"Russia" = e2 guo2 = 俄国?

Question

[[ I ask this question again because the I couldn't get any Intelligent answers the 1st time]].

the Mandarin word for "China" is Zhong1 guo2,

this is because "zhong" is "center" in Mandarin, and China was seen as the Central country

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But in the case of Russia, the Mandarin word is "e2 guo2"...

"e" or "俄" means "suddenly"

QUESTON:

What is the logical relationship between "e" or "俄 and Russia the country?? (I used Zhong2 guo2 above as an example of the logical relationship in how a country is named in Mandarin).

Thank you very much.

Answer 1

The word was chosen for its phonetic resemblence, not for meaning.  Russia's name in Chinese is "So1 e2", so the casual way of saying it became "e2 guo2."

Answer 2

Hi Tracy,

It's just the phonetic interpretation of Russia 俄罗斯 and for short it's conveniently called e 俄国。 America was formally called 阿美国 and later change to 美国，法兰斯 to 法国，英格兰， to 英国

The former Soviet Union was suppose to be 苏越联盟 but also abbreviated to 苏联

If you ask me why Germany (Deutchland) was name as 德国 in Mandarin.... that i really don't know....

Answer 3

Russia, when translate into mandarin is  e luo si 俄罗斯

and e guo 俄国 is a simpfied way to name the country...and in this case, the word e 俄 is simply by it's phonetic, nothing to do with it's meaning.

some countries are given a  simpified way to name as their original name either too long or hard to write in full such as France 法国 , USA  ÃƒÂ§Ã‚¾ÂŽÃ¥Â›Â½Germany 德国etc