Names for Germany
Encyclopedia
Because of Germany
's geographic position in the centre of Europe and its long history as a disunited region of distinct tribes and states, there are many widely varying names of Germany in different languages, perhaps more than for any other European nation: for example, in German
the country is known as Deutschland, in French
as Allemagne, and in Polish
as Niemcy.
Other forms:
diutisc, or similar variants from Proto-Germanic *Þeudiskaz, which originally meant "of the people". This in turn comes from a Germanic
word meaning "folk" (leading to Old High German
diot, Middle High German
diet), and was used to differentiate between the speakers of Germanic languages and those who spoke Celtic or Romance languages. These words come from *teuta, the Proto-Indo-European
word for "people" (Lithuanian
tauto, Old Irish
tuath, Old English
þeod).
Also the Italian
for "German", tedesco (variants: todesco, tudesco, todisco) comes from the same Old High German
root, although not the name for "Germany" (Germania).
The opposite of diutisc was Old High German
wal(a)hisc or walesc, meaning foreign, from the Celtic tribe of the Volcae
. In German, welsch is still used to mean foreign, and in particular of Southern origin; in English the word was used to describe the "Welsh
" and the name stuck. (It is also used in several other European regions where Germanic peoples came into contact with non-Germanic cultures, including Wallonia (Belgium), Valais
(Switzerland), and Wallachia
(Romania
), as well as the "-wall" of Cornwall
.)
The Germanic language which diutisc most likely comes from is West Frankish, a language which died out a long time ago and which there is hardly any written evidence for today. This was the Germanic dialect used in the early Middle Ages
, spoken by the Franks
in Western Francia
, i.e. in the region which is now France
. The word is only known from the Latin form theodiscus. Until the 8th century the Franks called their language frengisk; however, when the Franks moved their political and cultural centre to the area where France now is, the term frengisk became ambiguous, as in the West Francian territory some Franks spoke Latin, some vulgar Latin
and some theodisc. For this reason a new word was needed to help differentiate between them. Thus the word theodisc evolved from the Germanic word theoda (the people) with the Latin suffix
-iscus, to mean "belonging to the people", i.e. the people's language.
In Eastern Francia
, roughly the area where Germany now is, it seems that the new word was taken on by the people only slowly, over the centuries: in central Eastern Francia the word frengisk was used for a lot longer, as there was no need for people to distinguish themselves from the distant Franks. The word diutsch and other variants were only used by people to describe themselves, at first as an alternative term, from about the 10th century. It was used, for example, in the Sachsenspiegel
, a legal code, written in Middle Low German in about 1220:
(Every German land has its Graf
: Saxony, Bavaria, Franken and Swabia).
The Teutoni, a tribe with a name which probably came from the same root, did, through Latin
, ultimately give birth to the English words "Teuton" (first found in 1530) for the adjective German, (as in the Teutonic Knights
, a military religious order, and the Teutonic Cross) and "Teuton" (noun), attested from 1833.
: , Simplified
: , Pinyin: Déguó) is a combination of the short form of déyìzhì, which approximates the German pronunciation ˈdɔʏtʃ of Deutsch ‘German’, plus guó ‘country’. The character 德 by itself means "moral" and is thus consistent with the Chinese pattern names of choosing characters which are not only phonetically comparable with national names.
The Vietnamese name Đức is the Vietnamese pronunciation (đức ɗɨ́k) of the Chinese character
that appears in the Chinese name.
word meaning ‘German’.
It was earlier written with the Sino-Japanese character compound (whose has since been simplified
to ), but has been largely superseded by the above-mentioned katakana
.
The character is sometimes used in compounds, for example (dokubun) meaning ‘German literature
’, or as an abbreviation, such as in . The usual senses carried by those characters are : 'solitary' and : 'flee'
name Dogil (hangul
: ) is the Korean pronunciation of the former Japanese name (see previous section). The compound coined by the Japanese was adapted into Korean, so its characters are not pronounced do+itsu as in Japanese, but dok+il = Dogil. Until 1980s, South Korean primary textbooks adopted Doichillanteu (hangul
: ) which approxiamtes the German pronunciation ˈdɔʏtʃ.lant of Deutschland.
The official North Korean name toich'willandŭ (MR
; hangul: ) approximates the German pronunciation ˈdɔʏtʃ.lant of Deutschland. Traditionally Dogil (hangul
: ) had been used in North Korea until 1990s.
Use of the Chinese name (in its Korean pronunciation deokguk, hangul: ) is attested for the early 20th century. It is now uncommon.
The name Germany and the other similar-sounding names above are derived from the Latin
Germania
, of the 3rd century BC, a word of uncertain origin. The name appears to be a Gaulish
term, and there is no evidence that it was ever used by the Germanic tribes themselves. Julius Caesar
was the first to use Germanus in writing when describing tribes in north-eastern Gaul
in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico
: he records that four northern Belgic
tribes, namely the Condrusi
, Eburones
, Caeraesi and Paemani
, were collectively known as Germani. In AD 98, Tacitus wrote Germania
(the Latin title was actually: De Origine et situ Germanorum), an ethnographic work on the diverse set of Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire
. Unlike Caesar, Tacitus claims that the name Germani was first applied to the Tungri
tribe. The name Tungri is thought to be the endonym corresponding to the exonym Eburones.
19th century and early 20th century historians speculated on whether the northern Belgae were Celts or Germanic tribes. Caesar claims that most of the northern Belgae were descended from tribes who had long ago crossed the Rhine from Germania. However many tribal names and personal names or titles recorded are identifiably Celtic
. It seems likely that the northern Belgae, due to their intense contact with the Gaulish south, were largely influenced by this southern culture. Tribal names were 'qualifications' and could have been translated or given by the Gauls and picked up by Caesar. Perhaps they were Germanic people who had adopted Gaulish titles or names. The Belgians were a political alliance of southern Celtic and northern Germanic tribes. In any case, the Romans were not precise in their ethnography
of northern barbarians: by "German(ic)" Caesar meant "originating east of the Rhine". Tacitus wrote in his book Germania : "The Treveri
and Nervii
affectionate very much their German origin, stating that this noble blood separates them from all comparison (with the Gauls) and the Gaulish laziness" .
