Re: Finno-Ugric languages

Nik Taylor scripsit:

> Related question: why is it that some nations have a name which carries
> over pretty well into other languages (e.g.,
> Spain/Espan~a/Espaigne/Espanha, etc.), while others have totally
> different, and unrelated, names in different languages (e.g.,
> Germany/Deutschland/Alemania)?  I suppose part of it might be different
> peoples living in the same country (e.g., Angles --> England, Saxons -->
> Susanach (the Irish Gaelic name)), but why didn't other nations respect
> the names given by the people thereof, for example, why don't we call
> Germany Dutchland?  And why are the Netherlanders also called Dutch?  Is
> "Dutch" related to _Deutsch_?
You bet.  That's why Pennsylvania Germans are still called "Dutch".

The German lanuage was originally called "theodisk", which leads to
Italian "tedesco", German "deutsch", English "Dutch", and
Dutch "duits".  "Allemanni" ("all [the] men") was the name of a
tribal coalition in Western German in Roman times, which accounts
for the French and Spanish names.  "German" itself is Latin,
probably borrowed from the same source that led to Spanish "hermano";
note that the root is used in some contexts even in German,
e.g. *Germanist* = "scholar of German or Germanic lgs".

Netherlanders stopped using "duits" to refer to themselves
("Nederlanders") and their language ("nederlands") some centuries
ago, in order to distinguish themselves as a separate nation
from the rest of the German-speaking area.

On the other side, the Slavic word for things German is transparently
derived from the word for "mute, unspeaking":  Russian "nemoy", a mute;
"nemets", a German.

> And why did we add -land to some nations,
> such as Ireland < Eire, but not to others, e.g., not "Spainland"?
Who knows?  In Dutch, Estonia is called "Estland".

--
John Cowan                                      cowan@ccil.org
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.