German ethnonyms

[clements]

> As for why there are many others, to my knowledge each different one comes from
> the name of the tribe after which the name was taken. In the Antiquity and Early
> Middle Age, there were still al lot of German tribes living separate political
> existence. This is only my intuition.

In southern Germany today, near the French border, is the area where
Alemannisch is spoken, a German dialect.  My guess is that those in the
nation of the Franks (Frankreich) referred to them as Alemans, which then
became the name for all those who speak different varieties of German.

The etymon of Deutsch, Tedesco, etc. might go back to the form Teuton-.

Clancy


>
> Quoting John Myhill <john at research.haifa.ac.il>:
>
> > Does anyone out there have any idea of why there are so many
> > different words meaning `German' in different languages? Aside
> > from English German, there's German Deutsche, Spanish alleman, Italian
> > tedesco, and Russian nemyetski?
> > Also, does anyone know others?
> > Thanks, John Myhill
> > --
> >
>
>
>
>

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	J. Clancy Clements
	Department of Spanish and Portuguese, BH844, IU-B
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