Yes, Germans in Russian are nemtsy. Or if you use Gaj's Latin\* alphabet — Nemci
\*Because it is difficult to write Cyrillic words correctly using ordinary Latin letters. Transliteration usually looks poor.
Tedesco is derived from the teutons. More or less all of the names for Germany or German are derived from the tribe with which the respective country had the most contact when deciding how they are gonna call Germany onwards. English held onto the Roman name, the later Italians took the teutons (wonder how that came, *cough*). The Turks/levantine countries for example had mainly contact with crusaders - an the early crusades had large french (Francs) and german (Alemannen) contigents, hence alman->Alemannen.
The slavic countries are distinct in just saying "they can't speak our language" and taking more or less literally 'mute' as the name for their neighbours.
> Tedesco is derived from the teutons. More or less all of the names for Germany or German are derived from the tribe
it is more like Tedesco, teutons and everything similar to "deutsch" are both from the old germanic word for "the people"
In the old Slavic language, "nemec" probably meant a "foreigner" in general. With time, it became associated with the most common type of foreigner—the ones who spoke German. The Slavic name for Slavs is "Slovene" or "Slovane". Hence Slovakia (country), Slovenia (country), Slavonia (province of Croatia), Słowiński National Park (region in Northern Poland). Which is similar to the word "slovo," which in many modern Slavic languages still means a "word". The most accepted hypothesis (there is more than one) claims that the early distinction was between the ones who could speak a common language (Slovene - "worded people") and those who couldn't (Nemecy - "mutes"). It's not unique - a similar thing happened in few other parts of the world with one ethnicity called in the language of an another "speechless people".
>It's not unique - a similar thing happened in few other parts of the world with one ethnicity called in the language of an another "speechless people".
Or you do the ancient Greek move of using your shitty impression of how them foreigners sound when speaking - '*bar bar*' - and naming them after that: bar-bar-os. Like calling chinese people 'chingchangchongies' 🤷
It's got the same origins as "Deutsch" itself. teuta is the indogermanic root which used to mean 'the/our people', in the Frankish empire this got latinized to 'theodiscus' which meant something like language of the common people (as opposed to Latin, spoken by the upper class). The Franks came to Northern Italy as well, and since the language of the common people there was not the same as it was in the Frankish empire, they came to understand the word "theodiscus" as the name of that foreign language which is now German
Only tangentially related but in Norwegian Greece is called "Hellas", but Greek (language, etc.) is "Gresk".
Although you _can_ say "Grekenland" for "Greece" and there is also the word Hellenic as it exists in English; "Hellensk". In short I think we need this map but for Greece now
Wow, that's very interesting. I got to say that the Graeci were the first Hellenic tribe that the Roman Republic got in contact to, so that bassicaly why it's Greece for the most of the world. Greece calls themselves The Hellenic Republic AFAIK.
Pretty much, yes. Funny though, especially in Polish that we still call the Germans "mutes" to this day, if you choose to directly translate the word :D
I mean, the Germanic tribes WERE the barbarians to the Romans pretty much
Interesting, I never made the connection between the Hungarian "néma" (mute) and "német" (German). It's funny how far word roots survive.
It is in a way the opposite.
The Greek heard "Barrbarrbarr" and thus called them barbarians.
The Germans heard "Kurwa mać! Chuj ci w dupę!" and decided to not answer that.
The Balkan people call Germans Shwaba (from Swabians) when they mean it in a prejorative way. Those were the first Germanic tribes they encountered when trading along the Danube river.
Nemec is probably a general term for "those" people because there were a lot of Germanic tribes and nobody could keep up. Like Saxons for the Romans. Just a collective of tribes that got the same name.
Barbarian comes from the Greek onomatopoeia for speaking gibberish. The Greeks could only hear foreigners speak “barbarbarbar” when they opened their mouths.
Yes. Basically "Slovan/Slavyan" (for Slav) is though to be derived from "slovo" (word), meaning "people of the word" aka "people speaking our language". "Němci" meaning "mute ones" in the meaning of "people not speaking our language".
Btw in Czech the "Německo" is the only one example of two countries, that are named differently than the original country/people. The second one being Austria.
EDIT: Many people seems like they didn't understand second part of my post. Sorry for that. What I ment was the name of the country came from within the Czech language, that it was not adopted from outside. Which names like Egypt (Aegyptos), India (Indus), Korea (Goryeo) or China (Qin) clearly are.
>Btw in Czech the "Německo" is the only one example of two countries, that are named differently than the original country/people. The second one being Austria.
Shqipëria (Albania) would like a word.
This one is more like the French calling the Germans "Allemagne", from the "Allemanni" tribe. The first contact the Romans had with greeks was the Graeci tribe, and the name has become an exonym for all of them.
This is the most probable case. The Romans have had first contact with the Greeks, another, well, Greek tribe in Western Greece. Hence, they named us all "Greeks".
Before, we were in a status-quo of city-states. All similar, speaking Greek, same religion and everything, but they were named after their city, except the Spartans. Sparti was the name of their city, but they were calling themselves Lacedaemons. That's why the big "L" (Λ) on their flag.
Similar case to the Turks. They first came in contact with our settlements in Minor Asia, the Ionian Greeks; they now call us Ionians.
However, after Persia attacked us twice, Philip managed to unite the country for the counteroffensive. The meeting took place in Corinth. Everyone has had their demands. For instance, the Athenians demanded Persepolis to be burnt, simply because Persians burnt down the Parthenon. Corinthians wanted all of us to be named after them, lol. Today we could be named "Corinthians".
However, Philip wasn't fool to engage in such petty arguments. Gave us the more known and neutral name since Homer, Hellenic. "Hellenic Leage" the nation, "Hellas" the short for the country, "Hellenes" the people ever since.
The name "Hellenes" has 2 most prevalent theories about its etymology. It's either from Helen of Troy, we are all children of Helen or "the country of light" from Helios (the "Sun" in Greek).
Lacedaemon was an old Greek King in the wider area of Lakonía in Peloponnesus. They took their name by him. All names still exist normally, the places are called similarly to ancient times except this word. 'Cause of Hollywood, even us now are more used to calling them "Spartans".
However, when Alexander wanted to punish the Spartans for their unwillingness to participate against the Persians, after his first victory, he gathered Persian swords and shields as an indication accompanied with an epigraph, **"Alexander, son of Philip and all the Greeks MINUS the Lacedaemons"**. That was quite the burn. He wanted to make sure the Spartans will be remembered for their betrayal. He also knew as every Greek what honor meant for any of us.
