basque/Basque/bask

Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET
Fri Apr 19 10:49:29 UTC 2002


> >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".

Of course both "Deutsch" and "Germanisch" are standard in German (I think =
"German", "Germanic" resp.).

A form perhaps bringing together "Deutsch"/"Dutch" and "Teutonic" in a US
item from 1847 (MoA Cornell):

<<the people of the various Anglo-Saxon provinces, having come from
different portions of the cradle-country in Teutchland ...>>

(apparently used in seriousness, in reference to differences between
English and Scottish usages).

-- Doug Wilson



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