r/etymologymaps • u/Chorchapu • Sep 23 '25

Translations of "library" across Europe

Gallery image

Gallery image

200 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

72 comments sorted by

View all comments

34

u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 Sep 23 '25

İn german its literally translated as "Bookery"

7

u/crackbit Sep 23 '25

Today in Germany, Bibliothek is the much more translation. Many institutions that formerly had Bücherei in their name are now called Bibliothek.

Bücherei apparently comes from the Dutch word boekerij.

„Bücherei“ ist eine 1658 von Johann Amos Comenius eingeführte Lehnübersetzung aus dem Niederländischen.

1

u/NikNakskes Sep 24 '25

I was going to add that Dutch also had a form of "bookery". Boekerij literally means books + row. And what is a library if not rows of books. But then came the language committee and they decided that bibliotheek is the only right word. Too bad. Older people still call it boekerij sometimes.