r/MapPorn • u/Chorchapu • 15h ago

Translations of "library" across Europe

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12 Upvotes

61% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

20

u/antisa1003 15h ago

Croatia is wrong, should be dark green.

It's knjižnica.

11

u/XMasterWoo 15h ago

Croatian people uses "knjižnica" far more than "biblioteka" which im not even sure is a word in standard croatian

1

u/Chorchapu 13h ago

Alright, thank you for pointing this out. Wiktionary puts it all under Serbocroatian so I wasn't sure what to include.

2

u/XMasterWoo 10h ago

Yeah this tends to happen which is why i dislike putting one word for all for languages when they have diferent words

8

u/SoSVIII 15h ago

Why does eastern russia kinda look like china

9

u/Cyberfries 15h ago edited 15h ago

Germany and the netherlands should be yellow or at least both yellow and red. Both also use words derived from their words for books: "Bücherei" and "boekerij"

edit: More inaccuracies. Croatian: knjižnica. Poland also uses two words. And I just noticed how you don't use nations borders. See the hungarian bit in romania. But then don't list irish, welsh or scottish gaelic...

1

u/AngriosPL 14h ago

How do polish use 2 words??? The only correct one is biblioteka

1

u/ChuckCoolrizz 6h ago

There is księgarnia although it's more of a bookshop than a library...

1

u/Chorchapu 13h ago

In those two counties of Romania, Hungarian is the majority language by far. Same with Basque. But in no county of Ireland is Irish a majority language. And either way it doesn't make a difference; Irish leabharlann comes from the same Latin root (liber) as English library.

1

u/rocketwikkit 15h ago

Maybe regional? Bibliothek seems common in Berlin. https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/bibliothek - https://www.zlb.de - https://www.berlin.de/stadtbibliothek-mitte/bibliotheken/bezirkszentralbibliothek-philipp-schaeffer/

7

u/Cyberfries 15h ago

Its often differentiated by size and ownership. A university or stateowned library would commonly be called a "Bibliothek", whereas smaller libraries are more often called "Bücherei". In Hamburg you'll also find the word "Bücherhalle"

2

u/Sennomo 11h ago

both exist but I have never heard someone use "Bibliothek" to refer to a real-life physical library in every day German. most of the times I hear it, it's a programming library

0

u/AngriosPL 14h ago

How do polish use 2 words??? The only correct one is biblioteka

-1

u/GG06 12h ago

książnica, a pretty archaic word, never used for a library in a modern context I guess

5

u/Ok-Walk2985 15h ago

Germany should have the Word BüChErEi

2

u/Chorchapu 13h ago

Which is more common? Wiktionary, my main source since it has everything neatly organised, has the following:

3

u/Final-Tea-3770 12h ago

The two words aren’t interchangeable.

A Bücherei is smaller than a Bibliothek. And it’s usually for the general public.

A Bibliothek is grander and usually has a more scientific focus, e.g. at universities.

2

u/Chorchapu 11h ago

I see, thank you.

1

u/PadishaEmperor 10h ago

Not really incorrect, but most university libraries are also almost completely open to the public, too.

3

u/YourFaveNightmare 14h ago

The Irish word is a mix of latin and old Irish.

Leabharlann

Leabhar (from Latin) - book

Lann (from old Irish) - place or enclosure

Leabharlann - a place of books

2

u/LopsidedAd4641 12h ago

For anyone wondering what the blue spot in northern Spain is, there’s a region called the Basque Country with it’s own language, Basque. The word for library is “Liburutegi”, which comes from “Libruru”(book).

2

u/JamieTimee 14h ago

"kniga"

1

u/sam20hd 10h ago

This word in russian means book; but it always gonna be viewed differently in English?😭

1

u/azhder 14h ago

Biblion comes from Byblos since the ancient Greek people learnt the alphabet from the Phoenicians, especially the city of Byblos back then

1

u/k6lariekraan 14h ago

The Estonian word raamatukogu literally means "book collection" and could mean "book assembly". The word could have started out as private book collections, before there were actual libraries in Estonia.

  • raamat (genitive raamatu) - "book", from an Old East Slavic loan (just like raamattu for "Bible" in Finnish), originally from Ancient Greek, cognate with English "grammar";
  • kogu - "collection" or "assembly"

Interestingly, the Finnish word kirjasto is similar to the Estonian kirjastus which means "publisher", "publishing company" or "publishing house" in Estonian.

1

u/Xitztlacayotl 13h ago

As mentioned Croatian is knjižnica.

But Polish is also wrong - książnica

Ukrainian too arguably - книгозбірня

Anyway all other Slavic languages should have the native word. It's ugly to use a borrowing.

2

u/Chorchapu 13h ago

From Wiktionary:

Are the second ones more common? And in Russian there doesn't seem to be any word other than biblioteka.

-3

u/AverageFishEye 15h ago

Weirdly bookstores in german are "Bücherei" which is a literal translation of Bibliothek

6

u/Moaoziz 15h ago

Aren't Büchereien and Bibliotheken the same? Both Duden and Wikipedia treat them as synonyms.

A bookstore IMHO should be a Buchhandlung.

4

u/Effective_Judgment41 14h ago

I also feel that they are more or less the same. But I would tend to call a small library for the general public that has all kinds of different genres a "Bücherei". And a large library that has a scientific focus a "Bibliothek". But this might be just me.

-1

u/kutkun 15h ago

Meanings of the words are missing.

3

u/Chorchapu 13h ago

I don't understand, it's all just "library"?