2008-04-29

Country names in Kanji

When I was walking on the Teramachi-dori in Kyoto, a couple of Westerners were watching something being displayed on the outer wall of a shop. What they were watching were T-shirts with names of (mainly) Western countries printed in Kanji, or Chinese characters.


Can you say the country names printed on the T-shirts? For your convenience, I have reproduced them below.

Turkey: 土耳古
Belgium: 白耳義
Austria: 墺太利
Switzerland: 瑞西
Australia: 濠太刺利
Holland: 阿蘭陀
Brazil: 伯刺西爾
Spain: 西班牙
Italy: 伊太利
Germany: 独逸
America: 亜米利加
England: 英国 (abbreviation of 英吉利)
France: 仏蘭西
Canada: 加奈陀

These country names in Kanji were devised when Japanese scholars translated European literatures in the late Edo period (19th century). These country names in Kanji had been used until 1940s, but they are rarely used now.

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