Re: [conculture] Names of countries and national languages

Quoting caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...>:

> >Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
>
> >>Quoting Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@...>:
>
> >>An old word for Lithuanian (or is it Latvian?) in English
> >>is "Lettish".
>
> >Latvian. But I have always assumed "Latvian" and "Lettish" are from
> >the same root; anybody know? Of course, "Lithuania" is also
> >suspiciously similar ...
>
> From Wikipedia:
>
> Modern scholars tend to connect this name with the Latin "litus" (see
> littoral), but no proof exists of any similar regional
> hydronym. "Litve", a Latin variant of the toponym, appears in a 1009
> chronicle describing an archbishop "struck over the head by pagans in
> Lituae". A 16th-century scholar associated the word with the Latin
> word "litus" (tubes) — a possible reference to wooden trumpets played
> by Lithuanian tribesmen. The country name "Latvia" and its
> region "Latgalia" may share the etymology of "Lithuania". A popular
> belief is that the country's name in Lithuanian language (Lietuva) is
> derived from a word "lietus" (rain), and means "a rainy place".
Clear as Baltic mud, then!

Latgalia/Latgale is "Lettgallen" in German and Swedish, which nicely parallels
Latvija : Lettland. The English "Lettish", btw, is surely from German
_lettisch_.

 Andreas