Saturday, November 26, 2005

Why the heck is called Uruguay anyway?

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Uruguayan passport picture
The name Uruguay comes from the Guaraní language.

The Guaraní language is originary of one of the native tribes populating what is today know as the south of brazil, paraguay, part of argentina and uruguay. It is in fact, paraguay's second official language.

Uruguay is guaraní for "river of the birds", or "river of the painted birds", or "river of the snails" depending on the interpretation. The most accepted is river of the birds. And the whole name of the country is República Oriental del Uruguay, meaning republic at the west of this river. Before the creation of the republic this chunk of land in the world was known as "Banda Oriental" (oriental band? oriental stripe? i dunno), so it was already named in reference to the river. This is why sometimes uruguayans are referred to as "orientales", which can be sometimes confusingly funny, because it's the same term used for talking about asiatic people, orientals. ...

20 comments:

Frank Partisan said...

Now I know why it's called Uruguay.

Regards.

Anonymous said...

Well...let's face it, the "ORIENTAL" bit of R. O. U. is a pathetic throwback to a time that is no longer. So the name of the country needs to be changed ASAP. La Banda Oriental WAS a province of, and a strip of land on, the eastern side of what used to be Las Provincias Unidas del Rio de la Plata. But today Uruguay is an independent sovereign country, NOT just a strip of land on the eastern side of Argentina.

Anonymous said...

Please do not change Uruguay's complete name. It has good history and everyone in Uruguay should be proud of their history.

If one researches the countries that have changed their names over the past 50 years, you will see a common denominator (generally) and that common denominator does not represent Uruguay. You have a beautiful country.

Anonymous said...

good info

KalPDG said...

Let's take into consideration two points. First Oriental, means easterly, literally giving Uruguay a name due to geographic reference. The Republic on the easterly side of the Uruguay River.

BTW dude, I love the blog, I'm a canadian living in Uruguay.

On to my second point. Jose Artigas is the country's hero, but let's recognize that he never fought for Uruguay, he fought for La Banda Oriental. He left the region, in self-exile to Paraguay, years before Uruguay became independant.

Anonymous said...

muy buena in formacion como uruguayo vreo que esta todo muy bien esplicado
gracias por mostrar mi pais al mundo

Anonymous said...

sepo: you made a little 'typo', it wasn't 1928 but 1828.
Actually Uruguay is independent because of England, it's funny. We were just happy belonging to Argentina and fighting Brazil until some englishman decided we didn't belong to any of them.
Now, more than a century and a half later, I thank him for that :)

www.mueblesensevilla.com said...

What exactly you're writing is a horrible mistake.

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