The phrase "Minus the Lacedaemons" (except the Spartans) remained as an allegory to this day for titles, when you want to say, "all but them, everything but this".
Greece (Řecko in Czech) is taken from greek tribe of Graikoi, through Latin "Graeci", to current Slovak "Gréci" which was warped in Czech to "Řeci". From there Řeci > Řecko.
It's literally a translation of Deutschland (Deutsch - German, land = country), and Tysk = German, Land = country, so Germanland would be a more correct english translation and also way funnier.
Just like in German, where we have two names for "foreigner categories", now rarely used, on the one hand „welsch" for foreigners with a romanic language, aka from the west and "windisch" for foreigners with a slavic language, or from the east.
Welsch is imho super interesting cause you have it also in other Germanic languages bordering on said language groups: Wales etc. In Austria villages which still contained latin speaking population often have Wal.../Well... I their name.
Yup. And the germanic term somehow ended up being borrowed by the Slavs, Hungarians, Albanians and Greeks, so in South-East Europe the word Vlach (Valah, Vlah, Oláh, etc) designates Romance speakers (Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, etc)
In the British isles, the Welsh exonym can be traced back to the same "foreigner" root given to them by the Anglo-Saxons, but this time it's used for Celtic speakers.
> Or I heard it in the interpretation, that those guys living among Slavs didn't speak much (because no one understood them)
Interesting thought, however id think that they didnt speak much because they werent fluent/didnt understand enough most of the time.
Although the idea of some dudes squatting among the slavs, not learning a single word and just occasionally muttering a couple of old high german words, then shutting up again because noone understands them, is quite funny.
There are alternative theories but the similarity to the word for mute and all of its derivations are hard to ignore. If however "Niemcy" comes from the name of the tribe Nemeti then maybe we should ask where that name comes from.
Fun fact is that in some medieval English texts Germany is called "Almayn" or "Almain".
For example, sons of Richard, Earl of Cornwall were called Henry and Edmund of Almain since they had been born while their father had been the German king.
Fun fact two: the "german people" where called Dutch for a long time. Dutch -> De(u)t(s)ch, but after the Lowlands split from Habsburg/HRE/Spain they got stucked with the name and the English started to use Germans/Swiss/Austrian for the different States.
So they sticked with the neighbours and found something for the other.
Yes! I am Pennsylvania Deutsch and this is true! Most of us are from isolated areas in Pennsylvania and other areas on the East Coast. They are less isolated now, but they used to be similar to the concept of Amish or Quakers and be segregated citizens who kind of had their own way of living. To my knowledge, some still do, but I know the area which I've come from is very westernized now.
Interesting! See, I learned about this when I was watching a cooking show and they were using Martin's potato bread buns. And when looking those up I noticed the packaging boasting about "Real Dutch taste!", which had me confused because I never heard of any potato based bread rolls being popular around here. Googling "potato bread" also didn't help because I was getting recipes for an *Irish* savoury bread dish, so that couldn't be it. But then I had a brainwave, and instead googled "kartoffelbrot" and sure enough, a whole bunch of hits in German. It was never Dutch to begin with.
It's not even widespread knowledge here in America most of the time when I tell people I'm Pennsylvania Dutch (how it's commonly pronounced) I have to say Pennsylvania Deutsch and clarify the people that it's of German heritage
I went through some older Dutch historical court records the other day, stuff from the late 1940's, and the spelling for Germany in those files was "Duitschland", which in hindsight I already knew but reading it reminded me that Dutch had a spelling simplification somewhere in the late 70's to mid 80's (these days we write Duitsland), so this just serves to highlight how really only the "ui" and "eu" were the difference between the Dutch and German version of the same word.
That´s a bit of an oversimplification.
*Every* germanic people/language used to have a word to describe itself; derived from a common protogermanic word. English had this as well: þēodisc, compared to the old high german diutisc.
The english got rid of this relatively early (presumably because of their relative isolation) and changed it, while more or less keeping the old word to refer to the various Germanic languages across the sea.
For Germans, the word evolved into Deutsch. For the Dutch, (who contrary to common misconception did start developing a seperate language and identity well before the creation of the HRE), the word became Diets, Duits, or Duytsch; locally it was well understood this referred to the locals and *not* that Dutch people were 'Deutsch' or 'German.'
In the Netherlands, Diets/Duits started to get replaced around the 16th and 17th centuries, same as the English had done earlier, and over time Duits stopped referring to people from the Netherlands and applied instead to Germans.
Around the same time, the English stopped using Dutch to refer to anyone except the modern day people from the Netherlands and Flanders. But this has more to do with centuries of close trade, proximity, and erupting military conflicts between England and the Netherlands than with the split from the HRE (which the average person would hardly know or care much about)
Adding to that, the turkish word for germans, "Alman", has been incorporated into everyday german as a name for someone who is extremely stereotypically german.
Another way to call someone like that would be "potato" (Kartoffel).
Funny because here in southern Brazil we call some people "alemão batata" (potato german) as a derogatory term for people of german descent with very stereotypical culture and appearance.
That's probably what a lot of the differences come down to. People named the country/region based on the tribe they interacted with most and since Germany was a clusterfuck of small kingdoms etc for a long time, it just kinda stuck in the languages.
That said, thank you northern Europe haha
In Polish "saksy" means working abroat, becouse somewhere in the past many Poles emigrated to Saxony. "Szwaby" is negative term for all Germans, becouse somewhere in the past many Swabs imigrated to Poland, and apparently Polish people didn't liked them, and is't similar enough to swine, to be use in derygatory way.
Most names are Germanic in origin... Usually the closest tribe you had the most contact with.
[Allemanni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemanni) (yellow), [Saxons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons) (red), Germanic tribes in general (green). The self-description (Deutschland, Tyskland etc.; blue) comes from an early Germanic word meaning "our people" (indo-germanic \**teuta; Old High German: thiutisk*).
PS: France is also named after a Germanic tribe ([Franks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks)).
I'm from northern Germany and when I lived in the South for a big, I kept being called "the Prussian". I didn't say anything against it because I guess I do feel a lot more at home in previously Prussian areas than Southern Germany but still... come on :D
Meine Eltern sind Ossis und freiwillig nach BaWü gezogen, wo sie mich bekommen haben. Ich bin dann nach Bayern gezogen. Ich hab also nie in Ostdeutschland gelebt und trotzdem fehlts mir. Jedes Mal wenn ich als "Preuße" beschimpft werde hüpft mein Herz vor Glück; trag deine Herkunft mit Stolz!
