German in other languages
The term German as a term for the people of the Germans, the German language or Germany, has similar and extremely different words in the various languages of the world.
This diversity is due on the one hand to the long and inconsistent history of the Germanic peoples or German groups and their diverse communities . On the other hand, in the course of the settlement history of Europe , they came into contact with diverse ethnic groups, some of whom developed their own names for the “German” counterpart. Finally, it should be noted that the languages originally native to Europe were spread over the entire world through colonialism , which is why different names are particularly common for European peoples and states.
list
“Diutisc” as origin
The Old High German word diutisc with the meaning "belonging to the people" is initially a self-designation of the German peoples. Therefore, the word German itself and the corresponding terms in neighboring Germanic languages are derived from it. The North Germanic languages have the stem tysk with hardened consonants, the West Germanic languages have the softer form with / d / - and / s / - or / ʃ / sound.
This root word is spread into other languages through simple derivations. The Chinese Déyìzhì 德意志 [ tɤ̌.î.ʈʂɻ̩̂ ] is a phonetic approximation of "German", the short form Dé 德 [ tɤ̌ ] is used in the individual terms for people, country, language, etc. Likewise, the Japanese Doitsu (traditionally: 独 逸 (short: 独 doku ) or more common today ド イ ツ ) is phonetically borrowed from the Dutch duits . In Korean, the characters 独 逸 are pronounced as Dogil 독일 .
| Language / language group | Name for Germany | Term for German or German language |
|---|---|---|
| Afrikaans | Duitsland | Duits |
| Faroese | Týskland | Týskt |
| Chinese | Deguo ( 德國 / 德国 ) | Dégúorén ( 德國人 / 德国人 ) or Déyǔ ( 德語 / 德语 ) or Dewen ( 德文 ) |
| Danish | Tyskland | tysk |
| Frisian (Frysk) | Dútslân | Dútsk |
| Frisian (Öömrang) | Sjiisklun | sjiisk |
| Icelandic | Þýskaland | þýska (the German / the German language / German)
þýskur / þýsk / þýskt (German) Þjóðverji / -verjar (a) German (r) |
| Italian | (Germania; see below) | tedesco |
| Japanese | Doitsu ( ド イ ツ ) | Doitsu-jin ( ド イ ツ 人 ) or Doitsu-go ( ド イ ツ 語 ) |
| Yiddish | Daytshland (דײַטשלאַנד) | daytsh (דײַטש) |
| Korean | Dogil ( 독일 ) | Dogir-in ( 독일인 ) or Dogir-eo ( 독일어 ) |
| Korean (North) | Toich'willandŭ ( 도이췰란드 ) | Teutseu-in ( 도이췰란드 인 ) or Teutseu-eo ( 도이췰란드 어 ) |
| Luxembourgish | Denmark | Däitsch |
| Low German (in D) | Germany | Düütsch |
| Low German (in NL) | Duutslaand | Duuts |
| Dutch | Duitsland | Duits |
| Norwegian | Tyskland | tysk |
| Pitcairn-English | Doichland | do you |
| Plautdietsch | Dietschlaunt | Dietsch |
| Swedish | Tyskland | tysk (a) |
| Swiss German | Germany | German |
| Toki Pona | ma Tosi | mije / meli Tosi or toki Tosi |
| Vietnamese | Đức | Tiếng Đức |
“Germania” as origin
The etymology of the Latin word Germani is not completely clear. It has appeared since around 200 BC. In Roman sources as a collective name for the tribes bordering north of the Roman Empire . The term 51 v. Chr. By Julius Caesar in his work Commentarii de Bello Gallico , in which he defines the Rhine as the border between Gaul and Germania . Ultimately, the word "Germanic" is used to designate the peoples formed from Germanic tribes .
