home
Menu
Create
Random
0
0
thumbnail

Capitals in their Native Languages

Can you guess the English name of these capital cities?
Using an official languages of that country, not necessarily the most-spoken one
Quiz by thalassemia
Rate:
Featured Quiz
Last updated: November 5, 2020
You have not attempted this quiz yet.
More quiz info >>
First submittedSeptember 6, 2012
Times taken88,239
Average score71.4%
Rating4.92
Quiz and answer stats >>
Friends stats >>
4:15
Enter city here:
0
 / 21 guessed
The quiz is paused. You have remaining.
Scoring
You scored / = %
This beats or equals % of test takers also scored 100%
The average score is
Your high score is
Your fastest time is
Keep scrolling down for answers and more stats ...
Native
English
Roma
Rome
Beograd
Belgrade
Pot Mosbi
Port Moresby
București
Bucharest
Pòtoprens
Port au Prince
Athinai
Athens
Praha
Prague
Native
English
Baile Átha Cliath
Dublin
Nava Dehalī
New Delhi
Prishtinë
Pristina
Dimashq / Ash-Sham
Damascus
Krung Thep
Bangkok
Kaapstad
Cape Town
Ar-Riyāḍ
Riyadh
Native
English
Errbaṭ
Rabat
Lefkosia
Nicosia
Bayrūt
Beirut
Moskva
Moscow
Hà Nội
Hanoi
Wien
Vienna
København
Copenhagen
cm134
+7
Level 29
Aug 6, 2012
great quiz!
zwizdan007
+4
Level 51
Oct 5, 2012
I believe Pretoria is the capital of RSA...
Quizmaster
+74
Level ∞
Oct 5, 2012
South Africa has three capitals. And to think, the United States only has one. Get with the program, US!
Baltimorean
+66
Level 67
Jan 6, 2013
We have many more: Castroville [CA], the Artichoke Capital of the World; Gilroy [CA], the Garlic Capital of the World; Rayne [LA] the Frog Capital of the World; Traverse City [MI], the Cherry Capital of the World. I could go on, of course.
skiesboy
+31
Level 66
Apr 5, 2015
The point of the three capitals is that there are three cities that have functions of government in them, that is to say that Cape Town is the seat of Parliament (legislature), Pretoria is the seat of the government (Executive) and Bloemfontein is the seat of the Judiciary. This goes back to the Union of South Africa, where each of the constituent countries wanted a bit of the honour. As there was no 4th function of Government, Pietermaritzberg got extra money. Thus the USA only has one as the Congress, White House and Supreme Court are all located in Washington DC
kalbahamut
+16
Level 83
Apr 16, 2018
Thanks for clearing that up, skies. I'm sure that Quizmaster and Baltimorean learned a lot and weren't trying to be funny.
ander217
+9
Level 76
Jul 28, 2018
Actually, the US has had three capitals, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, but I'm guessing since we don't have an official language, none of those qualify for this quiz :)
samiamco
+12
Level 69
Dec 6, 2018
Kal, I'm guessing skies was answering for zwizdan007.
kalbahamut
+4
Level 83
May 8, 2019
his comment makes less sense, in that case.
Geoguessin
+3
Level 67
Nov 5, 2020
And Durban was going to be the 4th representing the Natal region
BerryCJ
+15
Level 64
Jan 13, 2022
Every quiz comments section I go to on this website, there's kalbahamut being a jerk to someone for no reason lol
kalbahamut
+1
Level 83
Jan 23, 2022
I wasn't being a jerk. But I understand why you might think that I was. Because I've read Freud.
Dimby
+11
Level 74
Jan 23, 2022
Personally, I enjoyed skies’ extra bit of information about South Africa’s capitals. Also, I assume some people just enjoy being rude to people over the Internet. I say we should all just try to be positive! Some people have trouble telling when they’re being rude! :)
kalbahamut
+2
Level 83
Jan 23, 2022
Apparently. For instance, butting into a conversation to directly call someone a jerk for no reason. Rude or not? Harder to figure out than you might think based on available evidence. It's also apparently difficult for some to gage when others are being rude. For example, when leaving comments coming to the defense of someone making an obvious joke. Rudeness? Or at any rate more rude than lecturing the commenter who made the joke as if they were ignorant when they're clearly not? Hard to say, if this comments section be any indication.
SHUTUP2722
+2
Level 37
Jan 23, 2022
Anchovies
hasanabdi
+1
Level 70
May 4, 2022
relax
bentshaggyoil
+3
Level 58
Oct 19, 2022
take a pill chill, don’t send paragraph-long comments
mal
+1
Level 59
Oct 5, 2012
Did ok, but missed some because I didn't know the English spelling!
lolrobbielol
+1
Level 54
Oct 5, 2012
Please can you accept Porte au Prince for Port au Prince?
fitheach
+14
Level 59
Jul 31, 2018
The quiz asks for the name in English, not for any variant under the sun.
Yanni47
+19
Level 75
Jul 30, 2020
Port au Prince literally means port of the prince, which makes sense as it happens to be a port town. Porte au Prince would mean door of the prince - not a very common term for harbors.
What
+4
Level 27
Oct 5, 2012
Good quiz. Dublin has a funny answer ;)
Blaidd
+3
Level 52
Apr 26, 2020
Gaelic is a funny language? Really
granuaile
+14
Level 74
Aug 23, 2020
There were originally two settlements. One was very ancient - Baile Atha Cliath (the place of the hurdle ford). The later, 6th century ecclesiastical one was Dubh Linn (Black Pool as it was built beside a black peaty pool on the River Liffey). Then the Vikings arrived and combined the two settlements giving this new larger settlement the name Dyflin (their version of Dubh Linn).In the 12th century, Dubh Linn was pronounced Dublin by the Anglo Normans-who didn't understand that the dot over the b in Dubh (nowadays represented by the letter h) changed the sound from b to v and their version stuck.

