"China is in Asia."
Translation:Ĉinio estas en Azio.
June 21, 2015
6 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
This discussion is locked.
Captatious
147
It's because the countries are named after the people rather than the people being named after the country. So Ĉino would be a Chinese person and Japano would be a Japanese person, just like Ruso and Germano are a Russian and a German whereas Rusio and Germanio are Russia and Germany. For country based names we replace -o with -ano to refer to people. Brazil is Brazilo and a Brazilian is Brazilano.
Basically, if the people were named first and the country took its name from them, the -o ending is the people. Yet if the country was named first and then people took their name from it, the -o ending is the country. Whichever came first, gets the -o.