[WikiEN-l] Naming convention: popularity vs. correctness

Mon Feb 10 03:35:33 UTC 2003

|From: Jonathan Walther <krooger at debian.org>
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|Sender: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
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|Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 19:02:48 -0800
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|On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 08:38:54PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote:
|>
|>Of course, "German" is no more Deutsch (or Dietsch) than "Dutch" is.
|>"Dutch" is at least cognate with what they call themselves in their
|>own language, whereas "German" is is a Celtic name that has never been
|>used by any of the many Teutonic peoples.
|
|According to Tacitus, 2000 years ago they were calling themselves
|something cognate with "Germanii", which was the Roman word for them.
|How did German suddenly become a "Celtic" word?  What research can you
|show to back up that assertion?  How can I trust other information you
|add to Wikipedia articles if it has a similar amount of research behind
|it?
|
|Jonathan
|
|

Hi there, Jonathon, 

Of course, that was a contribution to the mailing list, not the
Wikipedia, but I did look it up first.  The Oxford English Dictionary
and Grimm are a little bit more reliable than Tacitus for the meaning
of words, don't you think?  And, of course, Latin picked up words from
other languages, such as Celtic.  Tacitus may have been right, but I
did not make it up.  Why would I have done that?

So, here you go (from OED):

     German, a.2 and n.2 Also germayne, germaine, germane.
     [ad. L. German-us, used, as adj. and n., as the designation of
     persons belonging to a group of related peoples inhabiting
     central and northern Europe, and speaking the dialects from which
     the "Germanic" or "Teutonic" languages have been developed.  The
     name does not appear to have been applied to these peoples by
     themselves, or to be explicable from Teut. sources. A view widely
     held is that it was the name given by the Gauls to their
     neighbours; the Celtic derivations suggested are from OIr. "gair"
     neighbour (Zeuss) and from Irish "gairm" battle-cry (Wachter,
     Grimm). According to Muellenhoff, "Germani" was originally the
     name of a group of Celtic peoples in north-eastern Gaul, was
     transferred from these to their Teutonic conquerors, and
     afterwards extended to all the Teutonic peoples.]

     <snip bit about pronuciation that wouldn't render in ascii> 

     In English use the word does not occur until the 16th c., the
     n. appearing in our quots. earlier than the adj. The older
     designations were Almain and Dutch (Dutchman); the latter,
     however, was wider in meaning.

Note also that "Dutch" for the language and people is older than
"German", harking back to the original discussion.

Hoping this finds you well, I remain,

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88