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:
“Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades and pictures kept somewhere, “just in case” in the endless catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and sometimes almost weep.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“When the Day of Judgement dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards—their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble—the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.””
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“In a time of confusion and rapid change like the present, when terms are continually turning inside out and the names of things hardly keep their meaning from day to day, it’s not possible to write two honest paragraphs without stopping to take crossbearings on every one of the abstractions that were so well ranged in ornate marble niches in the minds of our fathers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)