Relatively rare in the Middle Ages, the word is mainly used in a historical or geographical sense for the areas to the right of the Rhine. It was not until the time of humanism that the term Germania was taken from ancient literature in order to preserve the meaning of Germany in neo-Latin . From this it is in the 16th century in both English and a number of Romance languages . Due to the great linguistic influence of Latin and English, the root German occurs today in numerous languages, also outside of Europe. It even finds its way into planned languages such as Esperanto and Interlingua .
| Language / language group | Name for Germany | Term for German or German language |
|---|---|---|
| Albanian | Gjermania | Gjermanët - term for the " Germans " (i.e. for people with German citizenship )
Gjermanisht - term for the German language |
| Armenian | Germania (Գերմանիա) | Germaneren (Գերմաներեն) |
| Aromatic | Ghirmânii | |
| Bulgarian | Germanija (Германия) | germanez (германец) |
| English | Germany | German |
| Esperanto | Germanio | germana |
| Georgian | Germánia (გერმანია) | germáneli (გერმანელი) - noun Sg.Nom . (of which) D eutsche as a nationality germanuli (გერმანული) - adjective or attribute d eutsch |
| New Greek | Jermanía (Γερμανία) | Jermanós (Γερμανός) or Jermaniká (Γερμανικά) |
| New Hebrew | Germania (גרמניה) | germaní (גרמני) or germanit (גרמנית) |
| Ido , Interlingua | Germania | |
| Indonesian | Jerman | Jerman |
| Irish | To Ghearmáin | Gearmáinis |
| Italian | Germania | germanico (more often in South Tyrol and Italian Switzerland ) |
| New Latin | Germania | Germanus / germanicus |
| Malaysian | Jerman | Jerman |
| Romanian | Germania | germana |
| Russian | Germanija (Германия) | |
| Swahili | Ujerumani | Germans (people): Mjerumani (sing.) / Wajerumani (pl.), German (language): Kijerumani |
| Thai | Yoeramani (เยอรมนี) | Yoeraman (เยอรมัน) |
"Alemanni" as origin
The West Germanic people of the Alemanni were the immediate neighbors of the Gallo-Romans in the time before the Frankish Empire came into being . These transferred the term to the entirety of the Germanic peoples who had settled east of them. In this way, the term for the Germans, derived from “Alemanni”, found its way into the languages of French royalty. In the 11th and 12th centuries the term became predominant in French, at times also in Italian and English. The root of the word was permanently adopted from French in the 12th century into the languages of the Iberian Peninsula , including Portuguese in the 15th. Due to the influence of the Iberian languages during the Reconquista , the name u. a. the Arabic language as well as all of Latin America during the Conquista .
| Language / language group | Name for Germany | Term for German or German language |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic | Almāniyā (ألمانيا) | almānī (ألماني) |
| Azerbaijani | Almaniya | Alman |
| Asturian | Alemaña | alemán |
| Basque | Alemania | alemana |
| Breton | Alamagn | alamaneg |
| French | Allemagne | allemand |
| Galician | Alemaña | alemán |
| Italian | Alemagna (obsolete or literary) | alemanno (outdated or literary) |
| Catalan | Alemanya | Alemany |
| Kurdish | Elmanya | elmanî |
| Nahuatl | Alemantlan | Alemantēcatl |
| Persian | Ālmān (آلمان) | Ālmāni (آلمانی) |
| Portuguese | Alemanha | in total |
| Spanish | Alemania | alemán |
| Turkish | Almanya | Alman |
| Welsh | Yr Almaen | Almaeneg |
“Niemc” / “nemet” as origin
In the Slavic and other Southeast European languages there is a separate stem for "German", which is derived from the original Slavic word němьcь, plural němьci "stranger" and is usually traced back to the adjective němъ "dumb" (with suffix -ьcь). The word originally referred to foreign speakers who cannot communicate with the Slavs (as in the Nestor Chronicle ). The meaning is later narrowed down to German speakers. Conversely, this corresponds to the most common explanation of the name of the people Slavs , as it is derived from the Slavic slóvo ("word", meaning "those who speak"). The root word was also borrowed from the Slavic languages into Hungarian and Romanian. Another theory, no longer represented in Slavonic studies today, derived it from the Germanic tribe of the Nemeter on the Rhine.