The OED2
records theories about the Celtic roots of the Latin word Germania: one is gair, neighbour (a theory of Johann Zeuss, a German historian and Celtic philologist) – in Old Irish
gair is "neighbour". Another theory is gairm, battle-cry (put forward by Johann Wachter and Jacob Grimm
, who was a philologist as well as writing fairy tale
s). Yet another theory is that the word comes from ger, "spear"; however, Eric Partridge
suggests *gar / gavin, to shout (as Old Irish garim), describing the Germanic tribesmen as noisy. He describes the ger theory as "obsolete". A last theory is that the word comes from hari, her meaning "army". The word "German" would then mean "man at arms".
In English, the word "German" is first attested in 1520, replacing earlier uses of Almain, Alman and Dutch
. In German, the word Germanen today refers to Germanic tribes, just like the French adjective "germanique", The English words "german" (as in "cousin-german") and the adjective "germane" are not connected to the name for the country, but come from the Latin germanus, "genuine".
). At first němьci may have been used for any non-Slav foreigners, later narrowed to just Germans. The plural form became the country name in Polish Niemcy and Silesian Ńymcy. In others languages the country name derives from adjective němьcьska (zemja) meaning ‘German (land)’ (f.i. Czech Německo). Belarusian (Nyamyecchyna) and Ukrainian (Nimecchyna) are also from němьcь but with the help of suffix -ina.
Another theory claims that Nemtsy derives form the Rhine-based, Germanic tribe of Nemetes
mentioned by Caesar
and Tacitus
.. But this etymology is dubious from phonological (nemetes could not become Slavic němьcь) and geographical point of view.
Over time, the Slavic exonym had been passed on to nations further East. The Arabic
name for Austria
النمسا an-Nimsā was borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish
and Persian
word for Austria, "نمچه" – "Nemçe", from one of the Balkan Slavic languages
(in the 16–17th centuries Austria was the biggest German-speaking country bordering on the Ottoman Empire).
c tribe or confederation in today's Alsace
, parts of Baden-Württemberg
and Switzerland
.
The name comes from Proto-Germanic *Alamanniz which may have one of two meanings, depending on the derivation of "Al-". If "Al-" means "all", then the name means "All men", suggesting that the tribe was a confederation of different groups. If "Al-" comes from the first element in Latin alius, "the other", then it is related to English "else" or "alien" and Alemanni means "foreign men", similar to the Allobroges
tribe, whose name means "the aliens".
In English, the name "Almain" or "Alman" was used for Germany and for the adjective German until the 16th century, with "German" first attested in 1520, used at first as an alternative then becoming a replacement. In Othello
ii,3, (about 1603), for example, Shakespeare
uses both "German" and "Almain" when Iago
describes the drinking prowess of the English:
Andrew Boorde
also mentions Germany in his Introduction to Knowledge, c. 1547:
Through this name, the English language has also been given the Allemande
(a dance), the Almain rivet
and probably the almond furnace, which is probably not really connected to the word "almond" (of Greek origin) but is a corruption of "Almain furnace". In modern German, Alemannisch (Alemannic German
) is a group of dialects of the Upper German
branch of the Germanic language family, spoken by approximately ten million people in six different countries.
Among the indigenous peoples of North America of former French and British colonial areas, the word for "Germany" came primarily as a borrowing from either French or English. For example, in the Anishinaabe languages, three terms for "Germany" exist: ᐋᓂᒫ (Aanimaa, originally Aalimaanh, from the French Allemagne), ᑌᐦᒋᒪᓐ (Dechiman, from the English Dutchman) and ᒣᐦᔭᑴᑦ (Meyagwed, Ojibwe for "foreign speaker"), of which Aanimaa is the most common of the terms to describe Germany.
. The word "Saxon", Proto-Germanic *sakhsan, is believed (a) to be derived from the word seax
, meaning a variety of single-edged knives
: a Saxon was perhaps literally a swordsman, or (b) to be derived from the word "axe", the region axed between the valleys of the Elbe
and Weser. This region was traditionally considered by the Romans to be the region the real Germans (with a bad reputation) came from. The Saxons were considered by Charlemagne
, and some historians, to be especially war-like and ferocious.
In Finnish
and Estonian
the words that historically applied to ancient Saxons changed their meaning over the centuries to denote the whole country of Germany and the Germans. In some Celtic languages
the word for the English nationality is derived from Saxon, e.g., the Scottish term Sassenach
, the Breton Saouzon and the Welsh
term Sais. "Saxon" also led to the "-sex" ending in Essex
, Sussex
, Middlesex
, etc., and of course to "Anglo-Saxon
".
and Lithuanian
the names Vācija and Vokietija possibly come from the German word Volk, "the people". Alternative hypotheses relate the root vāca or vākiā to the name given by West Baltic tribes to Viking. Lithuanian linguist Kazimieras Būga associated this with a reference to a Swedish tribe named Vagoths in a 6th Century chronicle (cf. finn. Vuojola and eston. Oju-/Ojamaa ‚Gotland
‘, both derived from the Baltic word). Latvian linguist Konstantīns Karulis proposes that the word may be based on the Indo-European word wek ("speak"), from which derive Old Prussian wackis ("war cry") or Latvian vēkšķis. Such names could have been used to describe neighbouring people whose language was incomprehensible to Baltic peoples.
The terminology' for "Germany", the "German states" and "Germans" is complicated by the history of many different states in which German was the dominant language. Not until 1871 was there a nation state called Germany.
which include modern languages like German, English and Dutch.
Germani (for the people) and Germania (for the area where they lived) became the common Latin words for Germans and Germany.
Germans call themselves Deutsche living in Deutschland. Deutsch is an adjective (Proto-Germanic *theudisk-) derived from Old High German thiota, diota (Proto-Germanic *theudō) meaning "people", "nation", "folk". The word *theudō was distantly related to Celtic *teutā, whence the Celtic tribal name Teuton, later anachronistically applied to the Germans.
Starting with Charlemagne
, the territory of modern Germany was within the realm of the Holy Roman Empire
. It was a union of relatively independent rulers who ruled their own territories. This Empire was called in German Heiliges Römisches Reich, with the addition from the late Middle Ages of Deutscher Nation (of (the) German nation), showing that meanwhile the former idea of a universal realm had given way to a concentration on the German territories.