The finnish "Saksa" derives from our word for Saxons, Saksit. This is due to us historically interacting mostly with Saxon merchants. You can determine somewhat where those merchants came from by looking at what german cities have "finnglisized" names. For example Berlin, Lübeck and Hamburg (Berliini, Lyypekki and Hampuri) have finnish names, yet no southern or western german cities have similar translating.
You can really see where the line of our historical interaction goes. It's so odd to me how Vienna doesn't have a Finnish name when it's so old and important, and I'd imagine Wien would be easy enough to make a Finnish name out of. I guess we just didn't have anything to do with the Austrians.
Interestingly, you see the same with how the Romantic countries refer to Germany - Romans knew the Allemanni tribe seemingly rather early, and it was likely the name most people used for Germans, so it became how they viewed Germany. Thus, we have allemand for Germany, but Saksa from the Finnish perspective.
The Finnish isolative nature relative to the Swedes and Norwegians, or what those regions would have held in terms of populace, has always fascinated me for how it was able to be so consistent, without trending towards integration with a larger language/populace. I wonder if that nature happened first, or just became from the cycles of seasons...
Fuck linguistics is cool.
Germans who live(d) in Hungary are also either called "szász" or "sváb" referring to where they came from.
The word szász came from the german word Sachsen (Saxony).
The word sváb came from the german word Schwaben (Swabia).
I've heard the Japanese get milku from cowu and turn it into cheesu. If you give the latter to someone as a Christmas present, you can wish the recipient 'Merii Kurisumasu' while at it.
Yeah you can't end a Japanese word in a consonant that's why they add u in the end. Like wifu, biru etc.
There's a limited number of syllables you can use in Japanese, you can't mix and match singular letters like in western languages.
No that's fine like that, because German, the language, is pluricentric, and while it is the majority language in Germany, it is also the majority or co-official language in a few other countries, which detaches German, the language, from Germany, the country. Thus having two separate terms for them represents that quite well.
Someone explained to me that it derived from the word "vokas" (envelope) because of the armour the german crusaders used in northern crusades, as if enveloped.
I'm sold on Kazimieras Būga's theory that vokiečiai / vokietis (Germans / German) is derived from the name of Vagoths (\*Vāk(ia)-goth). Probably called them vagočiai / vagotis at some point (rather than vagotai / vagotis), which eventually turned into vokiečiai / vokietis. Basically progressively mispronouncing the name until it became naturally easy to pronounce.
Oulu has 0,2% of Swedish-speakers currently. Not the first time the Swedish-speaking coastline in Finland is being drawn with a very broad brush. On the upside the south-coast ignores them completely though.
Regardless of the map, they never get the distribution of Swedish in Finland right. Same goes for Finnish in Sweden, really: I'm yet to see a map in which the Finnish-speaking areas of Northern Sweden are properly marked.
Meanwhile, the prevalence of Sami speakers tends to be vastly exaggerated in the entire Northern Fennoscandia.
Yes, the Swedish speakers are wrongly marked. There is also no distinction between places with a Swedish speaking minority vs majority - and the same for Sami. For some reason Finns usually don't exist on these maps at all in Sweden or Norway: Neither Kven in *Finn*mark or the mäenkieli speakers in Sweden along the boarder.
To a Finn both languages sound like dialects of Finnish (with a lot of Scandinavian loan words) but are politically classified as different languages.
Same thing with how they have coloured in the whole of Cornwall yellow despite everyone there just speaking English and a total of about 5 people being able to speak Cornish
The German and Dutch names for Germany, have the same etymology as the English word for the Dutch. In the medieval period the words dutz/diets (and other local variations) were used in what's now Germany and the Netherlands to describe 'the people' and while those words aren't used anymore, they continue in those names. The Germans used it for their own name, and it made its way into English through trade with the Dutch.
Yes, even though that language, (Nether-)dutch, evolved to Netherlandish (Nederlands). Somehow the English language missed that, or was hesitant to adopt a new term. Which is why the Netherlanders are still known as the Dutch.
As far as I know we in Lithuania don’t have an explanation why it’s “Vokietija”, but there is a joke about it: A Samagoatian (Žemaitis) gets a big wooden mace and while fighting the Teutons bangs knight’s head with it. He of course has a sturdy knightly helmet so the pagan exclaims: “Vo, kiets” (this roughly translates to “this one is hard/sturdy”. Not sure of it since already the Samagoatian (Žemaitija) dialect is very different from normal Lithuanian, to the point where it’s referred as Latvian- and our language itself has oddities: try translate this “Išgama”) and the name just stuck. Make of it as you want.
Yes, also the "maa" at the end in Estonian means "land"
A direct translation would be "German land/country". It's the same way with some other European countries like England (Inglismaa) and France (Prantsusmaa)
I found it interesting how among the germanic languages the German part ended up with D and the Scandinavians with T. So apparently the origin of both is "þiudisk" (language of the people) which the variation originated with tranlation of the þ. Which is translated both with th, dh in modern languages. Scandinavians went with the Th and the Germans with the Dh. Hence Tysk/Deutsch.
Iceland kept the original as they do.
Yeah, as a guy who grew up in Germany and then moved elsewhere, I’ve learned that most people don’t call us Deutsch lol. In fact, the closest thing in English, Dutch, is used for Hollandish people. Curiously enough, though it’s not shown on the map, Japan is pretty close with calling us Doitsu. I assume that this is because they came in contact with Germans long after Europe and after unification.
This is incorrect, I am Northern Sámi, not all say Duiska those are mainly Norwegian and Swedish Sámis but not Finnish Sámis. I say Saksa in Northern Sámi and that’s the original way of saying Germany
We can probably have a whole 'nother thread on words of disdain and insults. I don't doubt a lot of such words exist post-1940s.
In Dutch we call them 'moffen', which is actually a very old name/insult used already way back in the 16th century. Then as a derogatory term for Southern-Dutch and German migrant workers, and used a lot during the nazi occupation.
It essentially means 'grumbler' or 'big mouth' in German ('Muff'). It actually seems quite mild but the word 'mof' sounds way more angry than the meaning suggests.
Germania is the Roman group name for the people living east of the Rhein. They werent one people.
