Luxembourg, Romania

English translation: What about Roumania?

17:57 Sep 17, 2004

English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Art/Literary - Linguistics

English term or phrase: Luxembourg, Romania

I was taught at school, and have assumed ever since, that these two names were spelled (UKE):
Luxemburg,
Rumania.

I've also checked it on a modern (expensive) road atlas and a 1920's World Gazeteer which was a standard reference in the days of paper.

I am now told I'm wrong and in the case of Luxemthingy, way out of date.

Anyone like to offer an opinion? (I mean re. the spelling, not my age).

Thank you.

Gareth McMillan KudoZ activity Questions: 138 (1 open) (1 closed without grading) Answers: 638
Local time: 21:05

Selected answer:What about Roumania?

Explanation:
There are three spellings for Romania: Romania, Rumania and Roumania.

For Luxembourg, the Anglophone spelling has been, as long as I can remember, Luxembourg. Luxemburg is, as has already been pointed out, the Germanic version. (The suffix is Germanic, and so you might think this a good argument in favour of Luxemburg, but our forms in English generally seem to follow the French names pretty closely.)

Even in France, Rosa Luxemburg is spelt Luxemburg.

The French spell their word for Romania "Roumanie", but the corresponding English version, "Roumania", is rare.

I'd go with "Romania", as it seems to be most common, and the place got its name as a former Roman colony.

Oh, and I wasn't too pleased about only getting 2 points for my efforts on plurals of abbreviations. I mean, I put TWO dirty jokes in.... Care for a caber-thumping duel?

Selected response from:

Richard Benham
France
Local time: 21:05

Grading comment

Happy now?
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED

5 +5

Mmore than one spelling - see explanation below

Michael Powers (PhD)

4 +2

Luxembourg, Romania

Kim Metzger

4 +1

What about Roumania?

Richard Benham

Rumania= old school; Luxemburg= Germanic

Tegan Raleigh

Luxembourg, Romania

Vladimir Dubisskiy

Discussion entries: 3

Answers

3 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +5

luxembourg, romania Mmore than one spelling - see explanation below

Explanation:
Merriam-Webster Dictionary 11th edition

Main Entry:Lux£em£bourg
Variant:or Lux£em£burg \*l*k-s*m-*b*rg, *l*k-s*m-*b*rk\
Function:geographical name

1 province SE Belgium capital Arlon area 1706 square miles (4418 square kilometers), population 232,813
2 country W Europe between Belgium, France, & Germany; a grand duchy area 999 square miles (2597 square kilometers), population 392,000
3 city, its capital population 75,377
–Lux£em£bourg£er or Lux£em£burg£er \-*b*r-g*r, -*b*r- \ noun
–Lux£em£bourg£i£an or Lux£em£burg£i£an \*l*k-s*m-*b*r-g*-*n, *l*k-s*m-*b*r- \ adjective

Main Entry:Ro£ma£nia
Pronunciation:r*-*m*-n*-*, r*-, -ny*
Variant:or Ru£ma£nia \r*-\
Function:geographical name

country SE Europe bordering on Black Sea capital Bucharest area 91,699 square miles (237,500 square kilometers), population 22,789,000

Mike :)

Michael Powers (PhD)
United States
Local time: 15:05
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 136

5 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +2

luxembourg, romania Luxembourg, Romania

Explanation:
European Commission
Translation Service

English Style Guide
This version of the Translation Service's English Style Guide is dated November 2002.

Luxembourg French spelling for Luxembourg (country and city).

Enlargement to the east. The Commission opinions on the membership applications of ten Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) can be found attached to Agenda 2000 (Bulletin Supplements 6/97 to 15/97). All of the applications have now been accepted. Note that these countries are officially referred to as 'candidate countries'.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/translation/writing/style_guides/e...

Kim Metzger
Mexico
Local time: 13:05
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 187

9 mins confidence:

luxembourg, romania Luxembourg, Romania

Explanation:
some input from a non-native:
It is funny, but i was taught (at school, through 60s, and later, with higher ed, through 70s) that it should read LuxembOUrg and ROmania in English and we learned UKE :-))

Vladimir Dubisskiy
United States
Local time: 14:05
Native speaker of:

Russian,

Ukrainian
PRO pts in category: 3

1 hr confidence:

luxembourg, romania Rumania= old school; Luxemburg= Germanic

Explanation:
From what I can see, Rumania is the way that Romania was formerly spelled in English (see below for a website where a few people discuss this)

In the other website I came across, multiple spellings of Luxembourg are given: Luxembourg, Luxemburg, Lëtzebuerg). The home page for Luxembourg spells it with the "ourg"-- but that doesn't exclude the other "burg" from being correct. Just as English speakers don't say "München" but "Munich," there are different ways to say foreign place names. For more or less official usage, I would check the CIA webpages (for American usage, anyways).

For what it's worth, I learned it Luxembourg and Romania.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Romania

Tegan Raleigh
United States
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 8

2 hrs confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

luxembourg, romania

What about Roumania?

Richard Benham
France
Local time: 21:05
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in category: 64

Grading comment

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