In 19th and 20th century historiography, the Holy Roman Empire was often referred to as Deutsches Reich, creating a link to the later nation state of 1871. Besides the official Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation, common expressions are Altes Reich (the old Reich) and Römisch-Deutsches Kaiserreich (Roman-German Imperial Realm).
, the council of the representatives of the German states Bundesrat
h. When in 1870-71 the North German Confederation
was transformed into the German Empire, the preamble said that the participating monarchs are creating einen ewigen Bund (an eternal confederation) which will have the name Deutsches Reich.
Due to the history of Germany, the principle of federalism is strong. Only the state of Hitler (1933–1945) and the state of the communists (East Germany, 1949–1990) were centralist states. As a result, the words Reich and Bund used more frequently than in other countries, in order to distinguish between imperial or federal institutions and those at a subnational level. For example, a modern federal German minister is called Bundesminister, in contrast to a Landesminister who holds office in a state such as Rhineland-Palatinate or Lower Saxony.
As a result of the Hitler regime, and maybe also of Imperial Germany up to 1919, many Germans – especially those on the political left – have negative feelings about the word Reich. However, it is in common use in expressions such as Römisches Reich (Roman Empire), Königreich (Kingdom) and Tierreich (animal kingdom).
Bund is another word also used in contexts other than politics. Many associations in Germany are federations or have a federalised structure and differentiate between a Bundesebene (federal/national level) and a Landesebene (level of the regional states), in a similar way to the political bodies. An example is the German Football Association
Deutscher Fußballbund. (The word Bundestrainer, referring to the national football coach, does not refer to the Federal Republic, but to the Fußballbund itself.)
In other German speaking countries, the words Reich (Austria before 1918) and Bund (Austria since 1918, Switzerland) are used too. An organ named Bundesrat exists in all three of them: in Switzerland it is the government and in Germany and Austria the house of regional representatives.
, which remained a military alliance under the control of Napoleon. In 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, the German states created a German Confederation
with the Emperor of Austria as president; it was a trading zone rather than a state, and parts of Prussia and Austria were not included.
When Hoffmann von Fallersleben
in 1841 wrote the song Das Lied der Deutschen, the national anthem (at least in part) since 1922, he dreamt of a unified Germany (Deutschland über Alles) instead of the separate states. In that time of the emerging national movement, Germany was still merely a geographical term.
In 1866–7 Prussia and her allies left the German Confederation and created a new state called the North German Confederation
. The remaining South German countries joined the new confederation in 1870, with the exception of Austria and Liechtenstein.
Those Germans living within its boundaries were called Reichsdeutsche, those outside were called Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). The latter expression referred mainly to the German speaking minorities in Eastern Europe. Germans living abroad (for example in America) were and are called Auslandsdeutsche.
After the Republic was declared in 1918, Germany was informally called the Deutsche Republik. The official name of the state remained the same. The term Weimar Republic
, after the city where the National Assembly gathered, came up in the 1920s but was not used frequently until the 1950s. It became necessary to find an appropriate term for the Germany between 1871 and 1919: Kaiserliches Deutschland (Imperial Germany) or (Deutsches) Kaiserreich.
of 1848–49, argued about what should become of Austria. Including Austria (at least the German speaking parts) was called the Greater German Solution, a Germany without Austria the Smaller German Solution.
In 1919 the Weimar Constitution postulated the inclusion of Deutsch-Österreich (the German speaking parts of Austria), but the Allies objected to this. It was realised only in 1938 when Hitler invaded Austria (Anschluss
). National socialist propaganda proclaimed the realisation of Großdeutschland, and in 1943 the German Reich was officially renamed Großdeutsches Reich. However, these expressions never became common and popular.
In National Socialist propaganda Austria was also called Ostmark. After the Anschluss the previous territory of Germany was called Altreich (old Reich).
Germany as a whole was called Gesamtdeutschland, referring to Germany in the international borders of 1937. In 1969 the Federal Ministry for All-German Affairs was renamed as the Federal Ministry for Intra-German Relations.
Westerners called the GDR Sowjetische Besatzungszone (SBZ, Soviet Zone of Occupation), Sowjetzone, Ostzone, Mitteldeutschland or Pankow (the GDR government was in the Pankow district of Berlin).
Westdeutschland is also called "alte Bundesrepublik" (old Federal Republic), or "alte Bundesländer" (old federal states).
Ostdeutschland is also called "neue Bundesländer" (new federal states) or "ehemalige DDR" (former GDR).
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
's geographic position in the centre of Europe and its long history as a disunited region of distinct tribes and states, there are many widely varying names of Germany in different languages, perhaps more than for any other European nation: for example, in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
the country is known as Deutschland, in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
as Allemagne, and in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
as Niemcy.
List of names divided into groups
In general, the names for Germany can be arranged in six main groups according to their origin:| 1. From Old High German Old High German The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of... diutisc or similar, from Proto-Germanic *Þeudiskaz, meaning "of the people", "of the folk":
|
2. From the Latin Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and... Germania Germania Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube... :
|
3. From the name of the Alamanni Alamanni The Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic tribes located around the upper Rhine river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Roman Emperor Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211 to 217 and claimed thereby to be... tribe:
|
4. From the name of the Saxon tribe:
|
5. From the Protoslavic němьcь ‘a foreigner, lit. a mute, e.g. who doesn't speak Slavonic’ or unlikely from the name of the ancient Nemetes Nemetes The Nemetes , by modern authors sometimes improperly called Nemeti, were an ancient Germanic tribe living by the Rhine between the Palatinate and Lake Constance where Ariovistus had led them, the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC... tribe. See below.
|
6. Unclear origin. Possibly from the Germanic word Volk "folk", the name of the Scandinavian Vagoth Vagoth The Vagoths were a Germanic tribe mentioned by Jordanes. He located them in Scandza. Speculations about their exact identity have identified them with the Geats of Vikbolandet and with the Gotlanders.... tribe or a Baltic Baltic languages The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe... word meaning "speak" or "war cry":
|
Other forms:
- Medieval Hebrew languageHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
: Ashkenaz; from biblical AshkenazAshkenazIn the Bible, Ashkenaz is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah , thereby a Japhetic descendant of Noah. A kingdom of Ashkenaz is called together with Ararat and Minni against Babylon In the Bible, Ashkenaz (Heb. אַשְׁכֲּנָז) is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah (Gen....
was the son of JaphethJaphethJapheth is one of the sons of Noah in the Abrahamic tradition...
and grandson of NoahNoahNoah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
. Ashkenaz is thought to be the ancestor of the Germans. - Tahitian languageTahitian languageTahitian is an indigenous language spoken mainly in the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to the other indigenous languages spoken in French Polynesia: Marquesan, Tuamotuan, Mangarevan, and Austral Islands languages...
