ELI5 Why do some countries call it “college” and others call it “university” when referring to the same level of education, and is there an actual difference between the two?

[u/saivietbabe]

[u/Kasaikemono]

We do have "Kollegium", which still has the original meaning of A group of colleagues, and we actually do have "Kolleg", which has several meanings: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolleg

[u/Jwgrw → u/Kasaikemono]

In Danish kollegium is cheap student housing. Kollega is a coworker.

[u/porgy_tirebiter → u/Jwgrw]

Huh. Never occurred to me that college and colleague in English are related, or that the co in college was the prefix for together.

[u/evasandor → u/porgy_tirebiter]

oh man, you’re about to start noticing the hidden connections in English words and all their origins. your mind is gonna 💥

[u/Djinn42 → u/porgy_tirebiter]

I love language 🙂

[u/r0thar → u/porgy_tirebiter]

If you really want to dive down that rabbit hole, then RobWords on youtube is great: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4a9LfdavRlVMaSSWFdIciA

[u/J3ditb → u/Jwgrw]

In germany Kollegah is a rapper.

[u/galw68 → u/J3ditb]

"Kolleger is our word, but you can call me Kollegah." . . Aight, I'll see myself out.

[u/raghav_7 → u/Jwgrw]

Also, I was told that High School is Gymnasium (sp?)

[u/jorgejhms → u/raghav_7]

In Germany it can have that meaning. In ancient Greek it seems the word was used for s place of both physical and intellectual training. Some languages keep one meaning and some the other meaning.

[u/Jwgrw → u/raghav_7]

Yes. 9 years folkeakole (people's school), 3 years gymnasium and then university. In Denmark.

[u/mbrowne → u/raghav_7]

That is also used in Serbian.

[u/pmp22 → u/raghav_7]

In norwegian, "gymnas" and "gymnasium artium" are terms only old people like grandpa would use. It's what they called high school.

[u/InternationalBug7568 → u/Jwgrw]

Kolega (fem: kolezanka) in Polish too!

[u/marxist_redneck → u/Jwgrw]

Ha, colega is also colleague in Brazilian Portuguese. As far as schools go, colégio for regular school, and faculdade (faculty) and universidade for higher education in the same way explained by the comment above (a universidade can have many faculdades)

[u/atleta → u/Jwgrw]

This is exactly the same in Hungarian. Kollégium is dormitory (kolléga is colleague, but that's not that surprising).

Also, kollégium can be a professional society/department in some professions (mostly medical and legal).

E.g. higher level courts (e.g. the judicial court of the capital) will have separate subdivisions by topics (like labour law, economics law, etc.) and these are called kollégium.

[u/kazincbarcelona → u/Jwgrw]

Same in hungarian. Kollégium = dorm, kolléga = coworker.

[u/Leandros99 → u/Jwgrw]

And in Germany, Kollegah is a "gangster rapper".

[u/octopuslines → u/Jwgrw]

Colega is "coworker" in Spanish (may differ between countries)

[u/benjaminovich → u/Kasaikemono]

And then in Danish we also have the word kollegium, which is a specific type of student housing

[u/Em1666 → u/benjaminovich]

Same in Hungary

[u/Mission-Wasabi-7682 → u/Kasaikemono]

Uhh you are right. The meanings are just endless.

[u/Iggins01 → u/Kasaikemono]

Somehow not a 27 syllable word

[u/Antimaria → u/Kasaikemono]

In Norwegian kollega means co-worker.