Over time it became traditional to refer to the place as Baile Atha Cliath when speaking Gaelic and Dublin when speaking English. So, strictly speaking, Baile Atha Cliath is not the Gaelic name of Dublin (which is itself is an anglicisation of two combined Gaelic words) but rather the alternative name.

All very straightforward!

Carry
+9
Level 63
Oct 16, 2012
Surprised so few got Cape Town. Okay in German it's Kapstadt, that's pretty close to it.
JamesC79
+2
Level 55
Apr 22, 2014
It's in Afrikaans
tzhg
+18
Level 60
May 4, 2020
That's why they said "that's pretty close to it".
Sulps
+15
Level 57
Dec 22, 2013
New Delhi's name shouldn't be in a random Indian language, but instead Hindi. Hindi is an official language of India, the most common after English and the most (natively) spoken in New Delhi and India. The Hindi name for it is "Na'ī dillī" (romanized of course).
zuni
+8
Level 33
Apr 16, 2015
Correct... no one speaks the way it is mentioned...maybe they just picked one language from country...but it should be in Hindi not only considered because official language of India but the regional language also says it Nayi Dilli
Bubblegum
+7
Level 66
Jul 6, 2020
I second that. I don't know which Indian language it has been written in here, if at all, but I have never heard anyone using these words for our capital city colloquially at least.
Chronikhiles
+11
Level 50
Jul 30, 2020
I support that it should be spelled more akin to Nayi Dilli, not because Hindi is the most spoken regional language of India, but because it's how the city is locally known.
Nelinho251
+2
Level 29
Jan 3, 2014
Got 100% but cheated for 5 answers
Jonathan
+22
Level 29
Dec 19, 2014
er... so you didn't get 100%
ander217
+16
Level 76
Dec 19, 2014
And skewed the stats for those who accept their imperfections.
otissaroke
+1
Level 32
Sep 22, 2014
Great quiz 16/21 . By the way Cape Town is not a capital.
ChineseChen
+5
Level 64
Nov 5, 2020
It’s the legislative capital of South Africa.
kalbahamut
+1
Level 83
Dec 19, 2014
Pretty easy. Only missed Baile..
InsaneFreedom
+2
Level 41
Dec 20, 2014
The Baile in Baile Átha Cliath just means Town; Town of the Hurdled Ford to be exact. It refers to an old crossing in the city.
Sifhraven
+1
Level 66
Feb 21, 2020
Interesting, I hadnt heard that before, I did know dublin (Dubh Linn) meant black pool.
Asterlan
+6
Level 57
Nov 7, 2020
It looked Irish so I guessed Dublin and got it right.
kalbahamut
+2
Level 83
Dec 19, 2014
And the "Ar" before Riyadh just means "the"...
WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot
+1
Level 58
Dec 19, 2014
21/21 - good thing I visited Dublin a couple of weeks ago because otherwise I would never have guessed it. New Delhi was a bit tricky but saying the clue out loud helped.
eurocrem
+2
Level 42
Dec 19, 2014
I believe Moscow should be in Cyrillic, Belgrade too.
kalbahamut
+8
Level 83
May 8, 2019
No they shouldn't. I was just going to comment praising the quiz author for NOT doing that. This is capitals in their native languages not capitals in the native alphabets. Thus, Krung Thep, not กรุงเทพมหานคร. Cyrillic doesn't deserve a special exception, if it did the quiz would be inconsistent.
Henceforth516
+2
Level 82
Dec 19, 2014
Knowing somebody who lives in Pristina, it is alternatively spelled Prishtina in English - it's minor, but to be accurate you should accept either. Tripped me up at first.
InsaneFreedom
+1
Level 41