In Ottoman , Kurdish and Arabic the term is used for German-speaking Austria (see under Miscellaneous ).
| Language / language group | Name for Germany | Term for German or German language |
|---|---|---|
| Bosnian | Njemačka | Nijemci or njemački |
| Bulgarian | nemez (немец) or nemski (немски) | |
| Croatian | Njemačka | Nijemci or njemački |
| Lower Sorbian | Němska | Němčina |
| Upper Sorbian | Nimska | Nimšćina |
| Polish | Niemcy | Niemcy - people, Niemiec - the German; Niemka - the German niemiecki - adjective |
| Romanian | neam - people; neamț - German; nemțește - German language (outdated) nemțesc - German |
|
| Russian | Njemzy (Немцы) - people; némez (немец) - the German; némka (немка) - the German njemjezki (немецкий) - adjective |
|
| Serbian | Немачка / Nemačka | Nemci (Немци) or Nemački (немачки) |
| Slovak | Nemecko | nemecký or nemčina |
| Slovenian | Nemčija | Nemec or nemščina |
| Czech | Německo | Němec or němčina |
| Ukrainian | Nimetschtschyna (Німеччина) | nimezkyj (німецький) |
| Hungarian | Németország (ország = country) |
német |
Different origin
| Language / language group | Name for Germany | Term for German or German language | origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old Icelandic | Saxland | Saxar, saxlenzkr | from the Saxon tribe |
| Estonian | Saksamaa | saksa | |
| Finnish | Saksa | saksa | |
| Romani | ssassitko temm | saso or ssassitko | from the Saxon tribe , out of date? Today also Jermaniya, Jermaniko (see Germania) |
| German Sign Language |
 or. 
|
Fist on forehead with one finger pointing up | represents a spiked hood (originally meaning " policeman " in Germany ) |
| Latvian | Vācija | vācieši or vācu valoda | unsafe, perhaps after the Scandinavian tribe of the Vagoth (cf. also Finnish Vuojola and Estonian Oju- / Ojamaa ' Gotland ', which are derived from the Baltic term). |
| Lithuanian | Vokietija | Vokiečių | |
| Middle Greek | Frángoi, frangikós | from the tribe of the Franks or the Franconian Empire | |
| Middle Latin | Teutonia, regnum Teutonicum | Teutonicus, lingua teutonica | from the ancient tribe of the Teutons , since the end of the 9th century in learned circles through the inclusion of ancient literature which the Teutons viewed as Germanic peoples. |
| Navajo | Bééshbichʼahníí bikéyah | Bééshbichʼahii bizaad | "Eisenhut" (steel helmet) was used as a code name for Germany in the Navajo Code during the Second World War |
| (Low) Sorbian | bawory, bawery (only in older or dialectal usage) |
bawerski | from the tribe of Bavaria |
| Jatwingish | miksiskai | from miksît "stammer" | |
| Old Prussian | miksiskāi | ||
| Kinyarwanda | Ubudage | Abadage, Ikidage | is mostly derived from the greeting Guten Tag , which Germans always shouted to each other in colonial times, or from the word German . |
| Kirundi | Ubudagi | Abadagi, Kidagi |
- ↑ Spelling of the signs in sign script .
Others
- English has used the term Dutch , derived from German , since the 17th and 18th centuries. Century only for the Dutch language.
- In Arabic, the word Nimsā (نمسا), derived from the Slavic root for Germany, means the country Austria . The word got into Arabic from the Slavic languages of the Balkans via the Ottoman language . While it was supplanted in modern Turkish, it remained in Kurdish and Arabic. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Austria was a large German-speaking neighbor of the Ottoman Empire , and the home of the Roman-German emperor .
- In the Balkans, the German minorities are often called "Swabians", the Germans in Transylvania call themselves "Saxons". However, these terms cannot be traced back to their origin, because the dialects are actually more Rhine-Franconian or Moselle-Franconian .
- In German-speaking Switzerland , Germans are commonly called Swabians , although the closest German neighbors are Badeners , who in the High Middle Ages - like a significant part of German-speaking Switzerland - largely belonged to the Duchy of Swabia .
- In Luxembourgish , Germans are also referred to as prices (German Prussia ) and their language as Preisesch , since the entire German border area to Luxembourg belonged to the state of Prussia from 1815 to 1945 . The name also includes Germans from other regions, e.g. B. also Bavaria . During the violent German occupation of Luxembourg in World War II , the term became a dirty word, comparable to the French word boche . For Germans in the post-war period, the name Däitschen, derived from the country's name, is considered politically correct.
- In Limburg dialects in the south-east of the Netherlands, Pruus [pry: s] (German Prussia ) is used for a German and Pruses [pry: səs] (German Prussia ) for Germany, but mostly only in a derogatory sense.
