Names of Germany
For example: Often language lags behind the changing society and names tend to retain references to first encounters: the Finnish first and foremost met the Saxons while the French faced the Alamanni.
After an overview of variants this article presents etymological and geographic context for the forms and their worldwide usage as well as names used in bureaucracy.
Also in the standardised Romansh language Germania is the normal name for Germany but in Sursilvan, Sutsilvan and Surmiran it is commonly referred to as Tiaratudestga, Tearatudestga and Tera tudestga respectively, with tiara/teara/tera meaning land.
This was the Germanic dialect used in the early Middle Ages, spoken by the Franks in Western Francia, i.e. in the region which is now northern France.
In AD 98, Tacitus wrote Germania (the Latin title was actually: De Origine et situ Germanorum), an ethnographic work on the diverse set of Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.
In any case, the Romans were not precise in their ethnography of northern barbarians: by "German(ic)" Caesar meant "originating east of the Rhine".
Tacitus wrote in his book Germania: "The Treveri and Nervii take pride in their German origin, stating that this noble blood separates them from all comparison (with the Gauls) and the Gaulish laziness".
Another theory is gairm, battle-cry (put forward by Johann Wachter and Jacob Grimm, who was a philologist as well as collector and editor of fairy tales).
Yet another theory is that the word comes from ger, "spear"; however, Eric Partridge suggests *gar / gavin, to shout (as Old Irish garim), describing the Germanic tribesmen as noisy.
For example, in the Anishinaabe languages, three terms for "Germany" exist: ᐋᓂᒫ (Aanimaa, originally Aalimaanh, from the French Allemagne),[15][16] ᑌᐦᒋᒪᓐ (Dechiman, from the English Dutchman)[16] and ᒣᐦᔭᑴᑦ (Meyagwed, Ojibwe for "foreign speaker"[16] analogous to Slavic Némcy "Mutes" and Arab (ajam) mute), of which Aanimaa is the most common of the terms to describe Germany.
In Finnish and Estonian the words that historically applied to ancient Saxons changed their meaning over the centuries to denote the whole country of Germany and the Germans.
According to the Chinese History of Yuan, the Mongol commander Uriyangkhadai took part in the invasion of Poland and of the Holy Roman Empire, described as the land of the Nie-mi-sz'.
Oju-/Ojamaa, 'Gotland', both thought to be derived from the Baltic word; the ethnonym *vakja, used by the Votes (vadja) and the Sami, in older sources (vuowjos), may also be related).
[24] It was earlier written with the Sino-Japanese character compound 獨逸 (whose 獨 has since been simplified to 独), but has been largely superseded by the aforementioned katakana spelling ドイツ.
However, the character 独 is still used in compounds, for example 独文 (dokubun) meaning 'German literature', or as an abbreviation, such as in 独日関係 (Dokunichi kankei, German-Japanese relations).
Until the 1980s, South Korean primary textbooks adopted Doichillanteu (도이칠란트) which approximates the German pronunciation [ˈdɔʏtʃlant] of Deutschland[citation needed].
The word *theudō is cognate with Proto-Celtic *teutā, whence the Celtic tribal name Teuton, later anachronistically applied to the Germans.
In the Late Medieval and Early Modern period, Germany and Germans were known as Almany and Almains in English, via Old French alemaigne, alemans derived from the name of the Alamanni and Alemannia.
In 1841 Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the song Das Lied der Deutschen,[28] giving voice to the dreams of a unified Germany (Deutschland über Alles) to replace the alliance of independent states.
In German constitutional history, the expressions Reich (reign, realm, empire) and Bund (federation, confederation) are somewhat interchangeable.
As a result, the words Reich and Bund were used more frequently than in other countries, to distinguish between imperial or federal institutions and those at a subnational level.
For example, a modern federal German minister is called Bundesminister, in contrast to a Landesminister who holds office in a state such as Rhineland-Palatinate or Lower Saxony.
As a result of the Hitler regime, and maybe also of Imperial Germany up to 1919, many Germans – especially those on the political left – have negative feelings about the word Reich.
An organ named Bundesrat exists in all three of them: in Switzerland it is the government and in Germany and Austria the house of regional representatives.
Later, Hitler renounced the term Drittes Reich (officially in June 1939), but it already had become popular among supporters and opponents and is still used in historiography (sometimes in quotation marks).
After the defeat in World War II, Germany was occupied by the troops of Britain, France, the United States and Soviet Union.
After 1945, Deutsches Reich was still used for a couple of years (in 1947, for instance, when the Social Democrats gathered in Nuremberg they called their rally Reichsparteitag).
The Federal Republic of Germany, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, established in 1949, saw itself as the same state founded in 1867/71 but Reich gave place to Bund.
It was called Sowjetische Besatzungszone (SBZ, Soviet Zone of Occupation), Sowjetzone, Ostzone, Mitteldeutschland or Pankow (many GDR politicians lived or worked in Berlin-Pankow).
In 1949, the communists, protected by the Soviet Union, established the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR, German Democratic Republic, GDR).
