Why do we say DEUTSCHLAND instead of GERMANY?
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- čas přidán 3. 08. 2024
- What did you always want to ask a German? In this mini-series, I'll be answering your questions! One per video :) Check out all previous videos here ▸ • #askagerman
This time: Why do we call Germany Deutschland? And why does Germany have so many different names in different languages?
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0:00 Intro
3:53 Why we call Germany Deutschland
6:51 Different origins: Diutisk
9:08 Germani
10:03 Alemanni
11:13 Saxons
11:34 Niemc
12:26 Summary
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ABOUT ME: Hallo, Servus, and welcome to my channel! My name is Felicia (Feli), I'm 27, and I'm a German living in the USA! I was born and raised in Munich, Germany but have been living in Cincinnati, Ohio off and on since 2016. I first came here for an exchange semester during my undergrad at LMU Munich, then I returned for an internship, and then I got my master's degree in Cincinnati. I was lucky enough to win the Green Card lottery and have been a permanent resident since 2019! In my videos, I talk about cultural differences between America and Germany, things I like and dislike about living here, and other experiences that I have made during my time in the States. Let me know what YOU would like to hear about in the comments below. DANKE :)
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I hope you guys liked this video! As always, please feel free to correct me in the comments if I made a mistake or add additional information! 😊 If you'd like to decide which questions I answer next, check out my CZcams community tab to vote: czcams.com/users/FelifromGermanycommunity
Happy Thanksgiving, Feli from Germany.
Can you help me learn two languages please
Can you help me learn two languages please
Can you help me learn two languages please
I really admire your fortitude in answering these dumb questions posed by unbelievably uneducated, ignorant, superficial and people with utter lack of curiosity. Geh nach Hause liebe Feli bevor die Kinder und Familie kommen…
"Germanus" is Latin for "neighbor." So since the Goths were at the Romans' borders, they referred to the area as "Germania,:" the "neighboring land."
Albeit, rowdy neighbors. 😂
So in conclution...
there where more then 1 Germania, since many other "countrys/land" at those borders in this context *any* country at the borders where germania in this context.
So Germany or Germania was not a "country name" but an *site-specific* term.
Conclution.2:
Germany is invalid and "Deutschland" the only valid name to this specific country.
@Francisco Aldana The best point is, English as such isn't 1 language by roots but a *Multi-Culti* mixeria of Latin, France and Germanic egg *Deutsch* ;) which make most % of the roots and lower % of some many other ones.
In conclution, without any other languages, English as such, would never exist ;)
And with that "Germany" as word, never exist.
@@aw3s0me12 But that's the case for many of the 7000 languages in the world. No language would exist without others, lanugages always develope over time. Spanisch wouldn't exist without Latin, German wouldn't exist without Gothic etc.
@Francisco Aldana That's interesting, thanks. :D
as a native Polish speaker, you nailed the Polish pronunciation of Niemcy ;) congrats! :D
In Croatia Nijemci (pl. and sing. is nijem) means Voiceless or Mute, like people who can't speak. I use that word a lot but I never new the origin of it. You learn new things all the time🙂
@@amatije the exact similarity in polish
Polish spelling looks scary but it's quite easy. Pronunciation can be tricky though. Source: I'm learning Polish
@@tomrogue13 we have a saying here. The more languages you speak, the more you are worth!
@@amatije i like it. Though i only speak English as of now
I'm glad she raised the "dumb question" issue, because it's always astounding to me when people don't understand that a country names itself
Anyone can name anything. This is why most people refer to the UK as England despite UK citizens never doing this.
So true. It's like the astounding situation where people think the word Slav comes from the word slave. The word Slav comes from the word Slawic which means to worship. These tribes in East Europe essentially called themselves the "Worshippers". The Orthodox Church has a name for its adherents "Prawo Slawny" - which means "True Worshipper".
@@Vonwra Last time I checked slav comes from the word for speech making slavs those who speak the common speech unlike the mute germanic people.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Becouse its easyer to say England then Uk . Its not that peopl dont know its just easyer and peopl know what you mean . Plus lets be realy the only thing that matters in the UK is England anyways .
@@xythiera7255 If you sayed Jūkēij to my people they wouldnt have the slightest clue as to what you where saying if you sayed Anglija they would understand.
The official name is Anglijas, Velsas, Skotijas un Ziemeļīrijas Apvienotā Karaliste, but literally no one ever sayes that we refer to it as Anglija. The only alternetive is Lielbritānija aka Grate Britain.
"Niemcy" is 100% the same in Russian language (just exactly as you said in the video). But it works if you speak about German people. Country is "Germania"
And yes, you are correct, most studies shows that Slavs came from 'slovo' = means 'word', i.e. the people who speak our words. Niemcy = 'muted' or 'silent' = who can not speak our words. It appeared in Slvac language before Slavs separated into different brachnes and nations, so it sounds the same in every present Slavic language.
It's quite interesting that in one language (in this case Russian) has totally different words for a country and their language (in this case German-y), if they have a direct relationship in moste other languages. I wonder if there are other such cases in Russian or even other languages.
