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.
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.
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.
That’s a common misconception, they are actually named after the famous jazz instrument the saxophone.
Wow, language truly is amazing
Just to add one more sidenote: France is of course named after the Franks, a German people who lived next door to the Alemanni and the Saxons.
Still do, Franken is on the one hand a part of Bavaria very insistent on not actually being Bavarian (and they’re right), OTOH a dialect continuum reaching over the Ruhr area up to Flanders and Holland.
Charlemagne was a prince of Austrasia, just another guy in a long dynasty of conquerors but notably the one to conquer Rome (and conversion-by-genocide of the Saxons). Also a lot more Gauls back in the day in France before they went all national state and suppressed minority languages in favour of sounding more Roman.
Any idea about how English came to call it Germany?
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I’m guessing saksa is more like the others and based on the Saxon people that once lived there rather than the modern region named for the same
the “Alemanni” who lived in modern day Germany and bordered modern day france.
Alemans still live in Baden-Württemberg, parts of Bavaria, Switzerland and I think there’s also a splattering in Austria. Basically, High Germans which aren’t Austro-Bavarian (same culture, different kingdoms) are Alemans.
“Saksa” is derived from the German region “Saxony”.
That one can be a bit misleading: The modern state of Saxony has nothing to do with the Saxon tribe, the place the title was applied to slowly drifted over the ages. They’re much more related to Prussians and Thuringians and even Franks, going all the way over to Flanders and Holland, than Saxons proper. (Holland, not Netherlands).
Here’s a rough splotch of where Old Saxon was spoken, which you can consider “core Saxony”. At least linguistics-wise it spread quite a bit especially during the days of the Hanse (becoming a minority language as far up as Estonia), but it definitely stops before arriving at a place where “goose meat” means “could you please”. Utter gibberish.
The original saxons lived more or less in the area of modern day lower saxony, that is north west germany.
Stupid sexy Flanders
thiutisk/ theodisk is from a Germanic/ old high German root meaning “belonging to the people”
As is the root of most self descriptions, the name of a group for themselves means “we” or “the people” or “humans”.
Germany: “Fine, fine, we’re Germany to you. You could have called us Dutchland instead of using that for people from the Netherlands, but whatever.”
USA: pointing to people who settled Pennsylvania from Germany “Pennsylvania Dutch!”
Germany: ಠ_ಠ
Also the Dutch angle in cinema, named after the expressionist German film of the early 20th cinema (think Nosferatu)
Shouldnt have called yourself a „Holy Roman Empire” if you didn’t want us to get confused.
You mean the heiliges römisches Reich deutscher Nation?
‘Tyskland’ in Danish, not ‘Tyksland’.
‘Tyksland’ would mean ‘Thickland’ or ‘Fatland’
Tyksland it is! Thank you, @cholesterol.
Can we also talk about “Dutch”?
Yeah, it’s always so confusing
Nobody talks about the Dutch :(
That’s nobodie’s business but the
TurksDanishNetherlands
I personally find it worse, if city names are very different. Like Krung Thep Maha Nakhon (…) as Bangkok. Most Thai people just say Krung Thep, why can’t the rest of the world? I mean, they only changed the name in 1782…
Or Italians call Munich ‘Monaco’ which is really confusing because there is literally a country not that far away.
Or English speakers calling München Munich.
But you must admit, that for English speaker not only the Ü , but also the CH are really big challenges. I feel like they done their best with Munich here.
But anyways, I would be in favor of changing it for the original upper bavarian “MINGA”
The first record mentioning Munic says that it’s called “forum apud Munichen” (1158). So “Munich” is just a case where an old world survived the centuries in exile, while the people living nearby changed it around.
Both have the same ‚distance‘ to Munichen albeit changing differently. The English pronunciation is an abomination though. Moon-Jen would be preferable from my POV.
The closest you can comfortably pronounce it in English would be something like Moonkin, so Munich is probably for the best.
Boomken
Cöln -> Cologne
The funny thing is that most languages in the world call Finland Finland or something adjacent (usually containing the syllable ‘Fin-’), while it’s ‘Suomi’ in Finnish. Only the Baltic states call it something similar to that.
Goes all the way back to at least Proto-Germanic *finnaz for Sami, possibly from “to travel by foot, walk”. Not terribly unrealistic given the semi-nomadic lifestyle of Sami, Sami and Suomi might just be the same word via general Uralic relatedness (and sound the same to Germanic ears anyway) also what’s now considered Finns was back then a rough assemblage of tribes consisting of multiple Uralic immigration waves known to Swedes as “Forest Finns”, as supposed to the herding Finns (ie. nowadays Sami) further north.
