Greece is also called "Hellas". They are the usual ways we hear the country being called. There is, however, a people who call Greece Si-La and this name is not at all random. It is not a people with Latin roots but it constitutes one-fifth of the world population. The reason for China.
Who are the people who call Greece Si-La?
The Chinese culture, then, is the one that calls Greece Si-La. It is one of the oldest cultures that has distinguished itself worldwide along with Greece in the past. It was, moreover, the culture that laid the foundations of modern Asia in exactly the same way that Greece was the core of today’s European culture and It is no coincidence that it laid the foundations of democracy worldwide.
Chinese culture is indisputably one of the oldest and most important in the world. And although the Greek and Chinese cultures were never very close due to the distance, one knew the other. The Chinese, then, call Greece Si-La. It is one of the few languages that they name Greece from its ancient root of the name “Hellas”. What does it mean? It means “The other great culture”. And why do we say that the name comes from Hellas? Because the name Si-La came from the phonetic transcription of “Hellas” in Mandarin.
In essence, the first syllable, “HE”, which traditionally bears rough breathing and is speculated to have a heavier pronunciation, was transcribed as “Si”. In addition, correspondingly, the second syllable was established as “LA”. The first ideogram in Mandarin means “hope”. On the other hand, now, the second ideogram corresponds to December in the traditional Chinese calendar. When these two are together, when they unite they take on another meaning. The two syllables create a phrase that in Chinese translates as “the other great culture".