Dec 20, 2014
I'm just happy that 40% knew that Baile Átha Cliath was Dublin. Did not expect it to be that high.
Sifhraven
+10
Level 66
Jan 13, 2019
If it was amongst others terms written in irish/gaeilge I would never had gotten what it meant. But it seemed irish to me and since this quiz was about capitals..
Yanni47
+1
Level 75
Jul 30, 2020
When I was there in 2007, the buses were all labeled 'Bus Átha Cliath' (still are). Anyway, my dad had taught me the local name already a long time before that.
rawe
+1
Level 66
Dec 23, 2014
I thought about Pòtoprens as Port au Prince, but I also thought that Port au Prince was written in French, so I discarded.
JBlouw1850
+2
Level 44
Nov 16, 2016
I first tried Port au Prince as the lengthy Dublin answer and was pleasantly surprised when it showed up for something I assumed to be somewhere in the Balkans. Never did get Dublin (or Cape Town either).
zuni
+5
Level 33
Apr 16, 2015
Well I'm from India and more specifically from Delhi NCR...and no one ever speaks Nava Delhi...it should be Nayi Dilli or simply Dilli
Bubblegum
+1
Level 66
Jun 5, 2019
I feel the same! Even if people use “Nava” (just in case), I doubt if anyone uses “Dehali”.
Antofagasta
+3
Level 64
Oct 20, 2016
Fun quiz. Can you make any more?
LyRiKH
+1
Level 52
Nov 21, 2016
Nice quiz
Algernon
+2
Level 71
Dec 16, 2016
Good quiz, but surely you could accept Delhi for New Delhi. Yes, i know its proper name is the longer version, but the shorter version is used almost as much, if not more, frequently.
Vivelageo
+1
Level 31
May 2, 2022
Those are different cities
Mustafa7
+1
Level 38
Jul 29, 2017
Got Rabat
Maladroit
+4
Level 52
Sep 22, 2017
There ought to be a U.S. city on here in Navajo.
MyMindWentBlank
+2
Level 60
Jul 28, 2018
Well that would only be slightly less accurate than using Kannada for New Delhi so why not
kalbahamut
+2
Level 83
Nov 5, 2020
Pretty sure that the Navajo word for Washington is Washington.
donkeyoattea
+6
Level 55
Oct 3, 2017
I'm also upset about New Delhi not being in HIndi. I could still figure it out but it's 100% incorrect. It should say Naya Dili
cornflakesfu
+6
Level 85
Apr 9, 2018
Finally, a quiz that DOESN'T accept "Riyad" as an answer! No more lonely h clogging up my entry bar and screwing up my next answer!
samiamco
+1
Level 69
Dec 6, 2018
I was going to bring that to the attention of Quizmaster. While I agree that the trailing h *should* be required (just because I'm a hard-assed stickler), there is definitely something to be said for consistency across all of JetPunk. (And while I'm being a stickler, there is a typo in the description: "Using an official languageS […]".) I too really liked this quiz and would definitely enjoy more of them!
Sammy87
+2
Level 62
Jul 28, 2018
Port au prince is English?
mrnafe
+4
Level 81
Jul 28, 2018
Nope, it's French but they speak Haitian Creole in haiti
fitheach
+7
Level 59
Jul 31, 2018
It's the name used in English, so in that sense, yes, it's English. C'est la vie...
Eigengrau
+1
Level 60
Jul 28, 2018
It's "Deheli", not "Dehali", and Damascus is "Damishq", not " Dimashq".
sergeantmalice
+1
Level 57
Aug 1, 2022
Where are you from where you say Damishq? Because it's wrong
KoljiVriVoda
+3
Level 75
Jul 28, 2018
Hi from White City (Beograd) :)
Lucknowite
+3
Level 43
May 8, 2019
native language of delhi is Hindi........and what sort of Hindi speaker I am if I don't understand "Nava Dehali"(definitely

