The Most Extreme Place Names | Otherwords

[@pbsstoried]

Fun fact: we only did one take of the official name for Bangkok (and I think two for the hill in New Zealand)! But you can be sure I did a lot of practice beforehand-to the point that I had them memorized :) - Dr. B Shoutout to @letslearnthai's video for the pronunciation guide!

[@exastrisscientia8656]

Impressive. I was wondering how many "try it again" there were.

[@GermanSausagesAreTheWurst]

Impressive!

[@alastorcorvus]

explains the reaction from the credits, great video, as usual.

[@claytonberg721]

You win at interneting for the rest of the week.

[@focidhomophobicii2426]

And it's not even 50% accurate this channel just give heart to simp comment #savethailanguage

[@DarwinsTable]

As a native of Thailand, I am happy to report that you nailed 99% of Bangkok's full name, and done in (central region) Thai accent, no less! And that puts you above other channels on KZbin.

[@philp4684]

She said "Vishvakaram" instead of "Vishvakarman" in the English translation. (2:28)

[@DarwinsTable]

@@philp4684 Yes, I noticed that. But, in her defense, that's not part of the name, rather it's the meaning of the name. Just to make it clear-my initial comment pertains to the city's name specifically, not the meaning behind the name, and the implied 1% was the mispronunciation of "อวตารสถิต" (2:13). To clarify the error: the correct pronunciation is "awa-dtaan sa-tit" or {[a.wə.tɑːn][sə.t̪it]}, instead she said "awa-dta-na satit" {[a.wə.tɑ.na][sə.t̪it]}. P.S. the percentage is deliberately biased to accentuate the success of her attempt-I didn't bother to do the math.

[@focidhomophobicii2426]

Not even 50% accurate if you are saying 99%, you're just simping for her😂 more like she used Chinese translator to read it

[@KingofAllThatIsMostlyBlue]

Gigguk did it

[@SednaBoo]

I kept expecting her to sing it

[@thelocalstumbler]

Dr. Brozovsky might as well win even more awards for her pronunciation game. Heck, how about letting her name a place.

[@Maplehandso]

i would let her name my first born

[@fodonogue3]

Arizona used to have a town by the name of ‘Y’ until a law was passed that required town names be a minimum of three letters in length. And now we have ‘Why’. Gotta love naming.

[@dianahellman9254]

I had no idea that's why Why is spelled like that.

[@varoonnone7159]

This is hilarious

[@user-kf6lu4dn2r]

And you have just defined my next daytrip, thank you!!!

[@douglasboyle6544]

Brings a whole new complication to the old song "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?"

[@wkrijthe]

Exactly my first thought!

[@pete_vee]

As a Thai person, I can guess my capital city is gonna be there. But I never expected that you would say it out loud from the beginning to the end 😂. You did a fantastic job! 👍💚

[@focidhomophobicii2426]

3/10 only missed all the final consonants

[@natmorse-noland9133]

​@focidhomophobicii2426 my God are you really gonna "um actually" every Thai person who compliments her accent.

[@prapanthebachelorette6803]

Thai is a tonal language so it’s pretty hard on native English speakers already. It wasn’t perfect but I very much appreciate the effort anyway and she did well enough to sound coherent for sure 😊. Reciting from beginning to end was a pleasant surprise, keep up great work 🎉

[@focidhomophobicii2426]

@prapanthebachelorette6803 The best of you is that somehow you are still honest while the other Thai just went back Ayutthaya era and did Westerners ballslicking... as it ever was 😂

[@way9883]

​@@focidhomophobicii2426 You're a white man from USA, stop telling Thai people that praised Dr. B wrong. The audacity.