: Purutia (also Heremani) – a corruption of Prusse, the French name for the German Kingdom of PrussiaPrussiaPrussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
. - Lower Sorbian language: bawory or bawery (in older or dialectal use) – from the name of the BavariaBavariaBavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n tribe. - Old NorseOld NorseOld Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
: Suðrvegr – literally "south way" (cf.Cf.cf., an abbreviation for the Latin word confer , literally meaning "bring together", is used to refer to other material or ideas which may provide similar or different information or arguments. It is mainly used in scholarly contexts, such as in academic or legal texts...
NorwayNorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
) - NavajoNavajo languageNavajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
: ("Metal Cap-wearer Land"), in reference to StahlhelmStahlhelmStahlhelm is German for "steel helmet". The Imperial German Army began to replace the traditional boiled-leather Pickelhaube with the Stahlhelm during World War I in 1916...
-wearing German soldiers.
Names from diutisc
The name Deutschland and the other similar-sounding names above are derived from the Old High GermanOld High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
diutisc, or similar variants from Proto-Germanic *Þeudiskaz, which originally meant "of the people". This in turn comes from a Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
word meaning "folk" (leading to Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
diot, Middle High German
Middle High German
Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...
diet), and was used to differentiate between the speakers of Germanic languages and those who spoke Celtic or Romance languages. These words come from *teuta, the Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
word for "people" (Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
tauto, Old Irish
Old Irish language
Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....
tuath, Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
þeod).
Also the Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
for "German", tedesco (variants: todesco, tudesco, todisco) comes from the same Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
root, although not the name for "Germany" (Germania).
The opposite of diutisc was Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
wal(a)hisc or walesc, meaning foreign, from the Celtic tribe of the Volcae
Volcae
The Volcae were a tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedon circa 270 BC and defeated the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC...
. In German, welsch is still used to mean foreign, and in particular of Southern origin; in English the word was used to describe the "Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
" and the name stuck. (It is also used in several other European regions where Germanic peoples came into contact with non-Germanic cultures, including Wallonia (Belgium), Valais
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...
(Switzerland), and Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
(Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
), as well as the "-wall" of Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
.)
The Germanic language which diutisc most likely comes from is West Frankish, a language which died out a long time ago and which there is hardly any written evidence for today. This was the Germanic dialect used in the early Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, spoken by the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
in Western Francia
Western Francia
West Francia, also known as the West Frankish Kingdom or Francia Occidentalis, was a short-lived kingdom encompassing the lands of the western part of the Carolingian Empire that came under the undisputed control of Charlemagne's grandson, Charles the Bald, as a result of the Treaty of Verdun of...
, i.e. in the region which is now France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. The word is only known from the Latin form theodiscus. Until the 8th century the Franks called their language frengisk; however, when the Franks moved their political and cultural centre to the area where France now is, the term frengisk became ambiguous, as in the West Francian territory some Franks spoke Latin, some vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
and some theodisc. For this reason a new word was needed to help differentiate between them. Thus the word theodisc evolved from the Germanic word theoda (the people) with the Latin suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
-iscus, to mean "belonging to the people", i.e. the people's language.
In Eastern Francia
Eastern Francia
East Francia , also known as the Kingdom of the East Franks or Francia Orientalis, was the realm allotted to Louis the German by the 843 Treaty of Verdun...
, roughly the area where Germany now is, it seems that the new word was taken on by the people only slowly, over the centuries: in central Eastern Francia the word frengisk was used for a lot longer, as there was no need for people to distinguish themselves from the distant Franks. The word diutsch and other variants were only used by people to describe themselves, at first as an alternative term, from about the 10th century. It was used, for example, in the Sachsenspiegel
Sachsenspiegel
The Sachsenspiegel is the most important law book and legal code of the German Middle Ages. Written ca...
, a legal code, written in Middle Low German in about 1220:
- Iewelk düdesch lant hevet sinen palenzgreven: sassen, beieren, vranken unde svaven
(Every German land has its Graf
Graf
Graf is a historical German noble title equal in rank to a count or a British earl...
: Saxony, Bavaria, Franken and Swabia).
The Teutoni, a tribe with a name which probably came from the same root, did, through Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, ultimately give birth to the English words "Teuton" (first found in 1530) for the adjective German, (as in the Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
, a military religious order, and the Teutonic Cross) and "Teuton" (noun), attested from 1833.
East Asian names
The Chinese name is probably a phonetic approximation of the German proper adjective. The Vietnamese name is based on the Chinese name. The Japanese name is a phonetic approximation of the Dutch proper adjective. Noticeably, the characters with which the Chinese name is written have a flattering connotation while the Japanese characters are degrading. This is consistent with naming patterns of the two countries during the nineteenth century. The Korean name is based on the Japanese name. This is explained in detail below:Chinese and Vietnamese
The common Chinese name (TraditionalTraditional Chinese character
Traditional Chinese characters refers to Chinese characters in any character set which does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. It most commonly refers to characters in the standardized character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong, or in the Kangxi...
: , Simplified
Simplified Chinese character
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Xiandai Hanyu Tongyong Zibiao for use in Mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of many standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language...
: , Pinyin: Déguó) is a combination of the short form of déyìzhì, which approximates the German pronunciation ˈdɔʏtʃ of Deutsch ‘German’, plus guó ‘country’. The character 德 by itself means "moral" and is thus consistent with the Chinese pattern names of choosing characters which are not only phonetically comparable with national names.