@@samuelsilvermoos9082 In english: In Holland / the Netherlands, the language is Dutch.. same thing, isn't it? (and to be smartass: in America they speak English..... ;-))
@@TVWJ I totally agree that Countrys like the United States of America, the Netherlands Switzerland, Austria or most carribian islands have different name than language, but there's one huge difference: all this countrys name themselves also different to their spoken language, unlike to the example with Deutsch-land, German-y Allemagne/allemand and so on
@@samuelsilvermoos9082 In Dutch, the dutch language is called "Nederlands" and the people "Nederlanders" after the country "Nederland". Therefore, the dutch have not named their country different from their language (or the other way around). It is only in English, that the name for the people and language differs from the name of the country. So this is actually completely analogous to the Russian names for Germany/German. It is only that the English speakers now are on the other side...
@@TVWJ I didn't know that the Netherlands call their language "Nederlands". Thanks learnd something new.👍
I find this type of discussion to be fascinating. Thank you. 😊 My grandmother came to the USA from Nederland (Netherlands, Holland) not long after WW1, when she was 16 years old.
All her life here in the USA, she always got upset when someone called her Dutch, "I am Nederlander, not German!" This is the same American confusion over the "Pennsylvania Dutch," who are actually Deutsch.
Holland is only a part of the Netherlands - a mistake that people often make. And South Holland is only a few miles from my house in England!
My sympathies to your Nederlandse oma.
ik begrijp haar frustratie
@@cheaplife2320 ik begrijp het ook, makker.
The Dutch language is not far from the German language and also English is not far from German. At the isle of England there were many celtic languages before English arrived. English was spoken there just since the 6th century. The time before it was a Saxonian dialect which was spoken in the north part of Germania. But it has sounded very different from the British English and also different from the English in the USA:
Actually I'm from Poland and I admire your really good pronunciation of "Niemcy", bravo! :)
This just made my day 💪
@@FelifromGermanyI liked your Swedish/Nordic pronunciation of "Tyskland" as well 😉👍
G-R-E-A-T video 👏👏
I hope you are from Poland, also von hinter einer Linie von Krakau über Tschenstochau nach Warschau. Alles andere ist ja wohl nur gestohlenes Deutschland !
Just to make this even more complex, in Arabic we call Austria "Namsa" which is similar to Niemcy that is being used to refer to Germany from Polish people 😂
Kara ben Nemsi says thanks (figure from Karl May's books)
As italian, I can say you pronounced italian words very good; actually I've always thought : "why we use the word "Germania" to talk about the country and "tedesco" to talk about nationality.
Vielen dank😍😍🙏🙏❤❤ Grüße aus Italien👋👋
With regard to 'Niemc', the Germanic languages had a similar term for non-Germanic speakers: Walhaz. Hence: Wallonia (Belgium), Wales (Britain), Wallis (Switzerland), Wallachia (Romania) etc.
In Switzerland we also still use the word “Welsch” to refer to the frenchspeaking part of our country.
@@nirutivan9811 And do you Swiss still call all Germans "Schwaben"? :-)
@@choedzin Yeah, you can still hear it. Though it’s not that common anymore and it’s often used with a bit a negative connotation.
Oh I didn't know that, that clears up a lot of unanswered questions for me though, so thanks
In Welsh it's cymru
I find it interesting that the Italian word for Munich is Monaco. Actually, it is Monaco di Baviera (The Monaco of Bavaria) to differentiate it from the other Monaco (the wealthy city state on the French Riviera), which is called il principato di Monaco (or just Monaco for short).
That is not surprising at all. Both names, Munich/München and Monaco, go back to places with a significance for monks and their name in the repective language.
hearing that, makes me want to know if there are other monacos around,, but by other languages.
Indeed.
Also we have "Mönchengladbach" formerly known as Munchengladbach, but made confusion before "Postleitzahlen"/zip codes where a thing.
@@sMASHsound I'n not sure about Monacos, but there are two Freiburgs, one in Germany (Freiburg im Breisgau) and one in Switzerland (also called Fribourg), and two Frankfurts - both in Germany (F. am Main and F. an der Oder).
"Why do we say DEUTSCHLAND instead of GERMANY?" The question should be why Americans say GERMANY instead of DEUTSCHLAND.
I think it is impossible to watch one of Feli's video without smiling.
Her personality always comes of so warm and friendly.
I know, I always find this!
Here videos are lots of fun too.
she talks to much
This is very interesting, Feli. A friend told me that he had Pennsylvania Dutch relatives, who were Dutch (i.e., from Holland). He's a smart person, an engineer, so at first I thought he was correct that his relatives were from Holland. I mentioned that in the genealogical world, the Pennsylvania Dutch were Germans, and that the word Deutch was mis-heard and mis-understood by English speakers as Dutch. It turned out that his Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors were indeed originally from Germany. So, I guess it's not as stupid a question as I originally thought.
Great presentation. Thanks for sharing.
Retta, you have yourself opened up another can of worms. Dutch is spoken throughout the Netherlands (and by a small proportion of the Belgians), not merely in the two provinces named Holland.