[@TagaTan]

As a Thai person, I am stunning by your pronunciation of my capital city. You did not miss any tone of words (which I think this so hard to fluent for a non-native). So appreciated 👏 (FYI, This city name is too hard to remember, So we have to make a song "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon" just to remember it 😂)

[@focidhomophobicii2426]

She did miss over half of them final consonant 🫤 Or you might need to get some Otorhinolaryngology help

[@focidhomophobicii2426]

@TagaTan เวร อีสาน 🤦‍♂️ North Eastern Thai people have the lowest IQ of all Thai people anyway. now I'm not wondering why ,you said it's good 😂

[@richh.1010]

​@@focidhomophobicii2426Too bad no audio comments then you could tell us the right way. Or not.

[@focidhomophobicii2426]

@@richh.1010 is that really a question or just sarcasm

[@galaxybrain69]

​@@focidhomophobicii2426you deserve sarcasm

[@davidletarte214]

My only gripe with Dr. B's videos is that, unlike some of the words I just learned, they are never long enough! I appreciate all your hard work making these for us 💘

[@safaiaryu12]

Hard agree!!! I love how compact they are, but I would also love to learn more!

[@luisespineira9882]

Fun fact, the original full name for Los Angeles, “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles”

[@NicholasHay1982]

I love it when I can speak just enough Spanish

[@mon_moi]

The City of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels? I don't speak Spanish, so I'm just inferring from cognate words

[@chobies5383]

​ As a Spanish speaker, you are correct

[@CAMacKenzie]

"El Pueblo del Rio de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula." The L.A. River's name came before that of the town, and it was named for the chapel of Portioncula in the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli in Italy, built in the 12th century. Portioncula means "a little allotment of land." There are other places in Spanish or Portuguese speaking world named Porciúncula for this chapel, a highly sacred place to the Franciscans, like Junipero Sera, who built the Mission and named the river.

[@SiKedek]

So, Bangkok's "tocayo" ("name-kin"), in other words.

[@AiluroFelinus]

Your pronunciation skills are insane!

[@oscarng3089]

The fact that she pronunces all these complicated place names without biting her tongue is amazing.

[@DarwinsTable]

I'd imagine she *tried* many, many times in front of the camera before she got it right. Though, that doesn't make her any less impressive.

[@alextemplemusic]

It’s so nice to see a KZbinr actually put effort into learning to pronounce foreign names instead of the usual “lol I butchered that, what a wacky language” nonsense.

[@Mrtfarrugia]

Well, the whole point of her show is language, so she has to put in a little more effort.

[@nrucafeto]

I’ll take offense in her behalf: “KZbinr”?

[@donnie1725]

@@nrucafeto Yeah, I'd probably describe them more as a presenter here. But being a KZbinr isn't a bad thing at all. There are so many awesome and insanely knowledgeable KZbinrs out there!

[@ItsPForPea]

*ahem ahem* name explain *ahem ahem*

[@CharlieQuartz]

Unless the KZbinr is a professionally trained linguist or linguaphile I won’t be bothered if they have no idea how to approach pronunciation of other languages.

[@historybuff7491]

I love toponyms. They usually act like whispers from the past. Scotland has some of my favorite ones that hint at their Pictish past, and possibly earlier culture(s). Wales also has some really long ones, although not the world's longest.

[@pbsstoried]

"Whispers from the past" is such a great way of describing it! - Dr. B

[@syafiqjabar]

Here in Malaysia there have been several places that were reverted to their pre-colonial names or given new more local names, like Anson Bay becoming Teluk Intan (Diamond Bay) or Jesselton becoming Kota Kinabalu (Kinabalu City, after the nearby mountain). Sometimes the government also rename places for sounding inappropriate. Bestari Jaya (more or less Brilliant & Successful) was originally Batang Berjuntai (Dangling Rod). Locals are not going to use the new name, I assure you.

[@barbarossarotbart]

That's normal, because it is never the locals who wanted to rename a place but always governmental officals who wanted this purely out of political reasons.

[@rufioh]

I’m surprised Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch in Wales didn’t pop up as your longest place name over the one you have from New Zealand. Cos the Welsh one is about 60 characters long, and it means something like “Saint Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool and the Church of Saint Tysilio of the red cave”

[@WhitzWolf92]

I was also expecting/hoping that would at least a get mention. It's fun to say!

