All of the names containing “rus”/“русь”^1^ ultimately come from Русь from where Russia and Belarus both inherit their names.
So, the name of the country Belarus literally means “White Rus”, and it seems like the Dutch word I assume you’re talking about for the country (Wit-Rusland) was borrowed from the Russian word белоруссия and (incorrectly, I guess?) translated as white (бело) + Russia (руссия) despite the “руссия” also in this word referring to Rus and not Russia (spelled differently as Россия).
^1^ the word Россия, too, but from what I can find it is borrowed from Greek and the others including Русь from Arabic, hence the different vowel
Allero@lemmy.today 2 months ago
Here’s a really cool fact though:
In Chinese, the names of most countries are written as they sound, Russia and Belarus are no exception
Russia is 俄罗斯 (Éluósī) and Belarus is 白俄罗斯 (Bái’éluósī) - don’t ask me why they hear it the way they do, both are written as sounds with no implicit meaning.
EXCEPT
白 (Bái) not only is a sound form of Bela in Chinese, it also means “white”. White Russia, as in the original. It is both.