- In the northern French-speaking area (northern France, Belgium ) the neighboring Germanic dialects, areas and inhabitants from Flanders to Alsace are sometimes still referred to as Thiois , most likely for the area between Maastricht and Aachen and for the traditionally German-speaking part of Lorraine ( Lorraine Thioise ) . The term is out of date and is derived from theodisc , the Romance form of diutisc .
literature
- Ingo Reiffenstein : Designations of the general German language. In: Werner Besch u. a. (Ed.): History of language. A handbook on the history of the German language and its research . Volume 3, 2nd, completely revised and expanded edition, de Gruyter, Berlin 2003, pp. 2191–2205 No. 156. ISBN 3-11-015883-3 (= Handbooks for Linguistics and Communication Studies . Volume 2).
- Wolfgang Krischke: What does German mean here? Short history of the German language. Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59243-0 (= Becksche series 4076).
Web links
- Matthias Heine: For the Finns, we are all Saxony on Welt Online , June 25, 2015. Accessed on August 29, 2017
- Hans Marcus Thomsen: German: Anyone who did not speak Romansh in the border area was thiudisk on Welt Online , March 18, 2005. Retrieved on August 29, 2017
- Entry German in: German Dictionary , Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
- Entry Allemann , ibid.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fasti triumphal , Roman list of victories, 222 BC. Chr. (English translation)
- ^ Entry Germane in: German Dictionary , Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
- ↑ Reiffenstein in: Sprachgesch. 2,3, p. 2199 and 2201.
- ^ Entry germanico in: Sabatini-Coletti, Italian dictionary.
- ↑ Reiffenstein in: Sprachgesch. 2,3, p. 2201.
- ^ Entry Alemagna in: Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia.
- ↑ entry alemanno in: Sabatini Coletti Italian dictionary. See also Il Sansoni Tedesco .
- ↑ Max Vasmer : Russian etymological dictionary . Progress, Moscow 1986. Volume 3, p. 62 (Russian)
- ↑ Niemmetz, Niemitz . In: Hans Bahlow: Deutsches Namenlexikon , Frankfurt 1972
- ^ F. Miklosich, The foreign words in the Slavic languages. In: Memoranda of the Academy of Sciences (Vienna) phil.-hist. 15, 1867, 73 ff. Google Books
- ↑ R. Deiss, The navel of the moon and the tear in the Indian Ocean: 333 country leg names, p. 34 Google books
- ^ Niemetz , in: Hans Bahlow, Deutsches Namenlexikon, Frankfurt 1972
- ↑ See also the Academy of Sciences in Vienna: Memoranda , Volume 15. Austrian Academy of Sciences. Philosophical-historical class, Vienna 1867
- ^ Etymology of names of peoples, etc. a. of the Slavic word for German ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Polish)
- ^ Langenscheidt Romanian-German dictionary
- ^ Langenscheidt Romanian-German dictionary
- ^ Langenscheidt Romanian-German dictionary
- ^ RV Sowa, dictionary of the dialect of the German gypsies. Western dialect (Treatises for the Kunde des Morgenlandes 11) Leipzig 1898 ("Dictionary of the dialect of the German Gypsies" digitized at archive.org)
- ↑ Taubenschlag ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 5, 2016
- ↑ Lemma Germany in: “Das Vokabelheft. General Sign Dictionary ”(online version).
- ^ E. Fraenkel, Lithuanian etymological dictionary (Indo-European Library II, 7) Heidelberg / Göttingen 1965, p. 1272
- ↑ Reiffenstein in: Sprachgesch. 2,3, p. 2201.
- ^ Reiffenstein, in: Sprachgeschichte 3,2, p. 2195 f.
- ↑ Jutta Limbach (Ed.): Emigrated words. A selection of the most interesting contributions to the international tender "Emigrated words". Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verl, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2007, p. 123, ISBN 978-3-19-107891-1 .
- ↑ John Joseph Gumperz and Dell Hathaway Hymes (eds.): The ethnography of communication. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, NY [etc.] 1972, p. 96, ISBN 978-0-03-077745-5 . However, the g as in English g spoken, not like dsh in English: Pronunciation of Kirundi on Omniglot.com.
- ↑ see "Thiois" in the French language Wikipedia