@@phoebus007 Thanks for clarifying.
@@rettawhinnery This grandson of a Gelderlander thanks you, too.
Hallo Retta, I'm an older native German born and raised close to the Durch border. As Feli did mentioned she only scratched the surface here and if it comes to the Dutch the history is a bit more complex. In fact the region we know today as the Netherlands was part of the German Empire until 1648. Between 1618 and 1648 Europe fought a war this war was nearly exclusiv fought on German soil and is widly know as the 30 years war. At first sight the war was about religion (protestant vs. catholic) but in reality it was all about politics and power. Back in the days nations where all about family business. And the most powerfull family in the Holy Roman Empire was the Habsburg family. The Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire was for the most part a man from this family. On top of that a man of the Habsburg family have had married a princess in Spain. From a french perspective this was a dangerous situation (Spain in the west and The holly Roman Empire in the east both where ruled by a man from the Habsburg family) so the french decided to support anyone who could weeken the power of the Habsburg family.
Long story short after 30 years of war the french insisted that the Netherlands become a Kingdom of their own and leave the holly Roman Empire with the peace treaty of 1648. As Feli mentioned around this time the English language did start to seperate the regions by using the word Germany for the area of the holly Roman Empire and the word dutch exclusiv for the Netherlands.
@@lotharschepers2240 How interesting. Thanks for adding this information.
This is such an interesting video! As a Slovene linguistic enthusiast I am, of course, aware of all the facts, quoted in the video, but I am surprised, how well have you explained all this, especially the origin of the name Nemci/Nemčija. You made it without a single mistake! As a teacher of Slovene I can tell, that not a lot of people here in Slovenia knows, why your nation is called Nemci, but ours is called Slovenci. Thank you again for your great video!
I am in love with Slovenia. It has everything. I am also a keen learner of Slavonic languages. I love it when Polish people say 'Polish is the hardest language' and I always say 'You've clearly never tried to learn Slovene'. 😂
Hello Vesna, nice to meet you!
Pozdravljena Vesna. A ni fora v tem da se Nemci med sabo niso dobro razumeli zaradi spodnje in zgornje nemscine, Slovani pa so v tistem casu se razumeli? Isto pleme ki se med seboj ne razume, iz nasega vidika isti jezik. Nekako tako imam v spominu.
I love the deep dive showing the historic and cultural origins of the variant names of your homeland, Feli. The Japanese pronunciation is extremely close to the Deutsch pronunciation, with the "sch" at the end basically being cut down to just the "s" so it would almost sound like "deuts", although that's for the country instead of the spoken language, with reference to the people adding "jin (人)" and the language adding "go (語)" at the end.
Great post. Thank you for using the term “high” German. I grew up (Iowa) around my grandmother and 10 aunts and uncles plus my mom who all spoke German. I, unfortunately never learned German. My mom sometimes mentioned that my grandmother could speak high and low German but she could only speak low German. It was nice to hear that phrase again, I haven’t heard it for over 50 years.
Your Danish accent when pronouncing "Tyskland" was really good!
Thank you!
@@FelifromGermany Also interesting is going back and comparing old Norse with old English and old Germanic. They are very similar.
@@holmbjerg when it comes to languages and a deeper comparison and origin of languages, I can recommend the channel langfocus. (I think, It's a very different channel with different topics, so I hope, I am "allowed" to recommend this channel here. Feli and langfocus go in different directions, so you need both anyway ;-)
He goes really deep into the languages, but of course it is never enough to learn one, but he shows similarities, differences and origins of the different languages and regions of language "families"...
Our Danish marriage certificate from states my wifey is Tyskland as well! It always drew curious questions when We had to produce it for some official reason!
I absolutely LOVE that you delve into these subjects…….🙌🏻❤️🙌🏻
Amazingly well researched and explained, thank you!
Du machst dir wirklich eine Menge Arbeit, um solche ... sagen wir "erstaunliche" Fragen zu beantworten 😉
Of course it’s not strange that country and city names differ in different languages. But I was curious why Germany seemed to have a wider range of variations than other countries, so I appreciate the history & etymology lesson. As to why this might be a more common query among Americans; I’d suppose that American city and state names post-colonization are relatively new compared to most parts of the world, and other languages tend to pronounce them very similar to the American pronunciation, or as a direct translation such as Nuevo York or Etats Unis and Estados Unidos. Now if the Netherlands continued to call New York “New Amsterdam,” that could change things up.
Yes, the age of the cities tend to let them have different names in different languages - For Cologne (Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium) it was mentioned in another comment - and over 2000 Years the name changed in German to Köln but other countries still uses a name that the city had when first mentioned in their language. Munich was first mentioned in 1158 as "forum apud Munichen" but the city (or the village at this time) is older and the former name is not known. This Munichen then was adopted by other languages (Munich) and changed in German to München.
Other Cities in Germany with different names are
The roman founded "Augusta Treverorum" (French:Trèves, German: Trier)
The roman founded "Aquæ Granni" (French and traditional english: Aix-la-Chapelle, Dutch: Aken, German: Aachen)
The roman founded "Castra Regina" (French:Ratisbonne, German:Regensburg)
Other not so important german cities of same age mostly got their "foreign" name when the cities was recognized later.
