PulkoMandyI have just realized a very annoying thing: the "Austr-" in "Austria" means East, from German Öster. The "Austr-" in "Australia", on the other hand, means South, from Latin Australis.
Thank you, have a nice day.
arcepi@pulkomandy I always wondered... East of what?
@arcepi apparently there is a Wikipedia page entirely dedicated to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Austria
If I understand well, it originally was the eastern border of whatever stood at its West at the time.
Which also reveals: the Romans called it Noricum, 'according to Heer, no- or nor- meant "east" or "easterns"' (and not North, of course)
So it looks they have just been trying to confuse people about cardinal points for 2500 years...
"This has led to much confusion [citation needed]"
Deb4+ aka Deborah DT 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️English enjoys messing with our heads
Newro@pulkomandy @arcepi "This has led to much confusion [citation needed]"
Did it?
The only people I've ever seen confused about it were American geography bloggers.
We all learn about the Romans in primary school and it never confused anybody here. They went north until the river Danube, which was a natural border and easy to defend. Where my home town of Linz (back then Lentia) was founded in 799AD.
Same way a 1000 years ago the Danube flowing to the east was used for trade.
@pulkomandy @arcepi so the Latin speaking people were in the "South" of the danube. The Germanic speaking people were in the west. When they colonised the area they called it "Ostarrichi" (996AD), simply empire to the east. Because they didn't speak Latin anymore.
If you think that is confusing read up about the name Deutschland aka Germany aka Allemagne
David@arcepi @pulkomandy Österreich means the Eastern Country/Kingdom. East of the German-speaking countries.
East the Danube. Which confuses a lot am American geography nerds still to this day. As Upperaustria is northwest of Loweraustria as the name follows the river Danube down stream. Has nothing to do with the position on a map.