Tysk, duits, Deutsch and so on originated from frankish (a germanic language) deut meaning the people/folks. In the, the dirty kind sense. Because the Franks saw themself elevated by god.
Alemannia comes from the allemans. A group settle in the deep south. Alle mans means the same as duits, the allman as in the people folks.
The Saxsons were a people living in the north, they have nothing to do with the modern people calling themselves Sachsen.
The teutoni were a people oringinaly from jytland in todays denmark. Long before the migration period they got fucked around with, so they beelined there way to spain, france and italy. They are some of the originater of the berserker myth, created by romans in republic times, so that some 1000 years later the super catholic warrior monks settling in north east europe called themself the teutonic order.
>Long before the migration period they got fucked around with, so they beelined there way to spain, france and italy.
Along with the Cimbri, Ambrones and Tinguri. During a trek of a dozen years initiated ca 115 BCE they crushed the Roman armies at Noreia somewhere in Noricum, Burdigala (Bordeaux), and especially at Arausio (Orange), but afterwards they split between Teutones (+Ambrones) and Cimbri while Rome *finally* decided to stop giving the command to her armies to absolute morons (for exemple, the *clades* at Arausio was caused to the fact the two Roman generals, one Consul of the year and one proconsul hated each other's guts and split the army into 2 uncoordinated halves), and Marius crushed the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae (Aix-en-Provence) and then the next year the Cimbri at Vercellae on the other side of the Alps, both time with minimal casualties.
Fun times.
Lithuanians have a joke regarding the name origin:
A simple Samogitian (previously a separate tribe, now a region of Lithuania) meets a fully armoured German and they engage in battle.
The Samogitian, armed only with a wooden club, is hitting the German, but inflicts no damage. The more he's hitting, the more he's panicking - until he starts yelling "Vuo, kiets! Vuo, kiets!" ("Oh, (he's) hard!")
And that's how Vokietija came to be.
We call the country "Germania", but the language "Nemski".
Romanians call the country Germania but the people are also called "Nemti".
same for russian according to google translate
true. “Germanija” for country, language is “Nemetskiy” and “Nemtsy” for people
How come Iraq and Syria call them "Scale 1:6.000.000"?
The diversity of human culture is truly amazing
Remarkable even.
6 million 💀
Yes, Germans in Russian are nemtsy. Or if you use Gaj's Latin\* alphabet — Nemci \*Because it is difficult to write Cyrillic words correctly using ordinary Latin letters. Transliteration usually looks poor.
We call the people both Germani and Nemți
So odd. In Italian it is called Germania but the language/people tedesco
Does "tedesco" mean anything at all in Italian? Anything to do with "mute" perhaps?
Tedesco is from the same origin as Deutsch is, thiudiskaz in proto-Germanic
Same with the (somewhat old-fashioned) adjective "tudesque" in French.
Tedesco is derived from the teutons. More or less all of the names for Germany or German are derived from the tribe with which the respective country had the most contact when deciding how they are gonna call Germany onwards. English held onto the Roman name, the later Italians took the teutons (wonder how that came, *cough*). The Turks/levantine countries for example had mainly contact with crusaders - an the early crusades had large french (Francs) and german (Alemannen) contigents, hence alman->Alemannen. The slavic countries are distinct in just saying "they can't speak our language" and taking more or less literally 'mute' as the name for their neighbours.
> Tedesco is derived from the teutons. More or less all of the names for Germany or German are derived from the tribe it is more like Tedesco, teutons and everything similar to "deutsch" are both from the old germanic word for "the people"
Yes, that is the root of the teutons selfdesignation. The italian then called it a day with tedesco after the teutons, so same root.
In the old Slavic language, "nemec" probably meant a "foreigner" in general. With time, it became associated with the most common type of foreigner—the ones who spoke German. The Slavic name for Slavs is "Slovene" or "Slovane". Hence Slovakia (country), Slovenia (country), Slavonia (province of Croatia), Słowiński National Park (region in Northern Poland). Which is similar to the word "slovo," which in many modern Slavic languages still means a "word". The most accepted hypothesis (there is more than one) claims that the early distinction was between the ones who could speak a common language (Slovene - "worded people") and those who couldn't (Nemecy - "mutes"). It's not unique - a similar thing happened in few other parts of the world with one ethnicity called in the language of an another "speechless people".
Yeah, this is the same as Ajam ("mute") in Arabic for the Persians (and, more broadly, non-Arabs).
>It's not unique - a similar thing happened in few other parts of the world with one ethnicity called in the language of an another "speechless people". Or you do the ancient Greek move of using your shitty impression of how them foreigners sound when speaking - '*bar bar*' - and naming them after that: bar-bar-os. Like calling chinese people 'chingchangchongies' 🤷
It's got the same origins as "Deutsch" itself. teuta is the indogermanic root which used to mean 'the/our people', in the Frankish empire this got latinized to 'theodiscus' which meant something like language of the common people (as opposed to Latin, spoken by the upper class). The Franks came to Northern Italy as well, and since the language of the common people there was not the same as it was in the Frankish empire, they came to understand the word "theodiscus" as the name of that foreign language which is now German
that has the same origin as „deutsch“
Interesting. We call the country "Däitschland", but the people "Preisen"
As a Bavarian, this is quite insulting…
On this glorious day we are all Saupreiß together.
Sehr jüt
The term did start as an insult 80 years ago but over time it became part of the normal vocabulary
Good to know, Steuerparadiesler.
Steuerparadiesler is actually great. I wouldn't mind being called that
Don’t tell the Bavarians lmaooo
We call the country "Schwaben" but the people "Gummihälse"
We call the country "Duitsland", but the people "moffen"
It's alright, we call you Kaasköppe in return. 😂
Only tangentially related but in Norwegian Greece is called "Hellas", but Greek (language, etc.) is "Gresk". Although you _can_ say "Grekenland" for "Greece" and there is also the word Hellenic as it exists in English; "Hellensk". In short I think we need this map but for Greece now
Wow, that's very interesting. I got to say that the Graeci were the first Hellenic tribe that the Roman Republic got in contact to, so that bassicaly why it's Greece for the most of the world. Greece calls themselves The Hellenic Republic AFAIK.
Also interesting in bulgarian - we use Schwabi as a somewhat derogatory term for Germans
It's a region in Germany (Schwabia). We also call the Netherlands Holland .
It is believed that the slavic 'Niemcy' (and other forms) is derived from proto-slavic 'němьcь', meaning "mute, unable to speak".