For Example the roman founded "vicus bonnensis" (a small military camp) changed its name in Germany to Bonn. But was mostly so unimportant that other languages recognized this city first after their current german name was established.
@@dirkspatz3692 do you go to Frankfurt to get a hot dog and Hamburg to get a hamburger, and go to Cologne to get some after shave?
It's funny that you mention that! The New Amsterdam vs. New York friction also led to the term "Yankees" for the British colonists, who used the derogatory name "John Cheese" for the Dutch of the area, and the Dutch used the same name for the Brits, and I'll probably butcher the spelling, "Jan Quis."
@@dirkspatz3692 Bonn remained so "small" that despite becoming capital it inspired the book title "Eine kleine Stadt in Deutschland" (A Small Town in Germany) by John Le Carré (who worked a few years at the British embassy there). That city names are assimilated in foreign languages usally depends on different factors, age is only one of them, I think. E.g. the important Italian cities mostly have "germanized" names because of the close connection as a lot of Italy was part of the Holy Roman Empire and it was comparably close (unlike Spain).
@@bartolo498 Während der guten alten Zeiten der DDR, man sagte, das beste von Bonn, sei der Zug nach München!
Nicely done! A very enjoyable video.
So fascinating! I love hearing all of the back history! Thanks Feli 🤗💖
Very interesting and, as always, well-researched. When you mentioned "Teutschland" about halfway into your video, I immediately thought of "teutonic/teutonisch". It seems this word is derived from "teuta", a Proto-Indo-European root that means "tribe" or "community" (in English). Teuton/Teutone was the name of the tribe in the northeast of modern-day Germany during the Roman era that defeated the Gauls. The pronunciation in German and meaning are very similar to "Deutsch".
Fun fact: The "Teutonic Order" in german is just called "Deutscher Orden"
Right on the money!
“Teutón” in Spanish is a formal way to refer to something German, instead of the usual “alemán”.
Honestly I always assumed exactly that.
Coherent with Alemania (allemanen), Germany (Germanen), saksa (Sachsen)
Teutones, or Teutonen were a tribe in the north of Germany and Jutland (Denmark). Due to overpopulation, or bad harvest (climate change, high floods, etc.) they migrate together with the Kimbern and other people towards Gallica, Spain and northern Italy (about 100 bc). There they had some battles with the Romans. First they won, but in the end they lost. Since it was the first contact the Romans had with Germanic Tribes they still call Germans, Tedesci (Teutons).
Well done Feli! I really enjoy the history and background of words and phrases. Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving. While it’s decidedly an American holiday. The feeling of gratitude, gathering of family and good friends combined with yummy food and no obligatory gifts, makes it one of my favorite holidays.
~Cheers!
Fantastic video, very informative!!
Great video! Thank you for clarifying!
11:46 in Russian we call Germany - Германия (Germaniya) but Germans - Немцы (Nemtsy)
🤯🤯🤯
Similar in Italian. Germany is Germania, but German is tedesco, lol.
That's kind of interesting. :)
I remember my Russian classes in school "немецкий язык" and "русский язык" :-)
This is because originally Russian used name similar to other Slavic language. It only changed when tsar Piotr the Great decided to make Russia more Western and borrowed a lot of words into Russian it changed - he also changed the names of months from traditionally descriptive Slavic ones.
Thanks for deep diving into this, Feli! I am sharing it with my son who is interested in languages (all forms old and new), origins and uses the word "overmorrow" for the day after tomorrow!
You are so patient. Thanks for that.
Another presentation, that besides being informative on a very specific subject that we don't know we care about learning till we start watching the video, is giving great vibes of positive energy!
We need more of that in our lives no matter what we 're talking about. Thank you!
Jesus, I wonder, why do people in Japan speak Japanese or wtf, in Croatia we speak Croatian 🤔
Total unglaublich 🤣
Feli, you have so much patience.
Some people are acting like English is the only language in the world 🤦
Don't be too hard on the People. If the Pandemic showed us anything, then it's that fact that Ignorance is a globalized Problem that is not exclusive to one Country or Region...
@@derauditor5748 I never said that ignorance is tied to one region or one place. I was talking in general. Considering that English is my 3rd language, maybe I didn't express myself well.
And it all comes back to education once more 🙃
Meh, it's all Greek to me. 😉
No, the thing about English is that it basically assimilates words wholesale from other languages. So, it's actually really weird to have a separate name for something in English rather than simply stealing the original and possibly transliterating it to be more pronounceable.
I'm from south east of Dutch speaking Belgium. The older generation in my region used to call the Germans 'Preus'. They used 'Duutsch' to refer to themselves (people who speak 'Plat' living in our region).
The German language was called 'Deutsch' while our own language (the group dialects from Dutch, now called Limburgs) was called 'Plat Duutsch' or simply 'Plat'.
