Italy is pronouced Italia in Italy. Spain is pronounced Espania in Spain. Israel is pronounced Yisrael in Israel. Paris is pronounced Parie in France. Jerusalem is pronounced Yerushaliyeem in Israel. Rome is pronounced Roma in Italy. And to top it all off, Germany is pronounced Deutchland in Germany. If it's called Deutshland, then why do we call it Germany? If it's called Roma, then why do we call it Rome, if it's called Espania, why do we call it Spain, etc?

I asked this question to my friend Patti who is a grad student in the Linguistics Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Here is her reply:

"Well, the short story is that when we first took the names into English they sounded like what they were in the language we took them from, but over time, since the sounds of languages change, the words become more and more different. The reason Germany has nothing to do with Deutschland is because we got it from Latin Germania, the name the Romans gave to roughly that part of Europe, rather than what the people occupying the area called it. The deutsch part means people if you go way back."