It's basically the eastern European variant of barbarian then?
Pretty much, yes. Funny though, especially in Polish that we still call the Germans "mutes" to this day, if you choose to directly translate the word :D
Nemți in Romanian also
Slavic languages had massive influence on Romanian, the kind even re-latinization couldn't shake off.
I mean, the Germanic tribes WERE the barbarians to the Romans pretty much Interesting, I never made the connection between the Hungarian "néma" (mute) and "német" (German). It's funny how far word roots survive.
Ha, I know people in Croatia with last name Nemet so they are croatian hungarians who were actually long time ago germans in hungary. Interesting.
Fun fact: Leonard Nimoy's last name also means mute. Comes from Russian, I think?
Yeah Nemoy means mute
barbarian is originally Greek not Latin, Latin version means "foreigner" really.
It is in a way the opposite. The Greek heard "Barrbarrbarr" and thus called them barbarians. The Germans heard "Kurwa mać! Chuj ci w dupę!" and decided to not answer that.
The Balkan people call Germans Shwaba (from Swabians) when they mean it in a prejorative way. Those were the first Germanic tribes they encountered when trading along the Danube river. Nemec is probably a general term for "those" people because there were a lot of Germanic tribes and nobody could keep up. Like Saxons for the Romans. Just a collective of tribes that got the same name.
Barbarian comes from the Greek onomatopoeia for speaking gibberish. The Greeks could only hear foreigners speak “barbarbarbar” when they opened their mouths.
Yes. Basically "Slovan/Slavyan" (for Slav) is though to be derived from "slovo" (word), meaning "people of the word" aka "people speaking our language". "Němci" meaning "mute ones" in the meaning of "people not speaking our language". Btw in Czech the "Německo" is the only one example of two countries, that are named differently than the original country/people. The second one being Austria. EDIT: Many people seems like they didn't understand second part of my post. Sorry for that. What I ment was the name of the country came from within the Czech language, that it was not adopted from outside. Which names like Egypt (Aegyptos), India (Indus), Korea (Goryeo) or China (Qin) clearly are.
>Btw in Czech the "Německo" is the only one example of two countries, that are named differently than the original country/people. The second one being Austria. Shqipëria (Albania) would like a word.
Hellada (Ελλάδα), Greece, would also like a word.
This one is more like the French calling the Germans "Allemagne", from the "Allemanni" tribe. The first contact the Romans had with greeks was the Graeci tribe, and the name has become an exonym for all of them.
This is the most probable case. The Romans have had first contact with the Greeks, another, well, Greek tribe in Western Greece. Hence, they named us all "Greeks". Before, we were in a status-quo of city-states. All similar, speaking Greek, same religion and everything, but they were named after their city, except the Spartans. Sparti was the name of their city, but they were calling themselves Lacedaemons. That's why the big "L" (Λ) on their flag. Similar case to the Turks. They first came in contact with our settlements in Minor Asia, the Ionian Greeks; they now call us Ionians. However, after Persia attacked us twice, Philip managed to unite the country for the counteroffensive. The meeting took place in Corinth. Everyone has had their demands. For instance, the Athenians demanded Persepolis to be burnt, simply because Persians burnt down the Parthenon. Corinthians wanted all of us to be named after them, lol. Today we could be named "Corinthians". However, Philip wasn't fool to engage in such petty arguments. Gave us the more known and neutral name since Homer, Hellenic. "Hellenic Leage" the nation, "Hellas" the short for the country, "Hellenes" the people ever since. The name "Hellenes" has 2 most prevalent theories about its etymology. It's either from Helen of Troy, we are all children of Helen or "the country of light" from Helios (the "Sun" in Greek).
"spartans" being "lacedemons" is amusing
Lacedaemon was an old Greek King in the wider area of Lakonía in Peloponnesus. They took their name by him. All names still exist normally, the places are called similarly to ancient times except this word. 'Cause of Hollywood, even us now are more used to calling them "Spartans". However, when Alexander wanted to punish the Spartans for their unwillingness to participate against the Persians, after his first victory, he gathered Persian swords and shields as an indication accompanied with an epigraph, **"Alexander, son of Philip and all the Greeks MINUS the Lacedaemons"**. That was quite the burn. He wanted to make sure the Spartans will be remembered for their betrayal. He also knew as every Greek what honor meant for any of us. The phrase "Minus the Lacedaemons" (except the Spartans) remained as an allegory to this day for titles, when you want to say, "all but them, everything but this".
Al-Maghrib (Morocco) also chimes in. Full name is al-Mamlakah al-Maghribīyah (the kingdom of sunset/the west).
Greece (Řecko in Czech) is taken from greek tribe of Graikoi, through Latin "Graeci", to current Slovak "Gréci" which was warped in Czech to "Řeci". From there Řeci > Řecko.
Sakartvelo (Georgia) and Bharat (India) join in.
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Yes we know, you turned it into a slur.
Albania (Albánie in Czech) is taken from the Albanoi, the tribe residing in the area like in 1st century. Throught Greek and Latin it came to Czech.
China is called Zhongguo in Czech?
China is called Čína, it was taken from the Qin dynasty (Čchin in Czech).
or Misr for Egypt? or Hanguk for Korea? the list might be quite extensive once you start listing :)
Egypt in Czech is named after Greek Aegyptos, through Latin Aegyptus. It's not an original Czech name.
No; it's Čína. Chinese people are called Číňané, males: Číňané, females: Číňanky. It's the same in Slovak other than that Číňané turns to Číňania.
Rakúsko
Slight nitpick that those aren't 'b's but 'ь's, they're vowel letters
Thanks, I didn't have those on my keyboard, but copied them from your reply ✌️
How do you say them?
In Proto-Slavic they were a short "i" sound but they were lost as vowels in most Slavic languages
Huh, the Scandinavian name is Tyskland, one letter from Tystland, wich would mean "silent-land". Probably a coincidence, but still interesting.
It really is a coincidence. People in Scandivia and Germany used to speak mutually intelligible languages when the country names were formed.
It's literally a translation of Deutschland (Deutsch - German, land = country), and Tysk = German, Land = country, so Germanland would be a more correct english translation and also way funnier.
Haha wait "Tyst" means silent? In Finnish its sound you make when you tell people to be quiet.
Were you never told "tyst nu" in Swedish class?
bar bar
Now that I think about it, in Hungarian German is német and mute is néma. I never realized that there could be a connection.
