Re: Language naming terminology (was Re: Finno-Ugric languages)

At 4:31 pm -0500 20/9/98, Tom Wier wrote:
[.....]
>
>Note that the names used for the same people were used by the people closest
>to them; so, for example, the English used "German-" since the Germani
>were the
>closest to them,
So how come we have in Welsh: Yr Almaen (Germany), Almaenaidd (German
[adj]), Almaeneg (German language), Almaenwr (German man), Almaenes (German
woman) ?  Are you saying that the Germani were closest to the English on
the east of our island while the Alemani were closest to the Britons/Welsh
on the west? I know of no evidence of this.

>and the Spanish used "Aleman-" since the Alemani were closest
>to _them_,
I should've thought the Vandals & Visigoths were even closer!  The Vandals
stayed long enough to give their name to (W)Andalusia before moving onto
north Africa, and the Visigoths ruled quite a large chunk of Spain for a
few centuries.

>and so forth (I'm not sure where Ital. "tedesco" comes from,
Same source as Deutsch, Dutch and the Scandinavian 'Tysk' (<-- *tytsk).
The word originally begain with /T/ which in Scandinavia (& Italy) became
the plosive /t/; in the low & high German areas initial /T/ was regularly
voiced to /D/ before passing to the plosive /d/, cf.

ENGLISH       SCAND.        GERMAN
three         tre           drei
thick       tjock/tyk       dick
thin        tunn/tynd       duen
thirst      to"rst          durst
etc.
etc.

But infact the Langobardi or Lombards were the Germanic tribe closest to
Italy for quite a time: they ruled much of the northern part or Lombardy
(as it's still called) for quite a while.

Sorry - but the simple proximity argument simply won't wash (or, I believe
the expression on your side of the pond is that it sucks).  It's a good
deal more complicated than that & many names get passed on from one
community to the next.  I don't rule out the proximity argument entirely,
but it is only one of many other reasons.

Why do we generally call the peoples that live between the Adriatic &
Aegean seas Greek & their country Greece, when they refere to themselves as
Hellenes & their country as Hellas?  Is it because the Graikoi were the
nearest Hellenic 'tribe' to England?  No. It's simply that the Graikoi were
the first Hellenes the people of a ancient city state in central Italy,
called Rome, first came up against.  _They_ applied the name to the
Hellenes generally, hence it passed into Latin and then to the languages of
western & central Europe.

Something of the same surely happened with both the Alemani & Germani names
at least.

Ray.