[@MegaJackpinesavage]

@@WhitzWolf92 Me, too -- my guess is she chickened out -- no harm no fowl...

[@WhitzWolf92]

@@MegaJackpinesavage Given the ones she DID include, I'm doubtful intimidation was a factor.

[@moisessalazar4432]

Me too!

[@kaffir76]

Yes! ‘‘Tis the one! ❤❤

[@joshandallo2170]

I am SO IMPRESSED at Erica's ability to recite these foreign place names with such ease! Well done!

[@keitadarkwolf2591]

In South Africa, we have Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein. That's 44 letters. It means 'the spring where two buffalo were killed with one shot' in Afrikaans. I have no idea why that was impressive enough to name an entire place after, but there you go!

[@CAMSLAYER13]

I think its more like the locals didn't have a name for it so they would use a notable event to specify and that became the name, either when some euro asked the locals and wrote it down or it stuck around so long it became engrained. Its like if you wanted to specify a starbucks or something to someone else local you'll use events and landmarks like "the x next to the bank" or "the x where that fight happened". Look around, theres probably another spring with a name like "the spring with the big tree" or something

[@jefferyreynolds5479]

Deeply impressed with how well you nailed those names, even if it took a few tries. Great show, keep it up, always interesting.

[@gwyndolinds-en8yt]

Dr B. putting a perfect Thai pronunciation out of nowhere I wish to become this good on the languages I’m learning

[@HotelPapa100]

What I find interesting about toponyms of especially rivers in Europe: They conserve features of long lost languages. Ebro, which is a name in Basque, can be found in variations all over Europe, and is an indication that Basque is indeed a holdover of the language spoken in Europe before the Indo-europeans swept it out to the sea.

[@PaulMcElligott]

My family comes from a town in Ireland called Castleisland. Allegedly, this is a shortened version of “the town where there’s a castle on an island.” A local lord built his castle in the middle of a river, using the river as a natural moat. The town still has the name even though the river has long since changed course, and the ruins of the castle are on dry land.

[@gleann_cuilinn]

Placenames are often used in linguistics to trace the movement of speakers of a language, for example some placenames in Korea seem to be of Japonic origin, hinting that Japonic speakers colonized Japan from Korean. Speaking of recources, Chicago comes from the Miami-Illinois Algonquin word shikaakwa which means "wild onions".

[@DiegoJacomussi]

Nothing can cheer me up more than a new episode of Otherwords. ❤

[@pjk9225]

For the survey I wish there was a "double the funding of every show", PBS has been killing it lately

[@TheScrubExpress]

2:38 how many takes did THAT take? Impressive @_@

[@Jeremy-se2de]

My favorite toponyms are the ones that are basically stacked geographical references in a few different languages, often reflecting the languages of groups of people who once lived there. In England, for example, I believe there are several locations that literally translate to Hill Hill Hill or River River, things of that nature.

[@RonGardener4142]

You may be thinking of Torpenhow Hill, with "tor", "pen", and "how" all meaning "hill" in 3 different languages!

[@sandradermark8463]

The La Brea Tar Pits, the The Tar Tar Pits. The Alcántara Bridge, the The Bridge Bridge. The Guadalquivir and Mississippi Rivers, the Great River Rivers. The Sahara Desert, the Desert Desert. And so on. Tautonyms. PS. The Mojo Dojo Casa House: the Mojo House House House.

[@reggiehalstead2070]

The River Avon is a great example of that. Avon is simply an anglicised form of the Welsh word for river.

[@artugert]

Yeah, surprised this didn’t get a mention.

[@manmoy4104]

​@@RonGardener4142I think 'pen' just means 'chief' in Brittonic, and only 'tor' and 'how' means hill/mound (cognates in Brittonic and Old Norse respectively)

[@divarachelenvy]

There is a push to embrace indigenous place names here in Australi too... I love it..