Between the two world wars the name 'Duutsch' got a negative connotation after a Dutch/Belgian Nazi movement hijacked the name and wanted to create a 'Dietsland' inhabited by the 'Diets' people only (basically a Benelux with only Dutch speaking people). Since then the people no longer use Duutsch. We still use Plat for the dialect but no longer have a name to refer to ourselves.
Because Duutsch is no longer used, the name 'Duits' is slowly replacing 'Preus'.
I believe 'Preus' must refer to Pruissen (dutch)? Preußen in German and Prussia in English, which historically was a prominent German state.
@@aron-new9391 You are right about Preußen. But it is even more complicated, because the name itself comes from the land conquered during Baltic Crusade in 13 century. For their newly created Order state they took the name of the conquered land which was after local population - Prussians (Bruzi how they reffered to themselves). Prussians or as it became later used to call Old Prussians or Bruzi were people linguistically and culturally related to modern latvians and Lithuanians.
Excellent video! Keep up the good work! Fantastica explicacion, muchas gracias!
Absolutely loved this video, thank you!🥰
I never thought of Německo (or other Slavic versions of Germany) being derived from němý/mute, even though when you mentioned it, it is really obvious. Thanks for the history lesson!
This even ties into Star Trek. Leonard Nimoy was descended from Russian Jews and one of his ancestors must have been deaf/mute because that's what Nimoy means. At least that's what I heard in a documentary once.
This video taught me that the Hungarian word for mute (néma) is a loanword from slavic languages
@@hughmungus1767 And that 'shem' hand salute that Mr. Nimoy developed for Trek was taken directly from what the rabbi would do during the High Holy Days blessing the congregation.
niemy Niemiec ;p
Nice video! :)
As somewhat of a "language nerd" myself (even though I didn't study it academically, nor do I speak any languages other than English and German fluently) this video was very informative and I am really amazed how well you showcased the many different languages and even language branches. :)
The only mistake I came across (if it is one at all since the reference you gave here might just have been allocated to the first two languages mentioned) was when you listed some language as "Romance" at 09:53, because of these only Italian and Romanian are actual Romance languages. Bulgarian is a Slavic (more precisely South Slavic) language, both Albanian and Armenian are an isolated language branch within the Indoeuropean languages respectively not closely related to any other language (much like how Greek is isolated in the same way) and Georgian is a Kartvelian language, which is considered to be even more isolated since it is NOT part of the bigger Indoeurpean group nor any other "major language group".
But in the end, that's just a very minor thing I simply wanted to point out for those who might be interested. :)
Looking forward for your next video. :)
Thanks so much for your research and explanation, Feli!
Oh Feli, you are so patient. Thank you for sharing this
9:53 of those, only Italian and Romanian are Romance languages! Bulgarian is a Slavic language, Albanian is its own branch within the Indo-European languages as is Armenian, and Georgian belongs to the Kartvelian language family
Yep I think she was going to say some Romances languages such as Italian and Romanian, and also some Slavic languages etc.
English is the exception because while its a Germanic language, its wearing a very heavy Romance dress and many terms are borrowed from the Vulgar Latin and medieval French and that how Germany was labeled in English.
Armenian is Indo-European too. Georgian is the only one in the Kartvelian language family.
@@hannahwalmer1124 Oh, sorry, forgot a comma there. That's what I actually meant. Corrected it.
Did she say it other way?
You were fine with your pronunciation of Suomi. Funnily enough we actually have two names for Finland. Finland is officially a bilingual country as some communities have Swedish as their first language and Swedish for Finland is .... Finland. So it's Suomi/Finland.
You forgot to mention that the finnish name for swedes is ruosi = russians
@@hansmeier5536 Meaning people who row.
@@hansmeier5536 The Finns do not really call us Russians, although there is probably a connection.
Theory 1: Ruotsi stems from the old name of the coastal strip north of Stockholm - "Roden" (“modern” - 15th century and forward "Roslagen"). As already pointed out, this relates to “the ones who row”. The people from Roden were called “Ros” or “Rus” by the Finns. To this day they are called “Rospiggar” in Swedish, where “piggar” refers to builders/bauern->byggare/bönder->piggar.
Theory 2: The Finns didn’t fully appreciate their seafaring neighbours. They did, after all, have a history of grabbing too many souvenirs (including some people) when visiting. They were thus referred to as “rothr” (robbers).
Theory 3: The people around Pontus Euxinus/the Black sea found the red beards of the Vikings exotic and called them “rhos” (red).
Anyway the Rus funded the city state of Kiev and along with other Norse settlements, like Novgorod, later gave name to Russia.
Klappa met hjarta Klaga och hor
Gonna go listen to Impaled Nazarene now.
Das hast du ganz toll erklärt, liebe Feli!
This was a great clip. Thank you 😊
The thing of "Niemcy" vs. "Slovo" aka "the mute" vs. "the speaking" reminds me of the term "barbarian", the greek original "barbaros". The term "barbaros" means something like "the bla-bla people" and was used for all non-greek speaking people.
Yes, it had nothing to do with "barbaric" in our sense of uncultured. The most important "barbarians" for the Greeks (or rather Hellenes if one goes by their own name) were the Persians! who were at least as cultured as the Hellenes...
