Did you ever find it confusing when the name of cities and countries change with the language? Well, I do. And for Swiss cities this is even more pronounced, as Switzerland has 4 official languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh). Due to this, all official information, posters, food ingredients, etc. is stated in in all the 3 first of these 4 languages.
And the city of Geneva (Eng.) has of course a different name in each language; as copied from wikipedia "The name Geneva is probably of Celtic origin; the city was mentioned in Latin texts with the spelling Genava. The name takes various forms in modern languages. French: Genève, German: Genf Italian: Ginevra, and Romansh: Genevra."
Well these might not be all that confusing, a worse example is the name of Germany in different european languages (ex: Tyskland, Allemagne, Deutschland, Германия, Njemačke, Německa, Duitsland, Saksasta, Germania, Германии, Alemania, Niemiec, Alemanha...) (http://www.howtosayin.com/Ich+komme+aus+Deutschland.html)
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Its very confusing. In belgium/holland and the border regions in germany has the same problems.
ReplyDeleteHope you're having a great time in the geneva region! I have to come visit