[@thejesusaurus6573]

This deserves so much just for learning to pronounce all those place names

[@Psysium]

What an awesome video. I'd happily watch a whole documentary in this style (actually I'd watch a whole series, this stuff is so fascinating!)

[@lakrids-pibe]

There's a bunch of places in Sweden and Norway named *Å* (brook/small river) *Ø bakker* (Ø hills) is the name of a place in Jutland, Denmark. "Ø" translates to "island", but Ø hills is landlocked.

[@grumble2009]

Being from "Idaho", the story I heard was that a dude from Colorado invented the world to sell land. It's 1850s marketing, picturesque, and not from any of the regional indigenous languages.

[@sarthaksharma9129]

Erica: *nails the full name for Bangkok* Also Erica:"New Orlans"

[@richyahyah]

Otherworlds is my favorite thing to watch on KZbin! Great job and keep up the awesome content

[@leiocerayt]

2:02 That pronunciation sounds BEAUTIFUL!

[@BOABModels]

Canterbury is also where we get the word 'canter' as it was the speed one would ride a horse when going on a pilgrimage to the city. Really impressed with the place name readings in this, Erica. Top work!

[@SedatedGhostwriter]

Speaking of 1:46 Los Angeles, its official name comes from "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles" which is a fairly long name in itself.

[@n0lain]

This was a great video! I love this series. I did wanna point out, at 4:59 the graphic shows Idaho as an example of a toponym that kept its indigenous name, but I'm pretty sure it was a neologism meant to sound indigenous, if I recall correctly.

[@rmdodsonbills]

I don't know about Idaho, but I do know that Wyoming is a place name that is used quite a bit back East. So while I do think it's a native word, I don't think anyone called the state of Wyoming by that name until white folk brought it from the east.

[@chehalem]

100% correct - Idaho is an invented word that was created by George Willing who claimed it was of indigenous origin. It has no roots in indigenous languages or place names. Even though Willing's deception was quickly revealed, the US government had no interest in correcting the mistake.

[@mesovogue]

I just recently discovered this series and I am LOVING it!

[@kiranspees6048]

Yay for saying place names so well. And also yay for including Boise's Basque Block as an example--that made me smile 😊

[@asier_getxo]

Same as a Basque myself haha. Is it a real deal there, or more like a cool name that has stuck without all the culture that should go with?

[@tb9360]

I just did the survey, singing of Otherwords. I was just wondering what how does the survey benefit this channel. More funding? More staff? More videos?! (Fingers crossed). I love you Dr.Erica! I hope you write a book one day!

[@mathieuleader8601]

I'm suprised that the Welsh village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch did not get a mention

[@AngellusBlack]

Just commented this too! Haha.

[@paul_hankin]

Isn't this the longest train station name in the world?

[@TheFranchiseCA]

That one is kinda cheating, though. Llanfair was renamed as a tourist attraction.

[@gota7738]

​@@TheFranchiseCAHonestly I think that makes it worth mentioning, since it highlights awareness of how these name function. It's essentially self-parody of our toponyms.

[@justB_chillin]

and also the Celtic village of Asdrgkljghwercfiuvwilasnjewriuasomwejdiuwreps5fgoeisoidrjqklrewerihkwekjlsipdtwe I was kidding just spammed a bunch of letters lol

[@CAMacKenzie]

Another place-name given because of a local product, Salzburg ("Salt Castle") was named for the control it exerted over the shipment of salt mined in the area of the river Salzach, which flows through Salzburg. Today, you go to the supermarket and buy salt cheaply and hardly think about it, but 1300 years ago this was a big thing.

[@jmmjmu]

I, as an english literature professional and having a deep love for linguistics, binged watched your channel in one go and it gave me so much pleasure. Thankyou. Also, madam, I just realised that you resemble korean pop celebrity lim yoona a lot, only thing is you way more natural and very endearing. Your visage and way of speaking is such a treat to the eyes and ears.