The Vietnamese name Đức is the Vietnamese pronunciation (đức ɗɨ́k) of the Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
that appears in the Chinese name.
Japanese
Japanese language (doitsu) is an approximation of the DutchDutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
word meaning ‘German’.
It was earlier written with the Sino-Japanese character compound (whose has since been simplified
Shinjitai
Shinjitai are the forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in shinjitai are also found in simplified Chinese, but shinjitai is generally not as extensive in the scope of its modification...
to ), but has been largely superseded by the above-mentioned katakana
Katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
.
The character is sometimes used in compounds, for example (dokubun) meaning ‘German literature
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
’, or as an abbreviation, such as in . The usual senses carried by those characters are : 'solitary' and : 'flee'
Korean
The (South) KoreanKorean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
name Dogil (hangul
Hangul
Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...
: ) is the Korean pronunciation of the former Japanese name (see previous section). The compound coined by the Japanese was adapted into Korean, so its characters are not pronounced do+itsu as in Japanese, but dok+il = Dogil. Until 1980s, South Korean primary textbooks adopted Doichillanteu (hangul
Hangul
Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...
: ) which approxiamtes the German pronunciation ˈdɔʏtʃ.lant of Deutschland.
The official North Korean name toich'willandŭ (MR
McCune-Reischauer
McCune–Reischauer romanization is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems, along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced McCune–Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000...
; hangul: ) approximates the German pronunciation ˈdɔʏtʃ.lant of Deutschland. Traditionally Dogil (hangul
Hangul
Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...
: ) had been used in North Korea until 1990s.
Use of the Chinese name (in its Korean pronunciation deokguk, hangul: ) is attested for the early 20th century. It is now uncommon.
Names from Germania
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
Germania
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...
, of the 3rd century BC, a word of uncertain origin. The name appears to be a Gaulish
Gaulish language
The Gaulish language is an extinct Celtic language that was spoken by the Gauls, a people who inhabited the region known as Gaul from the Iron Age through the Roman period...
term, and there is no evidence that it was ever used by the Germanic tribes themselves. Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
was the first to use Germanus in writing when describing tribes in north-eastern Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico
Commentarii de Bello Gallico
Commentarii de Bello Gallico is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Caesar describes the battles and intrigues that took place in the nine years he spent fighting local armies in Gaul that opposed Roman domination.The "Gaul" that Caesar...
: he records that four northern Belgic
Belgae
The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...
tribes, namely the Condrusi
Condrusi
The Condrusi were a Germanic tribe of ancient Belgium, which takes its name from the political and ethnic group known to the Romans as the Belgae. The Condrusi were probably located in the region now known as Condroz, named after them, between Liège and Namur...
, Eburones
Eburones
The Eburones , were a Belgic people who lived in the northeast of Gaul, near the river Meuse and the modern provinces of Belgian and Dutch Limburg, in the period immediately before it was conquered by Rome. They played a major role in Julius Caesar's account of his "Gallic Wars", as the most...
, Caeraesi and Paemani
Paemani
The Paemani were a tribe of Gallia Belgica, mentioned by Julius Caesar in his commentary of his Gallic Wars. They were one of a group of tribes listed by his local Remi informants as the Germani, along with the Eburones, Condrusi, Caeraesi , and Segni...
, were collectively known as Germani. In AD 98, Tacitus wrote Germania
Germania (book)
The Germania , written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.-Contents:...
(the Latin title was actually: De Origine et situ Germanorum), an ethnographic work on the diverse set of Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. Unlike Caesar, Tacitus claims that the name Germani was first applied to the Tungri
Tungri
The Tungri were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the Belgic part Gaul, during the times of the Roman empire. They were described by Tacitus as being the same people who were first called "Germani" , meaning that all other tribes who were later referred to this way, including those in...
tribe. The name Tungri is thought to be the endonym corresponding to the exonym Eburones.
19th century and early 20th century historians speculated on whether the northern Belgae were Celts or Germanic tribes. Caesar claims that most of the northern Belgae were descended from tribes who had long ago crossed the Rhine from Germania. However many tribal names and personal names or titles recorded are identifiably Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
. It seems likely that the northern Belgae, due to their intense contact with the Gaulish south, were largely influenced by this southern culture. Tribal names were 'qualifications' and could have been translated or given by the Gauls and picked up by Caesar. Perhaps they were Germanic people who had adopted Gaulish titles or names. The Belgians were a political alliance of southern Celtic and northern Germanic tribes. In any case, the Romans were not precise in their ethnography
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
of northern barbarians: by "German(ic)" Caesar meant "originating east of the Rhine". Tacitus wrote in his book Germania : "The Treveri
Treveri
The Treveri or Treviri were a tribe of Gauls who inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle from around 150 BCE, at the latest, until their eventual absorption into the Franks...
and Nervii
Nervii
The Nervii were an ancient Germanic tribe, and one of the most powerful Belgic tribes; living in the northeastern hinterlands of Gaul, they were known to trek long distances to engage in various wars and functions...
affectionate very much their German origin, stating that this noble blood separates them from all comparison (with the Gauls) and the Gaulish laziness" .
The OED2
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
records theories about the Celtic roots of the Latin word Germania: one is gair, neighbour (a theory of Johann Zeuss, a German historian and Celtic philologist) – in Old Irish
Old Irish language
Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....
gair is "neighbour". Another theory is gairm, battle-cry (put forward by Johann Wachter and Jacob Grimm
Jacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...
, who was a philologist as well as writing fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s). Yet another theory is that the word comes from ger, "spear"; however, Eric Partridge
Eric Partridge
Eric Honeywood Partridge was a New Zealand/British lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the Army Education Corps and the RAF correspondence department during World War II...
suggests *gar / gavin, to shout (as Old Irish garim), describing the Germanic tribesmen as noisy. He describes the ger theory as "obsolete". A last theory is that the word comes from hari, her meaning "army". The word "German" would then mean "man at arms".
In English, the word "German" is first attested in 1520, replacing earlier uses of Almain, Alman and Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
. In German, the word Germanen today refers to Germanic tribes, just like the French adjective "germanique", The English words "german" (as in "cousin-german") and the adjective "germane" are not connected to the name for the country, but come from the Latin germanus, "genuine".