@@bartolo498 The Romans called German tribes "Barbarians". It was the Germans who brought down the Roman Empire after the Romans unsuccessfully tried to invade German lands.
@@dfirth224 The Romans repeated tried to invade German lands and the Empire lived on in Constantinople until the 15th century when she fell to the Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman Turks have held onto Constantinople, now Istanbul, for 500 years.
@@dfirth224 Every people called each other barbarians in those days. The ancient Indians called the Greeks (Yavanas) and Persians (Palhavas) as mlecchas or barbarians. They in return might have considered the Indians as barbarians.
I don't think the origins of those words were meant to be hostile and insulting on one side and self-aggrandizing on the other. There were fewer Slavic languages in those days (500-1000 CE) most of them were mutually intelligible. Then they were people peacefully living in tribes and settlements that spoke languages which were not mutually intelligible. There was no concept of state borders back then so, geographically speaking, there was no hard delineation where people speaking a specific language lived. Originally, it probably just meant people with whom you could communicate and those with whom you couldn't unless you know their language. I'm a native Polish speaker but I don't know about archaic Polish or Proto Slavic languages. It does seem like Niemcy is a some sort of old-timey form of "people who don't speak (the language)" and słowianie does seem like it came from the word "słowo" (word) and would roughly mean "the people who use words (we can understand)". Fun fact, the name of the country in Polish "Niemcy" (Germany) is just a straight plural of the word for a person living in that country or a "Niemiec" (a German). It's the same for Italy but I can't think of any other countries that are named by just using a plural form of the name for a nationality of a single person, make it a plural, and viola, you have a name for the whole country. In real life not many people don't make those origin of the word connections. Niemcy is a country and Niemka (female grammar gender) or Niemiec (male grammar gender) are different things.
Very interesting, Feli! Thanks for your patience with our sometimes silly questions. Have a great week! :-)
Yes, she did it very good.
And it turns out, there are no silly questions.
Maybe we are surprised by a question, maybe we never thought about it, maybe we just got used to it...
And then it turns out to be an interesting topic, an eye opener...
Fantastic video. I learned so much.
Super Video. Respekt! Habe viel gelernt!
I've always found it strange that we just come up with completely different names for other countries than what they call themselves. Imagine if we did that for other people too:
"Hi, my name's Steve."
"I'm going to call you Michael instead"
I think that this is due to how different languages pronounce words or sounds. I'm from Austria and we actually call ist Österreich. Which is really hard to pronounce for non-german speakers. So for those people it is easier to just say Austria
That's not how languages work. They are highly complex, historically non standardized and ever changing. You can't make the decision to "call someone this or that", because the word only has meaning if the other speakers of the language have the same understanding of this word. Language comes always down to a public consensus. Also, the idea of nation states is a relatively new concept in history, so it only makes sense that there are different remnants in languages to refer to a tribe/folk that are much older than the nation state
All the different names in other languages had an equally long history as the "correct" ones used by the inhabitants and often they are variants of the original names long abandoned by the native speakers. Like Aileen Felser brought up, 'Austria' is the direct medieval latin tranlation of _Ostarici_ (e.h.germ. eastern realm) which got through a long process to become _Österreich_ . So actually noone uses the "correct" original pronounciation.
Also you couldn't translate Steve to Michael, since the meanings of the names are totally different. Wouldn't object if you call me Steve though :D.
@@aileenfelser9439 in Persian we call it the same. Ootrish
@@espben360 In Czech we call Austria "Rakousko" - it has nothing to do with Eastern realm, but came from czech mispronunciation of the name of the border castle Raabs => Rakús.
It IS a dumb question, but what a well-informed and thorough answer! Thank you, Feli!
A better question would be "why don't WE call your country Deutschland?"
@@AugustoFeyh Not realy. Then again, there aren't "stupid" questions to beginn with
cool stuff !! thank you for all that
I love when you talk to yourself in the beginning. For some reason it cracks me up.
Thanks for answering this. I always wondered why the words for Germany were so different in English, French and German when other countries tend to have similar names. Thanks Feli!
Glad I could answer your question!
Very interesting video, I'm from Czech republic, so I knew about this "wordly" and "mute" distinction (I think it originally meant talking incomprehensibly, rather than being literally mute, but yeah, today it means literally mute), but I didn't know that some foreign names for Germany are derived from tribal names. Thank you, Grüße aus Tschechien! :-)
Wow! This is one of your best videos, at least for me.
Very interesting, informative and easy to understand.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you for all the hard work and research that goes into the making of your videos. 👍👍👍
It is clear a lot of preparation has gone into this video thanks ❤
Hi Feli. I really enjoyed this video. Even though I already knew the answer to the question, I still learned new interesting things. Thanks. I would really appreciate if you make some videos in German. You speak so clearly that understanding you is not a problem for German learners and your topics are very interesting. Cheers.
