Why are the Olympic Uniform names all written in English?

Question

I was watching the U.S.A. vs. Japan softball game last night, and noticed that not only are the players names written in english, but the countries names are too.

Japan's jerseys and names are written as "Japan" and China's are written as "China" on the front, and not in their native languages. Why can't every country use their own language to put their country names on their uniforms? Or maybe even the host country uses their language on all uniforms....

Answer 1

Notice, however, that Germany's athlete's wear clothing titles "Deutschland," which is not English. So far I have only seen Germany do this and it is probably because German is a world language, though for some reason not 'official' in the olympics. Another reason for this is that the makers of the Olympic team jackets is Adidas, a German company. I agree that China's jacket being in English is a fallacy.  

Answer 2

It's because most countries know the English language, along with their native language.

Answer 3

I don't know.  But it's convenient for me that the entire world has chosen my native language as the universal language.  Thanks world.

Answer 4

Maybe many countries use English for their official language.

And it is not too much to say that most of the people in the world

can read "some" english.

If all countries write their names in their own language, how can foreigners recognize those names? Beside notifying those in other ways?

Answer 5

i think its just digitally remastered for our sake

Answer 6

i think...maybe...the world power or something...i dunno

Answer 7

I asked the exact same questions to my dad a day ago and i think he's right. They write them in english because that is the official language. That way since english is the most popular language most people can read it. Hope that helps.

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Answer 8

They're not written necessarily in English, just the Roman alphabet. This is due to the origins of the modern Olympics, which were started by west European countries: Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, which all at that time used the Roman alphabet.

Countries that don't use the Roman alphabet typically convert their names using English conversions because it is the most widely used internationally of the latin-alphabet languages. It is NOT the most-spoken language in the world though.

German athletes use their own spellings for their names, including if there's umlauts, the dots over certain vowels.

The Soviet Union used to have "CCCP" on their jerseys, they are Cyrillic letters but they happen to match Roman letters, even though in Cyrillic "C" corresponds to "S" and "P" to "R," so that it would be "SSSR," if it were totally romanized.

So in short it's just Olympic tradition that the Roman Alphabet be used. Doesn't necessarily mean English but non-Roman names usually use English standards when they're transliterated.

Answer 9

The German team's jackets are in Chinese. Those are cool jackets. Probably good material too.  

Answer 10

Three words.  U.S.A.

We only care if 'mericans can read it.

Answer 11

because english is the international language and it is the means of communication throughout the whole world.

bush doesn't speak chinese, does he? naw, he can't. but a number of people in china can speak english.

Answer 12

English is the world's language of commerce. The olympics are a commercial event, hence the need to have everything in English.

Answer 13

lol irdk good question though. prob cause english is an international language

Answer 14

It can't be about English being the "official language" because not all of the teams write their country names in English. Italy's uniforms say "Italia", Germany's uniforms say "Deutchland", Finland's say "Suomi", etc. I'm kind of surprised China and Japan don't have their own characters on there along with the English. But I think it's cool that Canada's warmup uniforms have Chinese characters on them.

Answer 15

because

Answer 16

Because English is the most spoken language in the world.

That is why when the medals are being given they announce them in Chinese and then English. Not sure what will happen in London 2012? Maybe just say it in English. (Then maybe American & Australian! ha ha)

Answer 17

It goes back hundreds of years ago when Britain's empire was at its height. Britain is the nation which has come closet to world domination they did better then the romans. they owed 3/4 of the world. So English became the international language of trade there fore it became the intentional language.  

Answer 18

uhm...so the english can read them, they are mostly the only ones that watch them and im english and in other countrys they are put to their language.

Answer 19

because those are the most universally known forms of the name of the country. English is the number one language, then french, then the host language.  

Answer 20

So I can read it....the Olympic committee actually called me months before the games started and asked if I wanted the countries names to be inn english and I said, "h**l yeah I do"  

Answer 21

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