Names from Slavic nemets, nemtsy
The Slavic exonym nemets, nemtsy derives from Protoslavic němьcь, pl. němьci ‘a foreigner’ (from adjective němъ ‘mute’ and suffix -ьcь). It literally means a mute or a dumb, but then interpreted as those who can't speak like us; a foreigner. Interestingly, one of the etymologies of the word Slav derives it from slovo, meaning word or speech. In this view, Slavs would call themselves the speaking people, as opposed to their Germanic neighbors, the mutes (a similar idea lies behind Greek barbaros, barbarianBarbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
). At first němьci may have been used for any non-Slav foreigners, later narrowed to just Germans. The plural form became the country name in Polish Niemcy and Silesian Ńymcy. In others languages the country name derives from adjective němьcьska (zemja) meaning ‘German (land)’ (f.i. Czech Německo). Belarusian (Nyamyecchyna) and Ukrainian (Nimecchyna) are also from němьcь but with the help of suffix -ina.
Another theory claims that Nemtsy derives form the Rhine-based, Germanic tribe of Nemetes
Nemetes
The Nemetes , by modern authors sometimes improperly called Nemeti, were an ancient Germanic tribe living by the Rhine between the Palatinate and Lake Constance where Ariovistus had led them, the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC...
mentioned by Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
and Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
.. But this etymology is dubious from phonological (nemetes could not become Slavic němьcь) and geographical point of view.
Over time, the Slavic exonym had been passed on to nations further East. The Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
name for Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
النمسا an-Nimsā was borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish language
The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
and Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
word for Austria, "نمچه" – "Nemçe", from one of the Balkan Slavic languages
South Slavic languages
The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...
(in the 16–17th centuries Austria was the biggest German-speaking country bordering on the Ottoman Empire).
Names from Alemanni
The name Allemagne and the other similar-sounding names above are derived from the southern Germanic Alemanni, a SuebiSuebi
The Suebi or Suevi were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c...
c tribe or confederation in today's Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, parts of Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
The name comes from Proto-Germanic *Alamanniz which may have one of two meanings, depending on the derivation of "Al-". If "Al-" means "all", then the name means "All men", suggesting that the tribe was a confederation of different groups. If "Al-" comes from the first element in Latin alius, "the other", then it is related to English "else" or "alien" and Alemanni means "foreign men", similar to the Allobroges
Allobroges
The Allobroges were a Celtic tribe of ancient Gaul, located between the Rhône River and the Lake of Geneva in what later became Savoy, Dauphiné, and Vivarais. Their cities were in the areas of modern-day Annecy, Chambéry and Grenoble, the modern of Isère, and modern Switzerland...
tribe, whose name means "the aliens".
In English, the name "Almain" or "Alman" was used for Germany and for the adjective German until the 16th century, with "German" first attested in 1520, used at first as an alternative then becoming a replacement. In Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
ii,3, (about 1603), for example, Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
uses both "German" and "Almain" when Iago
Iago
Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's source is traced to Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi . There, the character is simply "the ensign". Iago is a soldier and Othello's ancient . He is the husband of Emilia,...
describes the drinking prowess of the English:
- I learned it in England, where, indeed, they are most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander—Drink, ho!—are nothing to your English. [...] Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the next pottle can be filled.
Andrew Boorde
Andrew Boorde
Andrew Boorde was an English traveller, physician and writer.Born at Boords Hill, Holms Dale, Sussex, he was educated at Oxford University, and was admitted a member of the Carthusian order while under age...
also mentions Germany in his Introduction to Knowledge, c. 1547:
- The people of High Almain, they be rude and rusticall, and very boisterous in their speech, and humbly in their apparel .... they do feed grossly, and they will eat maggots as fast as we will eat comfits.
Through this name, the English language has also been given the Allemande
Allemande
An allemande is one of the most popular instrumental dance forms in Baroque music, and a standard element of a suite...
(a dance), the Almain rivet
Almain rivet
An Almain rivet is a type of plate armour created in Germany around the end of the 15th and early 16th centuries. It was designed to be manufactured easily yet afforded considerable protection to the wearer...
and probably the almond furnace, which is probably not really connected to the word "almond" (of Greek origin) but is a corruption of "Almain furnace". In modern German, Alemannisch (Alemannic German
Alemannic German
Alemannic is a group of dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. It is spoken by approximately ten million people in six countries: Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, France and Italy...
) is a group of dialects of the Upper German
Upper German
Upper German is a family of High German dialects spoken primarily in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Northern Italy.-Family tree:Upper German can be generally classified as Alemannic or Austro-Bavarian...
branch of the Germanic language family, spoken by approximately ten million people in six different countries.
Among the indigenous peoples of North America of former French and British colonial areas, the word for "Germany" came primarily as a borrowing from either French or English. For example, in the Anishinaabe languages, three terms for "Germany" exist: ᐋᓂᒫ (Aanimaa, originally Aalimaanh, from the French Allemagne), ᑌᐦᒋᒪᓐ (Dechiman, from the English Dutchman) and ᒣᐦᔭᑴᑦ (Meyagwed, Ojibwe for "foreign speaker"), of which Aanimaa is the most common of the terms to describe Germany.
Names from Saxon
The names Saksamaa and Saksa are derived from the name of the Germanic tribe of the SaxonsSaxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
. The word "Saxon", Proto-Germanic *sakhsan, is believed (a) to be derived from the word seax
Seax
Seax in Old English means knife or cutting tool. The name of the roofer's tool, the zax, is a development from this word...
, meaning a variety of single-edged knives
Knife
A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...
: a Saxon was perhaps literally a swordsman, or (b) to be derived from the word "axe", the region axed between the valleys of the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
and Weser. This region was traditionally considered by the Romans to be the region the real Germans (with a bad reputation) came from. The Saxons were considered by Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
, and some historians, to be especially war-like and ferocious.
In Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
and Estonian
Estonian language
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
the words that historically applied to ancient Saxons changed their meaning over the centuries to denote the whole country of Germany and the Germans. In some Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
the word for the English nationality is derived from Saxon, e.g., the Scottish term Sassenach
Sassenach
Sassenach is a word used chiefly by the Scots to designate an Englishman. It derives from the Scottish Gaelic Sasunnach meaning, originally, "Saxon", from the Latin "Saxones"; it was also formerly applied by Highlanders to Lowlanders. As employed by Scots or Scottish English-speakers today it is...