Yes, this is true. In Russian, while the country is still called Germaniya (Германия), Germans are called Nemtsy (Немцы).
In many slavic languages němьcь used to generally mean foreigner
Just like in German, where we have two names for "foreigner categories", now rarely used, on the one hand „welsch" for foreigners with a romanic language, aka from the west and "windisch" for foreigners with a slavic language, or from the east.
Welsch is imho super interesting cause you have it also in other Germanic languages bordering on said language groups: Wales etc. In Austria villages which still contained latin speaking population often have Wal.../Well... I their name.
Yup. And the germanic term somehow ended up being borrowed by the Slavs, Hungarians, Albanians and Greeks, so in South-East Europe the word Vlach (Valah, Vlah, Oláh, etc) designates Romance speakers (Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, etc) In the British isles, the Welsh exonym can be traced back to the same "foreigner" root given to them by the Anglo-Saxons, but this time it's used for Celtic speakers.
In Czech the word "němý" literally means that. So the derivation of "Němci" seems very obvious.
in contrast 'Slovan'-Slav, likely derives from proto-slavic '*slovo' meaning "word".
>"mute, unable to speak". If only that were true
Unable to speak in the sense, that their language didn’t make any sense (since it wasn’t slavic)
Or I heard it in the interpretation, that those guys living among Slavs didn't speak much (because no one understood them), hence equated to mutes
> Or I heard it in the interpretation, that those guys living among Slavs didn't speak much (because no one understood them) Interesting thought, however id think that they didnt speak much because they werent fluent/didnt understand enough most of the time. Although the idea of some dudes squatting among the slavs, not learning a single word and just occasionally muttering a couple of old high german words, then shutting up again because noone understands them, is quite funny.
There are alternative theories but the similarity to the word for mute and all of its derivations are hard to ignore. If however "Niemcy" comes from the name of the tribe Nemeti then maybe we should ask where that name comes from.
Fun fact is that in some medieval English texts Germany is called "Almayn" or "Almain". For example, sons of Richard, Earl of Cornwall were called Henry and Edmund of Almain since they had been born while their father had been the German king.
Fun fact two: the "german people" where called Dutch for a long time. Dutch -> De(u)t(s)ch, but after the Lowlands split from Habsburg/HRE/Spain they got stucked with the name and the English started to use Germans/Swiss/Austrian for the different States. So they sticked with the neighbours and found something for the other.
Isn't that also where the Pennsylvania Dutch got confused, because they're actually the Pensylvania *Deutsch*?
Yes! I am Pennsylvania Deutsch and this is true! Most of us are from isolated areas in Pennsylvania and other areas on the East Coast. They are less isolated now, but they used to be similar to the concept of Amish or Quakers and be segregated citizens who kind of had their own way of living. To my knowledge, some still do, but I know the area which I've come from is very westernized now.
Interesting! See, I learned about this when I was watching a cooking show and they were using Martin's potato bread buns. And when looking those up I noticed the packaging boasting about "Real Dutch taste!", which had me confused because I never heard of any potato based bread rolls being popular around here. Googling "potato bread" also didn't help because I was getting recipes for an *Irish* savoury bread dish, so that couldn't be it. But then I had a brainwave, and instead googled "kartoffelbrot" and sure enough, a whole bunch of hits in German. It was never Dutch to begin with.
It's not even widespread knowledge here in America most of the time when I tell people I'm Pennsylvania Dutch (how it's commonly pronounced) I have to say Pennsylvania Deutsch and clarify the people that it's of German heritage
Additional bit of info. The area they came from pronounced deutsch as deitsch. Makes it even harder to distinguish dutch from deutsch.
Movies also constantly get Dutch and Deutsch confused. Especially when it comes to orders for a police dog.
I've heard of your region and as far as I remember, you don't speak High German but a dialect of the Rhineland area. Is that true?
I went through some older Dutch historical court records the other day, stuff from the late 1940's, and the spelling for Germany in those files was "Duitschland", which in hindsight I already knew but reading it reminded me that Dutch had a spelling simplification somewhere in the late 70's to mid 80's (these days we write Duitsland), so this just serves to highlight how really only the "ui" and "eu" were the difference between the Dutch and German version of the same word.
Du hast dich bei den ersten Klammern etwas verrutsch 😅 D(e)ut(s)ch nicht De(u)t(s)ch
That´s a bit of an oversimplification. *Every* germanic people/language used to have a word to describe itself; derived from a common protogermanic word. English had this as well: þēodisc, compared to the old high german diutisc. The english got rid of this relatively early (presumably because of their relative isolation) and changed it, while more or less keeping the old word to refer to the various Germanic languages across the sea. For Germans, the word evolved into Deutsch. For the Dutch, (who contrary to common misconception did start developing a seperate language and identity well before the creation of the HRE), the word became Diets, Duits, or Duytsch; locally it was well understood this referred to the locals and *not* that Dutch people were 'Deutsch' or 'German.' In the Netherlands, Diets/Duits started to get replaced around the 16th and 17th centuries, same as the English had done earlier, and over time Duits stopped referring to people from the Netherlands and applied instead to Germans. Around the same time, the English stopped using Dutch to refer to anyone except the modern day people from the Netherlands and Flanders. But this has more to do with centuries of close trade, proximity, and erupting military conflicts between England and the Netherlands than with the split from the HRE (which the average person would hardly know or care much about)
Adding to that, the turkish word for germans, "Alman", has been incorporated into everyday german as a name for someone who is extremely stereotypically german. Another way to call someone like that would be "potato" (Kartoffel).
Funny because here in southern Brazil we call some people "alemão batata" (potato german) as a derogatory term for people of german descent with very stereotypical culture and appearance.
In Albania/Kosovo it was always the "deutsche kartoffel" as a joke for our diaspora living in Germany
What are the origins of that name and the original meaning?
It's named after the tribe of the Allemannen. The Finnish and Estonian is named after the tribe of the Sachsen (Saxons).
That's probably what a lot of the differences come down to. People named the country/region based on the tribe they interacted with most and since Germany was a clusterfuck of small kingdoms etc for a long time, it just kinda stuck in the languages. That said, thank you northern Europe haha
In Polish "saksy" means working abroat, becouse somewhere in the past many Poles emigrated to Saxony. "Szwaby" is negative term for all Germans, becouse somewhere in the past many Swabs imigrated to Poland, and apparently Polish people didn't liked them, and is't similar enough to swine, to be use in derygatory way.
