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Deutschland Germany Allemagne Tyskland Vokietija Niemcy Nemecko Saksa... (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Finland saying "Saksa" from a distance made me chuckle.

Some etymologies:

French "Allemagne", Spanish "Alemania" - from the Alemanni tribe. English also attests "Almayne" in a few older texts. I'm not too sure but I think that most descendants of that tribe don't even live in the Republic of Germany, but rather in Switzerland and Alsace.
Finnish "Saksa", Estonian "Saksamaa" - from another tribe, the Saxoni.
English "Germany", Italian "Germania" - borrowed from Latin. Beyond that the etymology is a bit messy; Julius Caesar for example uses "germanus" in De Bello Gallico to refer to non-Gaulish tribes, but we don't know if it was a generic term or the name of one of the tribes.
Polish "Niemcy", Slovakian "Nemecko" - from Proto-Slavic *němьcь "foreigner, German". The word is derived from *němъ "mute"; likely the result of an "if you don't speak our language might as well not speak at all" mindset.
Danish "Tyskland" - "tysk" (German) was borrowed from Old Saxon, and backtracks to Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz (of the people). So it's an actual cognate of German Deutschland, or the Italian adjective "tedesco". Confusingly enough, the country itself can be called either Germania or Repubblica Federale Tedesca in Italian.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If I recall historia correctly the use "of the people" root to refer to a distinction language can be traced back to Christian missionaries and clergimen of medieval times who needed to translate religious teachings from latin to the common tongue.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Wow. I knew several were lingering tribal names, from before Germany was really A Thing, but leave it to the Polish to straight-up call them barbarians.