Names
Originally named Communitas Ragusina (Latin for "Ragusan municipality" or "community"), in the 14th century it was renamed Respublica Ragusina, first mentioned in 1385 (Latin for Ragusan Republic). In Italian it is called Repubblica di Ragusa; in Croatian, it is called Dubrovačka Republika.
The Croatian name Dubrovnik is derived from the word dubrava, an oak grove; by a strange folk etymology, the Turks have corrupted this into Dobro-Venedik, meaning Good-Venice. It came into use alongside Ragusa as early as the 14th century. The Latin, Italian and Dalmatian name Ragusa derives its name from Lausa (from the Greek ξαυ: xau, "precipice"); it was later altered in Rausium (Appendini says that until after AD 1100, the sea passed over the site of modern Ragusa, if so, it could only have been over the Placa or Stradun) or Rausia (even Lavusa, Labusa, Raugia and Rachusa) and finally into Ragusa.
The official change of name came into effect when so ordered by the Yugoslav government after the Second World War. The name Ragusa was to be changed as it was Italian or at least looked like it. However, the name Ragusa comes directly from the Illyrian tongue and was in use back to that period of regional history. A similar-looking place name in Sicily is in fact different -- the U in the place name is in fact a U with grave accent mark, a diacritic that does not exist in any of the Slavonic languages.
Read more about this topic: Republic Of Ragusa
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A name? Oh, Jesus Christ. Ah, God, I’ve been called by a million names all my life. I don’t want a name. I’m better off with a grunt or a groan for a name.”
—Bernardo Bertolucci (b. 1940)
“Shut out that stealing moon,
She wears too much the guise she wore
Before our lutes were strewn
With years-deep dust, and names we read
On a white stone were hewn.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)