By Philippe Lainé
“Deutschland" (“Germany”) has actually more than three different names/roots.
Just take more languages and see other names.
Use Google Translate and see:
- English: Germany
- French: Allemagne
- Finnish: Saksa
- Czech: Německo
- Latvian: Vācija
- Dutch: Duitsland
OK, I’ll stop here as we have enough names coming from Germany’s neighbours to continue.
Where does the word “Germany” come from?
During Antiquity, a large area occupied by Germanic tribes was called Germania by the Romans.
So far, it makes sense. So, why so many different names?
Main reason:
Historically, Germany is a young united country (1871), but naturally its history didn’t start in 1871.
What is called nowadays Germany was for a long time occupied by different Germanic tribes before being united under one flag.
These tribes were called different names by their neighbours.
To give you an idea of how numerous were the Germanic tribes, I invite you to have a look on this Wikipedia page: List of ancient Germanic peoples and tribes - Wikipedia
So basically, the French (Franks and Celts) had to deal with the Alemanni more than the other tribes, the Slavic people called the Germanic people something like “Nemets” which means more or less “those who are mute” related to the language barrier they had to face, Germans and other Germanic countries tend to prefer a name linked to how they were calling themselves “Deutch” coming from “Diustisc/Diet/Diot,” which meant “Folk” but had some phonetical transformation with the time…
Germany (and the Germans) is actually a very interesting case, as I don’t think that we have any other nation (and citizens) that has so many different names.
