Is it called "mother land" or "father land"in your language?

[Ashucky]

Like in Croatian, it's usually called domovína in Slovene as well, being derived from dom "home", so meaning "homeland". Since the word is feminine, it is then referred to as "she" or as "mother", so it's not too far off from "motherland".

There's also an older word, očetnjáva, meaning "fatherland" (derived from oče "father"). There is, however, no word that'd be derived from mati "mother".

[Ludwig Whitby]

In Serbian it's otadžbina (отаџбина), meaning fatherland (otac = father). In the past you could also say отечество like in Russian. One of the buildings of the Belgrade University still has that word written on it:



One can also say domovina (homeland) like in Croatian and Slovene.

In Macedonian and Bulgarian it's татковина(tatkovina) if I'm not mistaken, derived from the word for father.

[melski]

[flag=]fr[/flag] la mère patrie (the motherland)

That actually would be something like "the mother-fatherland" (like [flag=]it[/flag] madrepatria btw).

Thanks Ipse for pointing that out, actually I never saw the root pater in patrie... Now it all makes sense !

[Ciarán12]

In Irish it would just be "tír dhúchais" - "native land", although apparently the word "athartha" also exists, which means something like "patrimony" (the root being "athair" - "father")

[linguoboy]

In Chinese it's called 祖國 which means "ancestor land".

Is 母國 obsolete? The Sino-Korean equivalent, 모국, is still used, although the equivalent of 祖國, 조국, is probably more common. In addition, there is 고국 (故國) which is more often translated as "homeland" or "native country". I don't recall ever seeing a literal equivalent of "fatherland".

[vijayjohn]

In Chinese it's called 祖國 which means "ancestor land".

Is 母國 obsolete?

Apparently not.

[Prowler]

In Portuguese we use the word "Pátria". Which comes from patriarchal/patriarchy, I guess. It would be "fatherland" in English. We obviously don't literally translate it to "Terra-Pai". That would sound ridiculous

[Kuruman]

In Afrikaans we also say "Vaderland" (Fatherland). It has much to do with tradition. In English when people speak of a ship they would most likely say "she is beautiful", but in Afrikaans we would say "hy is mooi" ("he is beautiful").

[Prowler]

In Afrikaans we also say "Vaderland" (Fatherland). It has much to do with tradition. In English when people speak of a ship they would most likely say "she is beautiful", but in Afrikaans we would say "hy is mooi" ("he is beautiful").

In Portuguese, boat("barco") is male.

[Lisi]

In German it is "das Schiff" ("it") but individual ships often have female names like "River-Queen".

[Vlürch]

In Finnish it's isänmaa, "father's land" and äidinkieli, "mother's tongue", but it'd obviously make sense if you reversed them.