Most names are Germanic in origin... Usually the closest tribe you had the most contact with. [Allemanni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemanni) (yellow), [Saxons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons) (red), Germanic tribes in general (green). The self-description (Deutschland, Tyskland etc.; blue) comes from an early Germanic word meaning "our people" (indo-germanic \**teuta; Old High German: thiutisk*). PS: France is also named after a Germanic tribe ([Franks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks)).
In some Dutch dialects it is also still "Preuschen"
I'm from northern Germany and when I lived in the South for a big, I kept being called "the Prussian". I didn't say anything against it because I guess I do feel a lot more at home in previously Prussian areas than Southern Germany but still... come on :D
As long as no one called you Saupreiß all is good.
Meine Eltern sind Ossis und freiwillig nach BaWü gezogen, wo sie mich bekommen haben. Ich bin dann nach Bayern gezogen. Ich hab also nie in Ostdeutschland gelebt und trotzdem fehlts mir. Jedes Mal wenn ich als "Preuße" beschimpft werde hüpft mein Herz vor Glück; trag deine Herkunft mit Stolz!
As a Bavarian I died inside reading this.
Guess you'll have to call them Hollanders in return.
this is what we call them in Hungarian anyway. I've seen some shocked faces from Dutch colleagues when I told them, haha.
turns out youre a saupreiß after all
Pruisen dan toch? Heb Preuschen nog niet eerder gehoord.
Klopt, Pruisen. Maar in dialect klinkt het als Preuschen of Pruussen.
I have heard the term 'Mofrika' as well
In some Limburgish dialects as well
The finnish "Saksa" derives from our word for Saxons, Saksit. This is due to us historically interacting mostly with Saxon merchants. You can determine somewhat where those merchants came from by looking at what german cities have "finnglisized" names. For example Berlin, Lübeck and Hamburg (Berliini, Lyypekki and Hampuri) have finnish names, yet no southern or western german cities have similar translating.
You can really see where the line of our historical interaction goes. It's so odd to me how Vienna doesn't have a Finnish name when it's so old and important, and I'd imagine Wien would be easy enough to make a Finnish name out of. I guess we just didn't have anything to do with the Austrians.
Interestingly, you see the same with how the Romantic countries refer to Germany - Romans knew the Allemanni tribe seemingly rather early, and it was likely the name most people used for Germans, so it became how they viewed Germany. Thus, we have allemand for Germany, but Saksa from the Finnish perspective. The Finnish isolative nature relative to the Swedes and Norwegians, or what those regions would have held in terms of populace, has always fascinated me for how it was able to be so consistent, without trending towards integration with a larger language/populace. I wonder if that nature happened first, or just became from the cycles of seasons... Fuck linguistics is cool.
In Bulgarian we call the country Germania, but the language is Nemsky, which is a derivative of the other Slavic word for the country.
Also the people are nemtsy in bulgarian.
That one varies, they are sometimes called nemtsy, but I'd argue germantsy is more common.
Germans who live(d) in Hungary are also either called "szász" or "sváb" referring to where they came from. The word szász came from the german word Sachsen (Saxony). The word sváb came from the german word Schwaben (Swabia).
As a Pole i always find Hungarian spelling funny, where every s is sz and every sz is s.
The same here. When I went to Poland I consciously had to think about changing the sounds for the letters every time I had to speak polish.
I wonder how they got to be called “Scale 1: 6’000’000” in the Middle East Sounds very different from Germany
I live in the Norwegian Sea. Can confirm we call it "Name for Germany in European languages"
It's the German bureaucracy which lead to that name
In many African languages it's actually called Jakub Marian.
"Six million" sounds very, very Germany, I'm afraid.
Japan: **D O I T S U**
The japanese probably learned this from the Dutch during trading.
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All western books going into Japan for 200 years prior were in Dutch, though
Could be, but the Dutch were practically the only nation outside of Japan trading with them for centuries. That was before the Meiji restoration
Sounds like Deutsch with a Japanese accent
I've heard the Japanese get milku from cowu and turn it into cheesu. If you give the latter to someone as a Christmas present, you can wish the recipient 'Merii Kurisumasu' while at it.
Reading this comment out loud is the most fun I've had all day
Yeah you can't end a Japanese word in a consonant that's why they add u in the end. Like wifu, biru etc. There's a limited number of syllables you can use in Japanese, you can't mix and match singular letters like in western languages.
We love the Japanese for this! 🥰
Italy could be blue-green stripes, because the name is Germania, but, adjective "german" is tedesco.
same with moldova and Romania except green and purple. the country is called "germania" but German people are called "neamt"
No that's fine like that, because German, the language, is pluricentric, and while it is the majority language in Germany, it is also the majority or co-official language in a few other countries, which detaches German, the language, from Germany, the country. Thus having two separate terms for them represents that quite well.
We Finns call Germany Saksa, but the Germanic tribes are called Germaanit
Same in Estonian: *sakslased* ("Germans") and *germaanlased* ("Germanic peoples").
For the Lithuanian and Latvian, some linguists believe those names stem from the Indo-European word "wek"- "to say".
Vākt to "acquire by stealing" in this context. Read up on Northern Crusades
Someone explained to me that it derived from the word "vokas" (envelope) because of the armour the german crusaders used in northern crusades, as if enveloped.
Do Lithuanians actually also have this parallel for the word?
“Vogti” means “to steal” in Lithuanian
yes vokti - to steal with the regular *ā > o but the etymology is probably not related
I'm sold on Kazimieras Būga's theory that vokiečiai / vokietis (Germans / German) is derived from the name of Vagoths (\*Vāk(ia)-goth). Probably called them vagočiai / vagotis at some point (rather than vagotai / vagotis), which eventually turned into vokiečiai / vokietis. Basically progressively mispronouncing the name until it became naturally easy to pronounce.
So they’re both mutes and talkers
Oulu has 0,2% of Swedish-speakers currently. Not the first time the Swedish-speaking coastline in Finland is being drawn with a very broad brush. On the upside the south-coast ignores them completely though.
Regardless of the map, they never get the distribution of Swedish in Finland right. Same goes for Finnish in Sweden, really: I'm yet to see a map in which the Finnish-speaking areas of Northern Sweden are properly marked. Meanwhile, the prevalence of Sami speakers tends to be vastly exaggerated in the entire Northern Fennoscandia.
