this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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[–] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This isn't a common term but it's something I recently learned that's kind of funny - the country Timor-Leste is named from the Malay word timur, meaning "east", and the Portuguese word leste, meaning "east". So it's literally "East East".

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

That’s bizarre ….. during the independence violence the news always refers to it as East Timor, so it would have been more literally east east

[–] wieson@feddit.org 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

How is one language more literal than another?

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Think of the language like units in a math problem.

“East” (English) is more literally “East”

Than “Leste”( Portuguese), even if it translates to the same

If you make an analogy with temperature:

  • 212°F is more literally “212” than 100C even if they are both the boiling point of water