A lot of great information. Thanks) Wonted to add about Russia: we call country - «Германия» “Germaniya”, but people of the country «Немцы» - “Nemets / Nemtsy”. Very interacting)
Thank you! I have always known that Deutsch was the German term since my father’s family immigrated to the USA from Germany in about 1845 or so and my dad taught me some of the German words that he knew. I knew it was different but never thought why. You answered a question I didn’t even know I had! One funny story he told me is that his Grandparents would fight in German so the grandkids wouldn’t know they were arguing. What a motivator to learn more German!
I've always wondered about this! Thank you for this video, it's enlightening.
One time my father was going to Germany and he bought an English-Dutch phrasebook and Dictonary so he could talk to some Germans. I pointed out it said Dutch and not Deutsch, so it was entirely useless.
I don't think it would be completely useless. The Dutch and German languages are actually quite similar. I can halfways read Dutch even though I've never studied it just because I know English and (some) German. For instance, I once read a longish paragraph of Dutch in an English-language novel that was not translated but got the gist of it pretty clearly and verified that I got it right because I checked it in Google Translate.
I even understood a joke about a German visiting the Netherlands in a German textbook. The German saw many wonderous buildings as he travelled around the Netherlands and each time he was one, he would ask a local person, in German, who owned this fine building. In each case he was told "Kannitverstand" and eventually returned to Germany and told all his friends about the fabulously wealthy Netherlander named Kannitverstand. Even though this was not explained in the textbook, I realized that "Kannitverstand" was the equivalent of the German "Kann nicht verstanden", meaning "I cannot understand": all the Dutch people were simply telling the traveller that they didn't understand what he was asking because he was asking in German and they didn't speak German.
handy indeed ?
but to be honest as a native Dutch speaker i can tell you we Dutch can speak german very well but the otherway around not so much they can understand us and we can understand each other though but grammatically theres a big issue so a Dutch phrase book might not be the best option
@@hughmungus1767 speaking yes we can understand each other quite well up to 80% but genetically theres the large difference, every Dutch gets taught German in school but Germans do not speak dutch , ik kan een duitser perfect verstaan en als zij enkel duits spreken kan ik ook wel duits praten met ze dat us geen probleem maar voor een Niet nederlands/ Duitsspreker kan het lastig zijn
@@hughmungus1767 although they are similar, it's important to buy the correct one. Because some words can have different meaning although the word is the same. So it was useless
This is my favorite episode yet ... I love studying things like this, and while I knew most of the terms used, there were new things that I learned like the Niemcy term from the Slavic people. Great work on this Feli!
You're so good at explaining history & the ties between culture and linguistic differences.
Thanks, Feli. Awesome research and presentation!
Happy Thanksgiving, Feli! ❤️🇺🇸 🇩🇪
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Your pronunciation of the Danish word Tyskland was impressive.
Very informative. Thank You!
That was a great work you did here!
Loved this, very informative. Language is so fascinating. My mother's family came from Nordrhein-Westfalen, as far as I can tell near Aachen, but sadly many of the records were destroyed in the war. Your videos are so enlightening and enjoyable. I miss my time in Germany, especially the time of year when street vendors would sell strawberries. Munich was a blast, and would love to visit again. Thank you for all your hard work on your videos, as well as the restructure of your older videos. I think I have watched everything at least twice!
Wow, thank you so much. Just fascinating and you really earned your keep on this one---I'm impressed by the depth and breadth of the research you did on this. While I have long known that Germans refer to their country as Deutchland and language as "Deutch," I have often been puzzled about why the Fench refer to your native country as "Allemagne." You covered that and so much more!!! In short, I am addicted to your channel-- you are just amazing!!! I learn so much each time I listen to one of your programs!!! An interesting related tidbit concerns the Pennylvania Dutch. My grandmother on my mother's side was Pennsylvania Dutch and my family visited the Lancaster area in Pennsylvania to visit relatives and learn about our heritage. What I remember from some of those tours, is that the folks who became "Pennsylvania Dutch," actually came from Germany, but English speaking neighbors assumed they were "Dutch" because they said their language was "Deutch." So, my genetic background is mostly English and German (or Deutch) with some French and Scottish mixed in. All the best!!
That was fascinating - thank you!
Great dive down a rabbit hole!
As a major language dork who is only fluent in one (English) and could get by in another (French), I LOVE things like this. I'm pretty obsessed with etymology and the origin/development of languages. I knew the name for the US and German in French since I studied thatn language in school. Of course countries have their own name for themselves untranslated into whatever language another person is speaking!
"Diutisk" was first used to differentiate the ordinary language "of the people" from the latin language spoken (and written) by the clergy.
Great video - I knew some of this but you really expanded my knowledge.
Excellent. Loved the educational videos as most of yours are.
This was covered by Frau Kohler in my fourth-grade German class! (Deutsch is not Dutch) -hehehehe
@DrVplays Many German words are similar to English. When reading the German part of an instruction manual you can see the similarity. Many Americans don't realize many words we use in English are actually German. Like Halt which means Stop. The German word for typewriter is scribenmachine. Phonograph is plattenmachine.