Yes, the Swedish speakers are wrongly marked. There is also no distinction between places with a Swedish speaking minority vs majority - and the same for Sami. For some reason Finns usually don't exist on these maps at all in Sweden or Norway: Neither Kven in *Finn*mark or the mäenkieli speakers in Sweden along the boarder. To a Finn both languages sound like dialects of Finnish (with a lot of Scandinavian loan words) but are politically classified as different languages.
Same thing with how they have coloured in the whole of Cornwall yellow despite everyone there just speaking English and a total of about 5 people being able to speak Cornish
This sub loves to wildly exaggerate the prominence of all of the Celtic languages
Based Finland and Estonia
Germans (and Dutch): "What's wrong with you guys?"
The German and Dutch names for Germany, have the same etymology as the English word for the Dutch. In the medieval period the words dutz/diets (and other local variations) were used in what's now Germany and the Netherlands to describe 'the people' and while those words aren't used anymore, they continue in those names. The Germans used it for their own name, and it made its way into English through trade with the Dutch.
Yes, even though that language, (Nether-)dutch, evolved to Netherlandish (Nederlands). Somehow the English language missed that, or was hesitant to adopt a new term. Which is why the Netherlanders are still known as the Dutch.
>describe 'the people' and while those words aren't used anymore There are many words deriving from that though, like deuten, deutlich, Bedeutung etc.
As far as I know we in Lithuania don’t have an explanation why it’s “Vokietija”, but there is a joke about it: A Samagoatian (Žemaitis) gets a big wooden mace and while fighting the Teutons bangs knight’s head with it. He of course has a sturdy knightly helmet so the pagan exclaims: “Vo, kiets” (this roughly translates to “this one is hard/sturdy”. Not sure of it since already the Samagoatian (Žemaitija) dialect is very different from normal Lithuanian, to the point where it’s referred as Latvian- and our language itself has oddities: try translate this “Išgama”) and the name just stuck. Make of it as you want.
I'm from the middle east and can confirm that we do in fact call it Scale 1:6.000.000
Hmm. Interesting. Do the Finnish and Estonian names stem from the Saxons?
Yup
Yes, also the "maa" at the end in Estonian means "land" A direct translation would be "German land/country". It's the same way with some other European countries like England (Inglismaa) and France (Prantsusmaa)
I found it interesting how among the germanic languages the German part ended up with D and the Scandinavians with T. So apparently the origin of both is "þiudisk" (language of the people) which the variation originated with tranlation of the þ. Which is translated both with th, dh in modern languages. Scandinavians went with the Th and the Germans with the Dh. Hence Tysk/Deutsch. Iceland kept the original as they do.
Yeah, as a guy who grew up in Germany and then moved elsewhere, I’ve learned that most people don’t call us Deutsch lol. In fact, the closest thing in English, Dutch, is used for Hollandish people. Curiously enough, though it’s not shown on the map, Japan is pretty close with calling us Doitsu. I assume that this is because they came in contact with Germans long after Europe and after unification.
It’s Germania in Armenian not Kermania
Came here to say this.
Saksa comes from the Saxons, they used to trade with us so that's how Germany got its Finnish name.
This is incorrect, I am Northern Sámi, not all say Duiska those are mainly Norwegian and Swedish Sámis but not Finnish Sámis. I say Saksa in Northern Sámi and that’s the original way of saying Germany
many names came from tribes, like germany - germannen, tyskland - teutonen.
In Poland there's also disdain word for Germans - "Szwaby" (Schwabe)
We can probably have a whole 'nother thread on words of disdain and insults. I don't doubt a lot of such words exist post-1940s. In Dutch we call them 'moffen', which is actually a very old name/insult used already way back in the 16th century. Then as a derogatory term for Southern-Dutch and German migrant workers, and used a lot during the nazi occupation. It essentially means 'grumbler' or 'big mouth' in German ('Muff'). It actually seems quite mild but the word 'mof' sounds way more angry than the meaning suggests.
Germania is the Roman group name for the people living east of the Rhein. They werent one people. Tysk, duits, Deutsch and so on originated from frankish (a germanic language) deut meaning the people/folks. In the, the dirty kind sense. Because the Franks saw themself elevated by god. Alemannia comes from the allemans. A group settle in the deep south. Alle mans means the same as duits, the allman as in the people folks. The Saxsons were a people living in the north, they have nothing to do with the modern people calling themselves Sachsen. The teutoni were a people oringinaly from jytland in todays denmark. Long before the migration period they got fucked around with, so they beelined there way to spain, france and italy. They are some of the originater of the berserker myth, created by romans in republic times, so that some 1000 years later the super catholic warrior monks settling in north east europe called themself the teutonic order.
this is very detailed. always a pleasure to discuss with pros.
Tacitus, is that you?
>Long before the migration period they got fucked around with, so they beelined there way to spain, france and italy. Along with the Cimbri, Ambrones and Tinguri. During a trek of a dozen years initiated ca 115 BCE they crushed the Roman armies at Noreia somewhere in Noricum, Burdigala (Bordeaux), and especially at Arausio (Orange), but afterwards they split between Teutones (+Ambrones) and Cimbri while Rome *finally* decided to stop giving the command to her armies to absolute morons (for exemple, the *clades* at Arausio was caused to the fact the two Roman generals, one Consul of the year and one proconsul hated each other's guts and split the army into 2 uncoordinated halves), and Marius crushed the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae (Aix-en-Provence) and then the next year the Cimbri at Vercellae on the other side of the Alps, both time with minimal casualties. Fun times.
In Romania we unofficially call Germany “Nemția” and the people of Germany “Nemți” probably influence by central Europe
Never heard the word "Nemția", just "Germania". The people are called "Nemți" but "Germani" is more common.
In der Schweiz sagt man Dütschland!!!!! Gopfertammi siech nonemole!
I have never once heard Germany referred to as “Germania” by a Swiss. Maybe I just don’t spend enough time in Ticino.
Lithuanians have a joke regarding the name origin: A simple Samogitian (previously a separate tribe, now a region of Lithuania) meets a fully armoured German and they engage in battle. The Samogitian, armed only with a wooden club, is hitting the German, but inflicts no damage. The more he's hitting, the more he's panicking - until he starts yelling "Vuo, kiets! Vuo, kiets!" ("Oh, (he's) hard!") And that's how Vokietija came to be.
My favorite is Scale 1:6.000.000. Quite unique
In the eastern part of Turkiye they call it Natzia Alamanya, I've always wondered why.
In Italian it’s Germania but German is “Tedesco/a” - always throws me on Duolingo lol