this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
2 points (100.0% liked)

YUROP

1266 readers
2 users here now

A laid back community for good news, pictures and general discussions among people living in Europe.

Other European communities

Other casual communities:

Language communities

Cities

Countries

founded 11 months ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

For anyone wondering, Deutschland, Duitsland and Tyskland all have the same latin root "theodiscus" that became "deutsch". "Allemagne" derives from a germanic tribe, the "Alemanni" who lived in modern day Germany and bordered modern day france. Niemcy and Nemetorszag both stem from old slavic "nem" (or something similar) meaning "mute". They called the Germanic tribes they interacted with mute because they couldn't understand them. "Saksa" is derived from the German region "Saxony".

Please correct me in case i got something wrong.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The Latin root theodiscus is actually just the latinised form of the Old High German thiutisk from Indo-European teuta and means "people". Similarly, Alemanni means "all men". The Saxons were named after their typical sword or fighting knive, the Seax or Sax. It's still discussed where the term "German" originates from.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The Saxons were named after their typical sword or fighting knive, the Seax or Sax.

There's also a possibility the name is related to "settling", and the knife then probably named after the tribe.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's a common misconception, they are actually named after the famous jazz instrument the saxophone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Wow, language truly is amazing

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Any idea about how English came to call it Germany?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Latin, Germania