[@Jayfive276]

Having not got a mention, the people of Llanfairpyllgwyngyllgogerychwynndrobwyllllantisiliogogogoch are in shambles right now.

[@lijmoo]

"Bally" place names in Ireland mean "Town of" = Ballymena (supposedly) means Town of Philomena

[@ashleybellofsydney]

The most common place name in Australia is Richmond. Other place names include Fairfield and Liverpool. The most common street name is Victoria Street, followed by Church Street.

[@Le_Inke]

In Chile we have a little town called Peor es Nada ("It's better than nothing") and Cariño Botado ("Wasted Kindness)

[@SaighdeoirArcher]

Place names are also interesting in Ireland. Many of them have been anglicised from the original Irish names, but these Irish names have more meaning. For example, Tyrone is derived from Tír Eoin which means Land of Eoin, while Tyrone means nothing. This is the case with all counties in Ireland 😄

[@veronicatorres87376]

One of my favorite vids from this channel As a writer coming up with native place names is always difficult, so i guess its nice knowing that noone else has any idea what theyre doing either

[@nyarparablepsis872]

For oldest toponym still in use I nominate Warka in Iraq, whose ancient Babylonian name was Uruk (used by ca. 1, 700 BCE). That in turn was derived from Sumerian Unug, which we already know from texts ca. 3,200 BCE.

[@varoonnone7159]

Patna, the capital of Bihar, India is a diminutive of Pataliputra, the capital of the Mauryan and Gupta empires

[@JoaoPessoa86]

the San Jose thing is no joke, I work at an international airport and anytime some asks where their flight to San Jose is I have to preface their question with "Which one?"

[@ManicMonkey1987]

I always love Dr B's excitement for words! My favourite place "renaming" was one that caused a bit of controversy (maybe for less than nice reasons). The stir was caused by renaming the mountain from its "English" name to the original indigenous name.. Except the "English" name was just a bad spelling of that very same indigenous name.

[@EayuProuxm]

We need a bloopers video of Dr. Brozovsky practicing her pronunciation

[@danielkover7157]

I love when language and history come together! 😊

[@AACoCo0506]

Dr. Brozovsky out here nailing these pronunciations... Bravo! As always, keep up the wonderful work on one of my favorite KZbin 'shows'!

[@kairinase]

In the state of Perak, Malaysia, There's a place called Slim River. It was named after a British Resident named Slim, who mistook the local river as the Perak River, that connects the places within the state of Perak. Incidentally, that local river is called Sungai Langsing (langsing means slim) because of it's narrow size, compared to the Perak River. The British left, but the name Slim River stuck, and it's the only place with that name in the world.(as far as I know)

[@joermnyc]

There are several towns in Norway that are simply called Å, which can be confusing if you don’t know which one is which.

[@lordvlygar2963]

Although much of it was dismantled, all of the wall on Wall Street that was below grade had survived. Some of it above grade, because as the city grew, they would just lay foundations on top of what was already there. 15 or so years ago, the wall was rediscovered and now parts of it are on display at the nearest subway station.

[@trevinbeattie4888]

2:02 you just kept going and going and going … and before the end I was cracking up! 😂

[@Anaguma79]

Growing up in Thompson, CT, I always heard Lake Webster's name translated as "Lake-you-fish-on-your-side-we-fish-on-our-side-and- nobody-fishes-in-the-middle."

[@CreamAle]

For years now I've been trying to learn Maori in my free time. Such a complicated sounding/written language but hoooooooollly cow, such beautiful people and culture. But Maori has such a nice cadence and sound to it, it's both aggressive yet soothing at the same time. I swear once I retire from touring, I'm going to try to spend at least a year with a Maori village. Though I'm not even from NZ, it's a beautiful culture I wish to preserve a small part of in me.

[@youremakingprogress144]

You like superlatives more than anyone? Well, I like hyperbole so much I could just die. I love the recognition that Otherwords and PBS give to history, culture, and social justice. I'm also very impressed by Dr. Brozovsky being able to pronounce all those long names from such different languages!

