Timeline for Why does Germany's English name differ from its German name?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
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| Feb 3, 2023 at 8:37 | comment | added | Julius Hamilton | Brilliant answer. | |
| Jan 13, 2015 at 10:30 | history | edited | RegDwigнt | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jan 2, 2011 at 17:51 | comment | added | Noldorin | @Kosmonaut: Oh absolutely, Germany was never truly a country until then (unlike many of its neighbours), despite close ties. I always liked Voltaire's quote: "This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." Not only witty, but largely true! | |
| Jan 2, 2011 at 17:45 | comment | added | Noldorin | And yes, Italy had had a constant name throughout history thanks to the Roman hegemony over Europe in antiquity (even over the parts of Germania and Scythia it did not conquer). The name "Italia" has truly ancient origins ("land of the bull god" if my memory serves me) - it was without doubt the 2nd country in Europe. In fact, the Romans even spread their own name for Greece (Graecia) in favour of Hellas. | |
| Jan 2, 2011 at 17:42 | comment | added | Noldorin | @Cerberus: Yeah, Roman contact with Celts goes back a long way (they were in Northern Italy in antiquity). It's a curious history; the linguistic groups of Celtic and Italic (and thus probably the peoples) are more closely related to each other than either is to Germanic. However, Romans didn't differentiate between the two (they were all barbarians) before about the 3rd/2nd century BC. | |
| Jan 2, 2011 at 13:29 | vote | accept | C. Ross | ||
| Jan 2, 2011 at 4:11 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @Kosmonaut: Italy has simply always been known as Italia etc. all through the Middle Ages, as far as I know, even after several foreign invasions - some of which by Germanic tribes such as the Lombards, who permanently settled in large regions in the northern half of Italy in the early Middle Ages. Even so, the name Germania, too, was in wide use during the Middle Ages; it is difficult to say why no different names for Italy or the Italians were adopted by foreigners. "Romans" would have been a good candidate, "Tuscans" and "Latins" mediocre ones. | |
| Jan 2, 2011 at 3:55 | comment | added | Kosmonaut | @Cerberus: Good question about Italy, and I don't know nearly as much about it. Maybe the peninsula was known as the Italian Peninsula even during the centuries while there was no country of Italy as such? And/or, maybe the broad influence of Latin played some role? | |
| Jan 2, 2011 at 3:10 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @Kosmonaut: Your theory has merit. An older, single state is more likely to get a stable name. I suppose the same could be said about the decentralized Netherlands/Low Countries/Holland/The Dutch. As for Spain, one might conjecture that 500 years of unity were enough. But what about Italy? Could it be that the ancient memory of Roman Italy - the last time it ever was a unity - was enough to give it a name much more stable than that of Germany? That is somewhat doubtful, though it is not impossible. | |
| Jan 2, 2011 at 2:59 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @Noldorin: Interesting, I had no idea idea that "Germania" came from Celtic. I suppose the Celts met the Germans before the Romans did, having spread all over Europe much earlier. | |
| Jan 2, 2011 at 2:53 | comment | added | Kosmonaut | @Noldorin: I didn't mean to suggest that there was no connection between any of the sub-parts of present-day Germany, but the connections were much looser, and it wasn't really an official country until that 1871 unification. I still think that what I describe is a key contributor to the number of completely different names for Germany. | |
| Jan 2, 2011 at 0:43 | comment | added | Noldorin | Note that the Latin Germania from which Germany is derived probably had its origin ultimately as a Celtic loanward. (For example, how the Gauls would refer to the Germans/non-Celtic tribes.) Also, Germany certainly did exist as a concept (if not a country) before the 19th century - the King of Germany was a title the Holy Roman Empire (also called the German Empire) held. | |
| Jan 1, 2011 at 21:13 | history | answered | Kosmonaut | CC BY-SA 2.5 |