Wow, it's amazing that you pronounced polish "Niemcy" like a true native
this is so informative thank you
Good stuff for sure! Thanks for making this video Feli! Happy Holidays!
"There are no stupid questions. Just stupid people who ask questions."
This was very interesting! Thank you for straightening it all out for us.
i couldnt have said it better !
Stupid people don't ask questions because they think they know everything and later make stupid mistakes.
Awesome video, Feli. The history lesson on the language, meanings, etc. was really great and answers a lot of questions for those having grown up in the New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, and lower New York areas of the United States. These areas of the US have a long history of German immigration and settlement, resulting in a plethora of German town, regional names, customs, and food that are still pervasive even today. I think for Americans, growing up here we forever see ourselves as legacy immigrants, longing to find our roots.
Loved the explanations.
You did a fantastic job with the etymological overview. Danke
When you think about it, it's actually weird to be asking, why do the Germans call it Deutschland? The real question is, why do the English call it Germany?
Native speakers usually have the best version of their country name, if it's different from English, the English version is the different one.
And an interesting note: Although the French call the modern day country Allemange, they refer to that region as "Germanie" during the Roman days.
Because England was conquered by the Romans so UK adopted the Latin word.
Ich nehme an es ist Deutschland weil es der Verbund der Deutschsprachigen Länder ist. (Minus Österreich) Was auf den Preussisch-Österreichischen Konflikt damals zurück geht und Bismarcks Bemühungen die Deutschsprachigen Staaten zu vereinen, was durch den Krieg 18..irgendwas passiert ist
Us Germans have the word 'Germanien' for the region and 'die Germanen' for the people living here in Roman times as well. Deutschland is just what we call the modern day country
@@nemoschmitz2374 What areas are included the the 'Germanien' region? I'm quite curious...
@@steverempel8584 I'm not sure exactly. But I think it covers a bigger than what is modern day Germany
Thanks for the very interesting explanation on the various names of Germany! I’ll be visiting the south-western regions over the Christmas period, and all your tips and lessons have been really helpful and useful indeed!
Have fun on your trip!
I am envious. My paternal grandfather’s paternal grandmother’s home town was Karlsruhe.
RIP we're having a COVID surge right now so most of the Christmas markets are closed
@@thomastschetchkovic5726 Oh no....... Well hope things will get better there soon!
You are a fantastic teacher Felli great job.
Thanks a million for this detailed and interesting explanation, Feli
Unfortunately, the stereotypical American isn't taught or exposed to a more "international" view of the world. We are very isolated culturally and tend to be "American-centric". That is we look at the world through our own eyes and never consider that others don't view the world the same exact way we do. Thanks for the video. It was informative and enjoyable.
I agree.
Its the same as in europe
@@IanZainea1990 The fact that most American's do not have a passport and unusual for most of the world explains it best. We are told how great we are and the best at everything and we are the first to do everything so we do not have to go any where or see for ourselves.
@@One.Zero.One101 If American's learn anything from social media I hope they learn we have been brainwashed for decades.
Yeah we're probably so insular because 20% of our population is of German decent. 🤣
Du bist klasse Feli, schöne Grüße aus Niedersachsen. ^_^
So interesting, and makes so much sense! thanks, Felicia
Dette var en veldig bra video, Feli. Takker og bukker. ( a very instructive video, Feli. Thanks. )
You pretty much nailed "Suomi", thank you!
Du hast die Aussprache von "Suomi" ziemlich ausgezeichnet getroffen! Danke und Grüße aus Finnland (Suomi) 🇫🇮
YESSSS 💪
Riippuu miten sen määrittelee oli hänen lausuminen tosi hyvä verrattuna muihin ulkomaanlaisiin, Mutta kyllä suomalainen kuulis, et se ei oo sen äidinkieli.
@@lukemchugh719 kyllä, mutta kuten huomasit, laitoin tuon "melkolailla" enkuksi ja "lähes" saksaksi. Joka tapauksessa erittäin hyvin osui kohdalleen ei-suomenkieliseksi!
Feli thank you for this video! I grew up speaking yiddish (which is basically 90% German 5% polish and 5% ancient Hebrew depending on the background the speaker is from) it was common knowledge that it's Deutschland (pronounced Dietschland) and the United States was also the same word pronounced the same but with the exception of the F instead of the V in the word vereinigte..
I'd love a video to compare some of the similarities and dissimilarities between the 2 languages. A lot of Yiddish speakers have no idea how close it sounds and that the majority of their mother tongue is actually German (until you travel to Munich you usually don't come in close contact with German)
Thanks for the education, I wondered about this topic from when I visited Germany. Thanks again.
👏Top marks for this very good explanation. I too have often wondered - now I know!
Thank you for this video, it was really fascinating! As a translator and teacher, I often find myself explaining why on earth we have two very different words for Germany and German in Italian XD glad to see someone else spreading a bit of language history.
I really liked how you pronounced "tedesco" 7:38 . Great video Feli!
I am fascinated that tedesco is Italian for German people and language - especially since Dr. Tedesco is my PCP. I will bring this up the next time I see him.
Very Informative !!!
Thank you so much, absolutely fascinating.