, the Breton Saouzon and the Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
term Sais. "Saxon" also led to the "-sex" ending in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, etc., and of course to "Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
".
Baltic names
In LatvianLatvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
and Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
the names Vācija and Vokietija possibly come from the German word Volk, "the people". Alternative hypotheses relate the root vāca or vākiā to the name given by West Baltic tribes to Viking. Lithuanian linguist Kazimieras Būga associated this with a reference to a Swedish tribe named Vagoths in a 6th Century chronicle (cf. finn. Vuojola and eston. Oju-/Ojamaa ‚Gotland
Gotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
‘, both derived from the Baltic word). Latvian linguist Konstantīns Karulis proposes that the word may be based on the Indo-European word wek ("speak"), from which derive Old Prussian wackis ("war cry") or Latvian vēkšķis. Such names could have been used to describe neighbouring people whose language was incomprehensible to Baltic peoples.
Terminology related to Germany
Pre-modern Germany
Roman authors mentioned a number of tribes they called Germani - the tribes did not use the term. After 1500 these tribes were identified by linguists as belonging to a group of languages, the Germanic languagesGermanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
which include modern languages like German, English and Dutch.
Germani (for the people) and Germania (for the area where they lived) became the common Latin words for Germans and Germany.
Germans call themselves Deutsche living in Deutschland. Deutsch is an adjective (Proto-Germanic *theudisk-) derived from Old High German thiota, diota (Proto-Germanic *theudō) meaning "people", "nation", "folk". The word *theudō was distantly related to Celtic *teutā, whence the Celtic tribal name Teuton, later anachronistically applied to the Germans.
Germany until 1871
The first nation state named "Germany" began in 1871; before that Germany referred to a geographical entity comprising many states populated by German speakers.Starting with Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
, the territory of modern Germany was within the realm of the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
. It was a union of relatively independent rulers who ruled their own territories. This Empire was called in German Heiliges Römisches Reich, with the addition from the late Middle Ages of Deutscher Nation (of (the) German nation), showing that meanwhile the former idea of a universal realm had given way to a concentration on the German territories.
In 19th and 20th century historiography, the Holy Roman Empire was often referred to as Deutsches Reich, creating a link to the later nation state of 1871. Besides the official Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation, common expressions are Altes Reich (the old Reich) and Römisch-Deutsches Kaiserreich (Roman-German Imperial Realm).
Reich and Bund
In German constitutional history, the expressions Reich (reign, realm, empire) and Bund (federation, confederation) are somewhat interchangeable. Sometimes they even co-existed in the same constitution: for example in the German Empire (1871–1918) the parliament had the name ReichstagReichstag (German Empire)
The Reichstag was the parliament of the North German Confederation , and of the German Reich ....
, the council of the representatives of the German states Bundesrat
Bundesrat of Germany
The German Bundesrat is a legislative body that represents the sixteen Länder of Germany at the federal level...
h. When in 1870-71 the North German Confederation
North German Confederation
The North German Confederation 1866–71, was a federation of 22 independent states of northern Germany. It was formed by a constitution accepted by the member states in 1867 and controlled military and foreign policy. It included the new Reichstag, a parliament elected by universal manhood...
was transformed into the German Empire, the preamble said that the participating monarchs are creating einen ewigen Bund (an eternal confederation) which will have the name Deutsches Reich.
Due to the history of Germany, the principle of federalism is strong. Only the state of Hitler (1933–1945) and the state of the communists (East Germany, 1949–1990) were centralist states. As a result, the words Reich and Bund used more frequently than in other countries, in order to distinguish between imperial or federal institutions and those at a subnational level. For example, a modern federal German minister is called Bundesminister, in contrast to a Landesminister who holds office in a state such as Rhineland-Palatinate or Lower Saxony.
As a result of the Hitler regime, and maybe also of Imperial Germany up to 1919, many Germans – especially those on the political left – have negative feelings about the word Reich. However, it is in common use in expressions such as Römisches Reich (Roman Empire), Königreich (Kingdom) and Tierreich (animal kingdom).
Bund is another word also used in contexts other than politics. Many associations in Germany are federations or have a federalised structure and differentiate between a Bundesebene (federal/national level) and a Landesebene (level of the regional states), in a similar way to the political bodies. An example is the German Football Association
German Football Association
The German Football Association is the governing body of football in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB organises the German football leagues, including the national league, the Bundesliga, and the men's and women's national teams. The DFB is based in Frankfurt and is...
Deutscher Fußballbund. (The word Bundestrainer, referring to the national football coach, does not refer to the Federal Republic, but to the Fußballbund itself.)
In other German speaking countries, the words Reich (Austria before 1918) and Bund (Austria since 1918, Switzerland) are used too. An organ named Bundesrat exists in all three of them: in Switzerland it is the government and in Germany and Austria the house of regional representatives.
| Name of the state | National Diet | House of regional representatives | Regional states |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation (–1806) | (did not exist) | (Immerwährender) Reichstag | (Reichsstände) |
| Deutscher Bund (1815–1848/1866) | (did not exist) | Bundesversammlung (often: Bundestag) | Bundesstaaten |
| Deutsches Reich (1848/1849) | Reichstag (Volkshaus) | Reichstag (Staatenhaus) | Staaten |
| Norddeutscher Bund (1866/1867–1871) | Reichstag | Bundesrat | Bundesstaaten |
| Deutsches Reich (1871–1919) | Reichstag | Bundesrat | Bundesstaaten |
| Deutsches Reich (1919–1933/1945) | Reichstag | Reichsrat | Länder |
| Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1949–) | Bundestag | Bundesrat | Länder (often: Bundesländer) |
19th century until 1871
Napoleon terminated the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Some of the independent German states then joined the Confederation of the RhineConfederation of the Rhine
The Confederation of the Rhine was a confederation of client states of the First French Empire. It was formed initially from 16 German states by Napoleon after he defeated Austria's Francis II and Russia's Alexander I in the Battle of Austerlitz. The Treaty of Pressburg, in effect, led to the...