from some other Hindustani dialect which I don't know). So it should be changed to "Nayi Dilli".That's what we call it

anavil1234
+1
Level 46
Apr 24, 2020
I suspect they've taken it from New Delhi's Wikipedia page in Sanskrit, where it says नवदेहली
SIMULATION
+4
Level 62
Nov 14, 2019
Please change New Delhi. No one pronounces like that here.
SWATkun
+1
Level 60
Oct 21, 2020
People in Karnataka and Kannadigas and Kannadatis from all over this world do pronounces it in that way
SIMULATION
+3
Level 62
Jul 25, 2021
Yeah? I have never met a Kannada myself, but Tamils, Malayalis and Telugus prefer Delhi or simply Dilli.. I still think Nai Dilli should be used in the quiz.
anavil1234
+6
Level 46
Apr 24, 2020
Would you consider changing Nava Dehali to Nayi Dilli as in Hindi, an official language, rather than using Sanskrit, not an official language in the whole country, just recognition in a few states (not in Delhi)?
SWATkun
+1
Level 60
Oct 21, 2020
Nava Dehali is kannada and considering it as a recognised language I don't see the need to change it.
bostjan
+2
Level 73
Jan 25, 2022
If this is true, that the name listed is in Kannada, I don't think it's a logical pairing. The native language of the city of New Delhi is Hindi. Less than 1/10th of 1% of the population of New Delhi speaks Kannada. That would be like saying that the native language of Washington DC is Inuit. If it's true that the name listed in the quiz is Sanskrit, I could see the confusion, but, since New Delhi was established in the 20th century, Sanskrit would obviously not be the native language of the city at any point in its existence.
JonOfKent
+3
Level 55
Aug 17, 2020
14% of people couldn't work out that Hà Nội is Hanoi?? How can that be? It's like the maths lesson I was doing this morning where the student couldn't work out what £1 + 90p was, bless him.
BazTheFraz
+2
Level 61
Nov 5, 2020
I have never heard of Athens referred to as Athinai unless it is ancient Greek or another form of Greek I have not heard. Some clarification would be appreciated.
KingEureka
+4
Level 63
Nov 5, 2020
I don't see why one would chose Kannada over Hindi/Sanskrit/Urdu/Punjabi for New Delhi.
SWATkun
+1
Level 60
Nov 5, 2020
And why Hindi/Urdu/Sanskrit (which is not even spoken by 15% of Delhi's Population) or Punjabi?

what's wrong with Kannada?

