wandering-dreamer
Man, recently I learned the names of some of the Native American tribes that were where the English colonists landed and I'm still confused how the English got the names so wrong (or how Nihon became Japan in English, how the heck does that even happen?!?).
posted at 12:11am on March 4th, 2013