"Jag behöver en karta över Nordnorge."
Translation:I need a map of northern Norway.
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Will you please explain why Sydeuropa is Southern Europe (upper case S) but Nordnorge is northern Norway (with lower case N).
I'm not a native speaker of English, but my guess is that it's because "Southern Europe" is an "official" region, while in "northern Norway" you are speaking about a part of a country. We do something similar in Brazil: the country is officialy divided in five regions, so if you say "South Brazil", you are speaking about those three states that are considered in this region by our Institute of Geography, while writing "south Bahia" requires no capital S in "south" because you are not speaking of a "proper noun", just stating the specific cardinal direction. :)
I agree but I wonder if "northern Norway" is that good a translation of "Nordnorge" because I think Nordnorge is an official region with defined borders. I think "northern Norway" doesn't mean the same thing.
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As far as I undertsand it, storio is correct... because Southern Europe is a pretty well defined region commonly reffered to it becomes almost a name of its own, whereas with northern Norway you are simply specifying the specific part of a region or country or area; northern is used as an adjective to the noun rather than part of the noun itself.
Hope I could help :)
I'm not even sure that Southern Europe (with the "S" capitalized) is standard usage, at least in US English. I think we'd treat that as on a par with "northern Norway," and instead write "southern Europe." But maybe the Brits do things differently.
I'm an American copyeditor, and I would definitely lowercase the 's' in "southern Europe" if I came across it in an article.
Probably because Nordnorge is an official region in Norway with defined borders: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordnorge. "northern Sweden" as in "norra Sverige" is not anything official. You could consider Norrland maybe.
Prepositions vary greatly and irregularly in their use, even in relatively closely related languages like Swedish and English. That makes it hard to provide accurate answers for general questions about translating prepositions.
Sorry. My mistake. What I actually meant to be asking is if the preposition specifically for what a map is covering is uniformly över. Thanks.
karta is a loan word from Latin 'charta', 'papyrus' or 'paper'.
In English, 'map' comes from another Latin word, 'mappa', meaning 'sheet' or 'napkin'. (via the word 'mappa mundi' meaning 'sheet of the world' i.e. 'map of the world').
The word 'cartography' has the same etymology ('charta'), only it's come via French, which is why it has a c instead of ch.
What if I want to say "I need a map about norway's rivers"? Would om be the correct preposition?
"Jag behöver en karta över Norges floder." Still över. But I wouldn't say "about" in English, would you? You have a "map of the rivers" not a "map about the rivers."
My native English tongue instinctively put "...for northern Norway" instead of "of" and was marked wrong. I think it should be accepted but perhaps I'm alone in using 'for' (and therefore wrong?). Any other native English speakers agree with me?
As an American I’d usually say “of,” but “for” feels right as well.