Re: De Germaniis (was Re: Roumania...)

On Tue, 13 Apr 1999, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> At 12:06 am -0400 13/4/99, Joe Mondello wrote:
> >> So... did *anyone* take up the name of the Teutones as the name,
> >>  besides the Germans themselves?
> >
> >Italians (i tedeschi IIRC)
>
> You recall correctly  :)
>
> The Scandinavians & Dutch also:
>
> Swedish:  Tyskland     en tysk (a German)   [tysk <-- *tytsk]
> Danish    Tyskland     en Tysker
> Dutch:    Duitschland  een Duitscher
>
Well, we've had a spelling reform in the late forties, which means
it's Duitsland, Duitser, nowadays. Of course, Dutch and Duits are
the same etymon, too.

According to the dictionary (Concise Oxford):

Mdu. Dutch = G deutsch, OHG diutisc 'popular, vulgar, national'
(diota people cf. OE. the'od.

You could just as well say that the Romans took up the name
of the people as the name of the Germans, too, since Teutones
is derived from 'diota', too.

A lot of peoples seem to be have their own word for 'people' as
ethnonym...