Olympics and language question

[Becca]

We were watching volleyball earlier and I noticed that the German women had "GER" on their uniforms. But Germany is the English word. Germany in German is Deutschland. So why the GER instead of DEU?

And the Russian gymnasts have RUSSIA on the front of their jackets, Why Russia, and not their native language?

The trend continues for other countries/languages continues, but I doubt you all need 30 examples.

What is the deal? Are they required to put everything in English?

[winecat]

I think the official languages of the Olympics are English and French.

[mbcdefg]

I was wondering this myself.

I've noticed that Italy's uniforms say Italia, and I think The Netherlands uses Nederlands. Everything else I've noticed seems to use English.

[frlcb]

Aug 5, 2012 21:36:55 GMT -5 winecat said:

I think the official languages of the Olympics are English and French.

It is English and French. But the women's gymnasts had Deutschland on them.

[mccallister84]

I feel like some of them do have it in their native language - like I've seen esp for Espana instead of Spain. And I know I've seen Deutchland somewhere throughout the games... interesting that it seems to be inconsistent.

[Roc A Bee]

Is that why they say everything in French and English? Interesting. I wondered about that.

[Becca]

Aug 5, 2012 21:52:29 GMT -5 Roc A Bee said:

Is that why they say everything in French and English? Interesting. I wondered about that.

I wondered about that too

Interesting that some countries have inconsistencies in language usage

[thoseareradishes]

It is English, French, and the native language of the county where the games are played. I was a spectator at the Nagano Winter Olympics, so everything was in Japanese, French and English.

[niq]

It's up to the country to decide what to put on their uniforms. I think Russia uses the Roman alphabet instead of Cyrrilic so that more people know who they are. Elite Russia has a long history of ties too Western Europe so it's not totally out of the blue.

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