[@TheTiggy25]

Would love to see more stuff in Celtic and Garlic and Brythonic languages and linguistic migration. Also on places working to preserve their languages and dialects !

[@PendelSteven]

6:28 Not so curious when you're Dutch. Overhere, we have towns called Aalsmeer, Zoetermeer, Oud--Vossemeer, Hoensbroek, Hillvarenbeek & Prinsenbeek. A meer is a lake, broek is old Dutch for... a swamp and beek is... a brook. All bodies of water anyhow.

[@stevetheduck1425]

England, Kent place name: Small village of Trosley. 'Tro's ley' or field. Simple. Signage has for most of my life shown the name as 'Trottiscliffe', which implies a local manor or local leader's home. - but everyone said it 'trozlee'. The signage is now showing 'Trosley' again.

[@ihcfn]

In the UK there are a lot of Butts Lane, because that's where the archery butts were kept for weekly practice.

[@orinanime]

Holly Hannah my deepest admiration to you. I salute your ability to get through those words in one go and properly pronouncing them appropriately. I wonder how many takes it took you to accomplish that

[@jimmackey2909]

Absolutely loved this. Had not heard of toponyms before and find the subject fascinating. Thank you.

[@Tuthmose-III]

Oh, well done! I take my hat off to you for reeling off those place names.

[@jfrader]

I almost passed out just listening to that Bangkok translation. Well done

[@michaelkawano1951]

I could watch your videos all day long. Super impressive that you were able to say the New Zealand name.

[@astroluxuk]

I'm LOVING this series, well done Erica and your crew! Buuuut, why was there no mention of the great Welsh train station Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch..?

[@TeagueChrystie]

I love this series so much. Fabulous combination of content and presenter.

[@jalabi99]

Being able to nail the full name of Bangkok and the New Zealand town, made me subscribe to this channel 😃

[@HaliPuppeh]

Names fascinate the heck out of me. This video was really cool.

[@vgalea]

I'm not sure what kind of extreme you would call it, but a street in Malta, comes from a word in the Maltese language meaning, cheating: Qroqq. Yes, 5 letters and 3 of them are Q.

[@sheloveswilby]

i love how beautiful your pronunciations are

[@TenshiHimei]

This was a super fun video, thank you for sharing! :D I have a couple names from the province of Quebec that I find oddly specific; Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs (our lady of the seven pains) and Sainte-Madeleine-de-la-Rivière-Madeleine (saint magdeline of the magdeline river).

[@Error404notfound-nz1ot]

This woman makes learning about words Entertaining ngl

[@DavidBeddard]

I'm only just past the introduction, and I'm already overjoyed to have learned the word "toponym". Also slightly embarrassed, because it feels like I ought to have been able to intuit it a lot earlier in life.

[@Tina-d8f]

Dr Erica I'm enjoying your work.

[@woodencoyote4372]

You went with English for your example of literalism, but there's a whole episodes-worth of Welsh place names, which I think are the most literal on Earth. For example, If you follow the Aeron river, you pass through Ystrad Aeron (vale of Aeron), Llanarchaeron (church on the the bank of the Aeron), Ciliau Aeron (curve of the Aeron), Aberaeron (mouth of the Aeron)... and it's all like this down to the homes and farms. My address, if translated into English, literally is House on the Side of the Hill Above the Small Group of Trees. The house down the street is House in the Small Valley Below the Small Group of Trees. At least you never get lost!

[@mariaaguadoball3407]

I never knew "llanarch" also meant "church." I only knew "eglwys." This helps with quite a few place names!

[@gota7738]

Hmmm... Tŷ Bryn Uwch-Y-Gelli? Or Tŷ Allt Uwch-Y-Gelli? Maybe I shouldn't be trying to dox youtube comments by translating place names, not matter how far off I suspect I am.

[@TomasAndrade42]

A nose flute? Well, here I go down that rabbit hole.