Which I guess makes Estonians Swamp Finns (in so far as Finland-Finns aren’t claiming that one for themselves with their swamp forests) and Hungarians… Paprika Finns.
Same with Hungary and Greece
Referring to magyarorszag and hellas, I assume?
Deutschland is a fairly new word. Before that there were a multitude of germanic tribes and those have made their way into the language of our neighbours as the name of the country
Germanen, Allemannen, Sachsen to name a few.
Deutsch, Tysk, Tedesco… come from the Latin “theudo” - “das Volk/the people”
Also why the Nederlanders are called Dutch by English speakers. Since the Dutch descent from a bunch of Germanic tribes.
Dutch has the same word origin as Deutsch. Obviously. The Latin “theudo” - “the people”.
Back in the days, when the whole region belonged to the Holy Roman Empire and were not seperate countries yet, “dutch” refered to Nederlanders and germans both. The fact that they decent from germanic tribes is the reason the word “dutch” makes sense actually.
I find it way more weird that they call Deutsche germans now. Keeping the word dutch for germans would make much more sense in my opinion.
Das heilige römische Reich deutscher Nation has entered the chat.
Gesundheit
Prost!
Saksa, when the Wall fell.
So, anyone wanna revive one of the polandball communities or open a new one?
I posted a few European Polandball comics here, I think it fits the mood
Polandball on a world scale might need some heavy moderation due to potential political debates
Lithuania: Vokietija
So that’s where all these god damn Voke people come from
Unironically I have seen some strange lemmy users be from germany.
So which country is known by the same name to the most number of other countries?
Japan is Japan everywhere except Japan.
Everyone uses the name that China used. I guess that’s the benefit and downside of only having one neighbor.
This caused me to think about upside versus downside and benefit versus some word that isn’t anti-benefit, unbenefit, abenefit, ilbenefit, irbenefit, imbenefit, inbenefit, debenefit, disbenefit. There is no etymological related antonym to benefit.
malefit?
I like the way you think
The only exception I could find is that Japan is ‘Japon’ in Bambara.
Yeah but Nippon is reaaally close to the word.
Without thinking much about it, my guess would be the United States of America.
Edit: my reasoning was that most countries translate USA verbatim to their language, as most replies here demonstrate.
Do you mean Amerika Birleşik Devletleri? Los Estados Unidos? Les États-Unis d’Amérique ?
Translation, in order: The United States of America, The United States of America and The United States of America.
That’s how languages work, yes. They have different words for the same thing. How is that different from OP content?
Remember the meme? Deutschland, Duitsland, Tyskland are all regional variations on the same name. Allemagne and Germany are completely different names for the same country. Of course every language have their own way of saying “The United States of America”, but in essence it’s the same word, the same idea. Even Japan is Japón in Spanish, Ιαπωνία in greek, and so on. No one can pronounce my name correctly if I go abroad, but most of the time there is a regional variant I can use.
The question was what country is known “by the same name” by the most people around the world. You’re not going to find a place name that is pronounced and/or written exactly the same in every language. That’s how languages work.
Actually calling Germany Allemagne would be like calling the US Texas or France Bretagne.
Or the Netherlands Holland? Yeah, that happens.
You mean: die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika? VSA VSA
Out Usono if we’re speaking Esperanto.
Ah the Yhdysvallat.
Finnish doesn’t count, having completely unrelated names for everything is like a sport to you people
It’s not even unrelated, it’s a literal translation of “United States” to Finnish
Similarly in Estonian sometimes we’d just call it Ühendriigid instead of Ameerika Ühendriigid
You mean מְאַהֵב זָקֵן?
Los Estados Unidos de América
On second thought maybe as, “Those fucking Yankees”?
美国
Yeah, I’m not sure what we did to earn the name. Beautiful land but we’ll take it
It’s a loose transliteration, same as 英国，法国，德国，etc.
I never really felt it was a good one as it’s really far off compared to the others
Amerikas Forenede Stater?
But yeah, it’s too long, we usually call it USA. Although we pronounce the letters in the local way.
Latvian: Vacija ?!?
Also, it always killed me that in English, people from the Netherlands are called Dutch
saksa comes from saxony, which was historically a major power in the region. (My knowledge comes from CK2)
Same for allemagne
Bring back the Charlemagnes. The continent hasn’t been the same since.
In Spanish it’s Alemania.
