Submitted by bentobam t3_10ohrv7 in explainlikeimfive
police-ical t1_j6g5xrq wrote
Reply to comment by Legidias in ELI5: How do they come up with names for countries in foreign languages? by bentobam
Being a trading port, Guangzhou was home to Portuguese traders who heard local pronunciations as Cantão, which led to the older English name Canton, which lives on in our name for the Cantonese language/dialect.
[deleted] t1_j6h65ul wrote
[deleted]
Rauche t1_j6ha0i9 wrote
Kanto is named after the Kanto region of Japan, not after Canton.
supagirl277 t1_j6nkbwu wrote
You’re right, I totally pulled that out of my ass with no thought and didn’t really check. That was stupid of me to act like I knew
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