, which remained a military alliance under the control of Napoleon. In 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, the German states created a German Confederation
German Confederation
The German Confederation was the loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia...
with the Emperor of Austria as president; it was a trading zone rather than a state, and parts of Prussia and Austria were not included.
When Hoffmann von Fallersleben
August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben
' , who used Hoffmann von Fallersleben as his pen name, was a German poet. He is best known for writing "Das Lied der Deutschen", its third stanza now being the national anthem of Germany, and a number of popular children's songs.- Biography :Hoffmann was born in Fallersleben , Brunswick-Lüneburg,...
in 1841 wrote the song Das Lied der Deutschen, the national anthem (at least in part) since 1922, he dreamt of a unified Germany (Deutschland über Alles) instead of the separate states. In that time of the emerging national movement, Germany was still merely a geographical term.
In 1866–7 Prussia and her allies left the German Confederation and created a new state called the North German Confederation
North German Confederation
The North German Confederation 1866–71, was a federation of 22 independent states of northern Germany. It was formed by a constitution accepted by the member states in 1867 and controlled military and foreign policy. It included the new Reichstag, a parliament elected by universal manhood...
. The remaining South German countries joined the new confederation in 1870, with the exception of Austria and Liechtenstein.
German nation state 1871–1945
The official name of the German state in 1871 became Deutsches Reich, linking itself to the former Reich before 1806. This expression was commonly used in official papers and also on maps, while in other contexts Deutschland was more frequently used.Those Germans living within its boundaries were called Reichsdeutsche, those outside were called Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). The latter expression referred mainly to the German speaking minorities in Eastern Europe. Germans living abroad (for example in America) were and are called Auslandsdeutsche.
After the Republic was declared in 1918, Germany was informally called the Deutsche Republik. The official name of the state remained the same. The term Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, after the city where the National Assembly gathered, came up in the 1920s but was not used frequently until the 1950s. It became necessary to find an appropriate term for the Germany between 1871 and 1919: Kaiserliches Deutschland (Imperial Germany) or (Deutsches) Kaiserreich.
Nazi Germany
After 1933 the official name of the state was still the same. The expression Drittes Reich (Third Reich), which was introduced by conservative antidemocratic writers in the last years of the republic, was an informal term. Later Hitler renounced the term Drittes Reich (officially in June 1939), but it already had become popular among supporters and opponents and is still used in historiography. It led later to the name Zweites Reich (Second Empire) for the Germany of 1871–1919. The rule of Hitler is most commonly called in English Nazi Germany. Nazi is a colloquial abbreviation for Nationalsozialist.Greater Germany and "Großdeutsches Reich"
In the 19th century before 1871, Germans, for example in the Frankfurt ParliamentFrankfurt Parliament
The Frankfurt Assembly was the first freely elected parliament for all of Germany. Session was held from May 18, 1848 to May 31, 1849 in the Paulskirche at Frankfurt am Main...
of 1848–49, argued about what should become of Austria. Including Austria (at least the German speaking parts) was called the Greater German Solution, a Germany without Austria the Smaller German Solution.
In 1919 the Weimar Constitution postulated the inclusion of Deutsch-Österreich (the German speaking parts of Austria), but the Allies objected to this. It was realised only in 1938 when Hitler invaded Austria (Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
). National socialist propaganda proclaimed the realisation of Großdeutschland, and in 1943 the German Reich was officially renamed Großdeutsches Reich. However, these expressions never became common and popular.
In National Socialist propaganda Austria was also called Ostmark. After the Anschluss the previous territory of Germany was called Altreich (old Reich).
Germany divided 1945–1990
After 1945 Deutsches Reich was still in use for a couple of years; when in 1947 the Social Democrats gathered in Nuremberg, they called their rally Reichsparteitag. In geographical contexts people still spoke of Germany, for example when someone emigrated from Germany to Canada or a bicycle race went through Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia.Federal Republic of Germany
The Federal Republic of Germany, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, established in 1949, saw itself as the same state founded in 1871 but Reich gave place to Bund. For example the Reichskanzler became the Bundeskanzler, reichsdeutsch became bundesdeutsch, Reichsbürger (citizen of the Reich) became Bundesbürger.Germany as a whole was called Gesamtdeutschland, referring to Germany in the international borders of 1937. In 1969 the Federal Ministry for All-German Affairs was renamed as the Federal Ministry for Intra-German Relations.
German Democratic Republic
The Soviet Zone established in 1949 a Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR, German Democratic Republic, GDR). Inhabitants of GDR called their state simply DDR and they called West Germany Westdeutschland or BRD. After 1970 the GDR called itself a socialist state of German nation.Westerners called the GDR Sowjetische Besatzungszone (SBZ, Soviet Zone of Occupation), Sowjetzone, Ostzone, Mitteldeutschland or Pankow (the GDR government was in the Pankow district of Berlin).
Reunification in 1990
In 1990 the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist. Five "neue Bundesländer" (new federal states) were established and joined the "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" (Federal Republic of Germany). East Berlin joined through merger with West Berlin; technically the sixth new federal state as West Berlin, although considered a de-facto federal state, had the legal status of a military occupation zone.Germany today
The official name of the country is Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland). The terms "Westdeutschland" and "Ostdeutschland" are still used for the western and the eastern parts of the German territory, respectively.Westdeutschland is also called "alte Bundesrepublik" (old Federal Republic), or "alte Bundesländer" (old federal states).
Ostdeutschland is also called "neue Bundesländer" (new federal states) or "ehemalige DDR" (former GDR).
See also
- Various terms used for GermansVarious terms used for GermansThere are many alternative ways to describe the people of Germany, though in English the official designated nationality as well as the standard noun is German. . During the early Renaissance, "German" implied that the person spoke German as a native language...
- List of country name etymologies
- German placename etymologyGerman placename etymologyPlacenames in the German language area can be classified by the language from which they originate, and by their age.- Suffixes :# -ach, . Examples: Echternach, Salzach....
- Exonym and endonymExonym and endonymIn ethnolinguistics, an endonym or autonym is a local name for a geographical feature, and an exonym or xenonym is a foreign language name for it...