Talk:Earth

Does anyone know why the Dutch say Nova Zembla, instead of using the Russian земля? Mallerd 17:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Because they don't speak Russian, but Dutch, obviously. The Russian name is Новая Земля, but it would be awkward to keep it as such (completely unassimilated, i. e., in Cyrillic writing or with native Russian pronunciation, depending on modality) in Dutch (or other foreign-language) contexts, so the Dutch have come up with an exonym Nova Zembla, which is far easier to pronounce, spell and type of print when you're a Dutch-speaking person in the Netherlands or Belgium who doesn't also speak Russian, has a Cyrillic typewriter, sorts for typesetting, or (nowadays) keyboard respectively. That's the whole idea of exonyms.

Or is your question about the addition of the /b/ in the Dutch version? Well, that's an epenthetical consonant that makes the transition from /m/ to /l/ easier, as /ml/ is a forbidden consonant combination in Dutch phototactics, as far as I'm aware. Obviously, there are several changes from the Russian (transliterated) Novaja Zemlja/Novaya Zemlya to the Dutch Nova Zembla, all in the interest of making the name conform better to the patterns of native Dutch words. --Florian Blaschke 12:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)