Re: "The Day The Earth Stood Still"

Am Dienstag000003, 03.06.2025 um 20:41 schrieb William Hyde:

Thomas Heger wrote:

Am Dienstag000003, 03.06.2025 um 00:49 schrieb William Hyde:
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The English name you after one group mentioned by the Romans, the French after another, but the actual descendants of the Romans at least make a stab at the right name.
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The Irish use the same group as the English, but the Welsh follow the French model, as do the Spanish.
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You have the same situation as Greece, which foreigners have been misnaming since 500 BC.  And of course there are more such examples.
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 > But the British
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Not all the British, see above.
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  used 'German' instead of 'Dutch' because 'Dutch' was
 > already in use for the language of the Netherlands.
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I wish I could believe they were  that rational, but I doubt it.
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I can find no Anglo-Saxon word for "Germany".  They had words for various tribes, for the Franks and the Burgundians, and "Denmark" was a word, but no word for the lands where German speaking people lived. Perhaps they just called it "the old country".

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There was no country at that time, where all German speakers lived.
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German was actually a language, which was spoken in many areas of Europe and possibly beyond.
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Modern Germany was founded in 1871 and was created by fusing together about 1000 different mainly tiny entities.
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Prior to that year there was no Germany and certainly also not at the times of the Anglo-Saxons.

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 > So, the Anglo-Saxons had no need to name a country, which didn't exist.
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Actually the "Kingdom of Germany" dates from the breakup of Charlemagne's empire, formed in the Treaty of Verdun in 843.  It was later absorbed into the Holy Roman Empire, which was later renamed (circa 1500) "The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation". Which I presume is why the 1871 state was the second empire.

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https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnum_Teutonicum
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The 'Regnum Teutonicum' was obviously named after the Teutons.
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This was a people who lived in the norther region of Denmark and do not belong to the set of people, which build the population of present day Germany.
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Actually all the tribes, which were called 'Germanes' by the Romans, stem from the regions, which belonged to Denmark.
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Naturally, the word used for "German" in the above varies from place to place - wikipedia is helpful here, giving:
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"The Kingdom of Germany or German Kingdom (Latin: regnum Teutonicorum 'kingdom of the Germans', regnum Teutonicum 'German kingdom',[1] regnum Alamanie "kingdom of Germany",[2] German: Deutsches Königreich)"
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so the Anglo-Saxons really did need a name, and they went with Caesar's version.

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'Angeln' is the name of a region in the north of Schleswig Holstein, which was a part of Denmark, too. That was the region, were the Anglo- Saxons came from.
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The German state 'Sachsen' is in no way related to Saxons, because 'Sax' was the name of an ancient weapon (kind of ax).
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These Anglo-Saxons  settled also in 'Niedersachsen', but most likely didn't speak German or called themselves 'Germanes'.
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So, why should they call their kingdom 'Germany'?

  My point is that circa 850 the Anglo-Saxons in England needed a name for this new kingdom.  Ango-Saxon missionaries, active in Germany at the time, would have been well aware that the word "German" was not in use there.  But as Latin speakers they probably went with the Latin example, and used "Germania".  Which was easy to remember because every Latin speaker had read Caesar's memoirs.
 Irish missionaries were also prominent in Germany (in fact Rome commanded Anglo-Saxon missionaries to go to Germany specifically to counter the Irish, who were regarded as heretical - how times change), and it seems that they, too, went with the Latin example.

Which was actually correct, because tribes named 'Germanes' were actually Scandinavians.
Modern Germany is not part of scandinavia, but south and occupies a part of Central Europe.
So, 'Germanic' is an atribute belonging to certain tribes, who settled in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany.
Those scandinavians were predominately blond, while Germans were not.
The confusion stems from the use of the Roman term 'Germanes', which was used indicriminately for all northern people by the Romans.
Better would be to concentrate on ethnicity, culture and languages.
The language in Germany is called 'Deutsch' and the language is quite different to what Danes speak.
So: 'Mare Germanicum' (for 'North Sea') means actually 'Danish Sea' and not 'German Sea'.
Also Wikings and (Anglo-) Saxons were not really German tribes, because this country is named after the language 'Deutsch' and the Wikinigs spoke most likely Danish.

It is notable that the Welsh, an independent people, disagreed.

There are certainly many issues like this. But it would be certainly misleading to discuss thoses issues here, too.
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TH