basque/Basque/bask

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Wed, 17 Apr 2002  6:43:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US> writes:

> Shall we also speak, in English, of
>Nihongo, Magya'r, Franc,ais, and Espan~ol?

"Spanish" is a reasonable rendering, considering English phonetics and suffices, of "Espan~ol".  Spanish insists on inserting an /eh/ (in writing, the letter "e") before an initial consonant cluster beginning with /s/, else the language would be called "Span~ol" (compare Italian "spagnol").  By the way, Spanish refers to the English language as "Ingle/s" (acute accent over the "e"), which does preserve the initial /ee/ vowel, although the accent is moved to the second syllable and /sh/ becomes /s/.

Similarly, "French" is a reasonable rendering of "Franc,ais" in the language which the French anachronistically call "Anglais."  ("-ais" is not a mispronunciation of "-ish" but rather the usual French suffix for "language or people of...").

Magya'r is a more interesting case.  Our word "Hungarian" is, of all things, from some Turkish dialect.  If I remember correctly, it is from "Oingar" which was a Turkish tribe which somehow in English got applied to the Magyars, who are Finno-Ugrian rather than Turkish.  There is no connection with "Hun" in the name.  Note the similarity to "Bulgarian"---the Bulgars were not Slavs but rather a Turkish tribe who led a Slavic migration into the Balkans.   Eventually the Bulgars were assimilated by the Slavs, but the name survived.

IIRC "gar" means "arrow" in the lir dialects of Turkish (those dialects from the area north of the Black and Caspian Seas.  In Turkestan, where shaz Turkish is spoken, it would be something like "gash" or "kash".)

Sorting out the peoples on Europe's steppe frontier is an exercise recommended only for those who enjoy impossible problems.  For example, at various times Hungary has been invaded by the Huns, the Khuns, and the Kuns, following which they had their own home-grown barbarian in Bela Kun.

>Add 'Deutsch' and 'Nederlands' to the list.  Of course, the cognates of 'Dutch' in both Dutch and German mean 'German', not 'Dutch'.

>I have been interested in the phenomenon of names of peoples in other languages being significantly different from what they call themselves.  Some words are easily explained, such as 'Dutch,' but how about 'German'?  Why didn't English stick with 'Dutch'?

On the evidence, English speakers cannot keep "Dutch" and "Deutsch" distinct, i.e. "Low Dutch" and "High Dutch" or the German "Pennsylvania Dutch".

On the other hand, in the mid-19th century quite a few people from Germany emigrated to the USA following the Revolutions of 1848. These people were widely referred to as "Dutch".  Specifically, during the Civil War a large number of the German-American soldiers in the Union Army ended up in a unit called "XI Corps", with the result that the soldiers of XI Corps were frequently referred to as "Dutch" or "Dutchmen".  Unfortunately at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg XI Corps was routed by the Confederates, in each case leaving the rest of the Army of the Potomac in jeopardy.  Much ethnic disparagement of "Dutchmen" followed these two battles.

(XI Corps was transferred to Chattanooga, where under Sherman's command it made an excellent record and took part in the March to the Sea.  One wonders how much the Georgians cared about the ethnicity of XI Corps.  Incidentally the commander of XI Corps is famous in American ethnic history---General Oliver Otis Howard, head of the Freedman's Bureau.  Howard University is named after him.)

"German", if I remember correctly, was the word used by the Romans for the Goths and their relatives.  The French (when they're being polite) refer to Germany as "Allemagne" (Spanish "Aleman~a), which was the name of a particular "German" tribe which lived on the Franco-German border, and the Franks took the part for the whole.

Let's see now.  In English the Helvetians are called "Swiss" and the Hellenes are "Greek".  Thais are frequently "Siamese".  I am told that in Cuba someone from the USA (which in Spanish is "Estados Unidos de Ame/rica", abbreviated either EUA or EEUU)
is a "Yuma".

Is the USA the only country for which there is no generally-accepted and unambiguous term for a citizen? (Not quite, there is the G-word).

     Jim Landau