Italy is a beautiful country and a perfect holiday destination. We all know it as good old Italy, located on the Italian peninsula. But what do Italians know it as?
If you’re stuck on a crossword and you’ve got a 6-letter word, then the word you’re looking for is Italia. The term, in some form, has been in use since the times of Ancient Greeks, mostly to describe the geographical land located on the Apennine Peninsula.
Most languages have adapted the original quite closely: English has Italy, Swedish, German and Danish have Italien, French have Italie. But, of course, we always have outliers: Hungarians call it Olaszország, Poles call it Włochy while Slovaks call it Taliansko.
Although today Italia and Italy are synonymous, it is worth remembering that most of what we use today is a modified version that people of the past would scratch their heads as much as we can scratch ours to Włochy.
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