[@kgpz100]

This video reminded me of that old commercial when telephone booths were still commonplace, calling collect: Bobwhohadababyitsaboy.

[@masterimbecile]

A video about superlative toponym that resisted the urge to cover Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch deserves to be recognized.

[@LysSylva]

love this channel and the fascinating host. Thanks for brightening my evenings❣

[@frankmenchaca9993]

I love this show; it's a fascinating subject and you gotta keep. I can't imagine anyone but the good doctor hosting it. For your consideration: piece on and why measuring things got their names, or maybe doing something about various sports.

[@lightntangy9128]

In Australia we’ve got a town called 1770

[@Wow-uk2on]

while you definitely had a very american accent when pronouncing Taumatawhakatangi­hangakoauauotamatea­turipukakapikimaunga­horonukupokaiwhen­uakitanatahu, I'm very impressed that you actually learned how, but also had it memorised! this also applies to aotearoa, while it wasn't flawless it was pretty good and the fact you learned is what deserves the most praise!

[@Hahndrei]

I was really hoping Erica would say Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in this episode…

[@burrahobbit]

As a person who doesn't speak any of those languages, your pronunciation is really impressive in this episode

[@poomlertpinyowong9187]

It is interesting to me that -bury = town. In Thai language -buri also means town or city. For example, Kanchanaburi (city of gold), Suphanburi (also city of gold), etc. Buri also appears in the full name of Bangkok, Krung Thep ... Burirom (City of happiness) ... Several places in Southeast Asia have this kind of suffixes -buri, -puri, -pura (borrowed from Sanskrit). The most famous one is Singapura (city of lion) or Singapore. Sanskrit -pura and English -polis came from the same Proto-Indo-European word. Maybe -bury is in the same category? 🤔

[@AndrewMcColl]

Here in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, you can visit Beach Road. Except the beach is now a few hundred metres away. That's what happens when you name a road then conduct extensive land reclamation. Also, it's not just out country name which is being updated. Most of our towns and cities also have Māori names. Auckland is also known as Tāmaki-makau-rau, and my birth city is so nice they named it thrice: Ōtepoti / Dunedin, which is the Scots Gaelic name for Edinburgh.

[@daliam8715]

Next step is people being able to pronounce Tāmaki Makaurau... or just Manakau. For now I'd settle for Manakau.

[@evelynlamoy8483]

if we're going to talk about Celtic place names, I do need to bring up that Britain itself is a Celtic place name. Britain, comes from the Latin version of the of the welsh name transmitted to them through greek. Brythonic (the branch that split into Welsh, Cornish, and Breton): Pritani Latin: Brittannia English: Britain. Interestingly a lot of the mystery around the lost "Picts" is coming into light in recent time, as the welsh and Irish have both said "awfully weird that our words for old celtic Britains, and Picts, were the same. Cruthne (Irish word), Prydyn (Welsh word) are both their celtic branches words for picts, but are also just the word for British. So what its seeming like happened, is that as trade with the Mediterranean picked up, and roman forces moved more and more into the area, the old social identity of the Celtic brittains started to romanize at the trade centers, until it had developed such a fracture between the romanized cityfolk, and the "folksy" country folk, that they no longer recognized each other as being the same people.

[@amoonheart]

i LOVE otherwords !!!! always so thrilled when there is a new episode ! truly a treat

[@PokhrajRoy.]

That one Welsh town with a long name still fascinates me. Taron Egerton’s from there.

[@maibimbum]

I thought you were going to include Llanfaipwllgwyngyll in Wales! I was waiting for it…although I see now that it’s not the longest, I think it deserves an honorary mention.

[@michaelsharpe4217]

I live near Webster lake.They say the long name means 'I fish on my side, you fish on your side, nobody fishes in the middle'

[@recurse]

I think we Newfoundlanders have place names perfected #WelcomeToDildo

[@kaikazugames]

This series is so interesting i love it sm 😭