[Picture courtesy of Lao Cook.]
I finished watching the Beijing Opening ceremony tonight, and gave a little cheer when the Laos delegation (of four) entered. Matt Lauer’s commentary was,
“A lot of people back in the States refer to “Lao” as Laos. The people there do call it Lao. It’s a communist nation, [and] a hub for eco-tourism.”
Yeah, we call it “Lao” but it’s usually “Muang Lao,” with muang roughly translating to land. The Thais call their country “muang thai,” which translates to “Thai-land.”
Just because Italy calls their country “Italia”, Germany calls their country “Deutschland”, and Korea calls their country “Han gook,” doesn’t mean that’s what I would call it when talking to other English speakers. Read more about this topic here.
Anyway, wasn’t the opening ceremony freaking gorgeous? If you didn’t watch it in HD, you don’t know what you were missing. The Chinese really know how to do fireworks, don’t they? Hehe.
August 12th, 2008 at August 12, 2008 - 9:56 am
Yeah, this is one of those times where I think commentators’ mouths get ahead of (or operate without) their brains. Naturally, country names in English (or any other language) are different than the names of countries in their native languages. This is true of almost every country I can think of.
In Spanish, Spain is España. As you mentioned, in Italy it is Italia, etc. But you don’t hear Matt referring to the athletes from ‘Italia.’
August 13th, 2008 at August 13, 2008 - 7:27 pm
funny, i was thinking the same thing when i saw it. i didn’t think anyone would even notice, you know, cause there’s not a lot of lao-ocean bloggers out there. good stuff.
October 26th, 2008 at October 26, 2008 - 9:23 pm
It is a huge pet peeve for me when people use “Lao” instead of “Laos.”
And how about that summary: “It’s a communist nation, [and] a hub for eco-tourism.”
LOL
October 26th, 2008 at October 26, 2008 - 9:26 pm
On a related note , this is pretty funny.