This quiz is not by the most spoken languages of the city but the native language of the capital city of a country and Kannada is a native language of India. Moreover Kannada actually sits at the same position as Punjabi and Urdu being a recognised scheduled language while it spoken by more people than Sanskrit

KingEureka
+5
Level 63
Nov 5, 2020
Nothing wrong in Choosing Kannada(or Sindhi,Santhali or Maithili for that matter) - but it is certainly weird and random to have it. In all of the above mentioned languages, New Delhi is called Nayi Dilli. No one in Delhi and in the most of India calls it "Nava Dehali".
Aficionado
+2
Level 71
Jan 23, 2022
I agree with you King. Kannada simply feels too random and out of place to be used for Delhi. If Nava Dehali is continued to be used, perhaps change Kaapstad to iKapa.
Pharley
+1
Level 71
Nov 5, 2020
Capetown? Cape Town, surely?
Quizmaster
+1
Level ∞
Nov 5, 2020
Fixed
JonOfKent
+1
Level 55
Feb 22, 2021
I suspect Capetown may be an acceptable spelling... at least it's how Churchill spells it in his account of the war. As I have just discovered
dogmeat
+1
Level 66
Nov 5, 2020
Good quiz but probably too easy. The ones I didn't know were very guessable.
Jakub
+1
Level 66
Nov 6, 2020
The caveat has a grammatical error.
TheAnimationGuy
+1
Level 43
Nov 7, 2020
Caveat has grammatical error!!!! Please fix it
lorrs
+1
Level 38
Jun 5, 2021
Athens should be written Athina
Aficionado
+2
Level 71
Jan 23, 2022
Dear Quizmaster and thalassemia, can you tell me which language is used for Delhi? As several users have pointed out, "Nava Dehali" is not the name of the city in any of its official languages, which for the record are English, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. Hindi holds relatively more authority than Punjabi and Urdu, and hence, the native spelling should be changed to Na(y)i Dilli.
AlexThirkell
+1
Level 73
Jan 25, 2022
Apparently it's from the Kannada language, which is "spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in the southwestern region of India" (you can find it mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_and_their_capitals_in_native_languages)

Make your own mind up - it doesn't look like anyone's interested in changing it!

TheNatureThread
+2
Level 65
Jan 23, 2022
If you search up Nava Dehali, this quiz shows up on the first page. That's how little anybody uses it lol
nsood97
+1
Level 36
Jan 23, 2022
New Delhi is completely wrong - please fix
bostjan
+1
Level 73
Jan 24, 2022
Funny, I only actually knew five of these but was able to quickly guess all but one, and that one became obvious as soon as it sunk in what language it was.
FatSpartanJediLlama
+1
Level 64
Jan 27, 2022
17/21, would've never gotten Dublin
TheUnableDerk
+2
Level 48
Jul 31, 2022
Kaapstad required a whole though process for me. Something like:

The "stad" at the end of "Kaapstad" reminds me of the German word "Stadt", which means city, which makes sense in this context. This must be where a Germanic language is spoken. "Kaap" sounds a lot like 'cape", which is part of "Cape Town". Kaap might be related to cape, since English is also a Germanic language. "Stad" maybe means "town" in this particular language, rather than "city" like "Stadt" in German. Cape Town is a capital of South Africa, where Afrikaans, a Germanic language, is an official language. "Kaapstad" is probably Afrikaans for "Cape Town".

alex4
+1
Level 55
Oct 27, 2022
Athens is "Athina" (Αθήνα) in Greek. Athinai is in Ancient Greek.
Save Your Progress
Similar Quizzes by Tag
Capital
City
Geography
Language

Copyright H Brothers Inc, 2008–2023

Contact Us | Go To Top | View Mobile Site