But for real, for those who are curious: the border between Germany and Poland is effectively the border between western and eastern Europe. So to Slav people Germans lived right over there, and yet spoke something incomprehensible; so we called them "mute" (in Poland at least). If I can't understand you you are mute to me, basically. And the word for "Germans" is the same as for "Germany", so we call the country itself mutes 😅
Literally it's more like "non-speakers", though, isn't it? Nie + mowić = Not + to speak.
So, maybe in contemporary Polish the word has been polished to mean "mute", but could be that they were "those damn non-speakers [of our Polish] across that river-thing!"
Well, the "mówić" part is not present, the root of the word is more similar to "niemy", meaning "mute"; the Polish word comes from "non-speaker", as in "not speaking at all". but that's just speculation on my part, I'm no linguist or etymologist 🤷♀️
Still better than Rakousko/Rakúsko. Czech and Slovak are the only languages where the word for Austria does not originate from "Österreich" but from Ratgoz, a single proto-Austrian guy's name.
And what about the Romance languages. They call Germany “Land of the Alemanni”, they called an entire country full of different tribes after a single Germanic tribe that lived near the French/Italian border. It’s like calling the entire country of the Netherlands Amsterdam.
It's like calling the entire country of the Netherlands Holland. Holland(ia?) is part of the Netherlands which gave the name of the country in a bunch of languages.
This is weird, by the way, I just wrote about the exact same thing not too long ago.
I can open your link, but as someone who's Dutch, the way this all works in English is so absurd. Here we call Germany "Duitsland" and they speak "Duits". This is quite similar to what they say themselves, "Deutschland" and "Deutsch". We call our country "Nederland" and our language "Nederlands". This is again similar in German.
Then why is English "Germany", "German" and "Holland"/"The Netherlands" and "Dutch". It's so silly. There are of course historic reasons, but can't we all just collectively change it?
I think we can - but just see how many people in your country call Turkey Türkiye (they made a request back in 2022) - and that was just one country, not all.
Or any country really. I'd be curious to see if a chart of languages ranked on how many countries' endonyms are also the same word in that language. But there's definitely no language that doesn't have exonyms.
English speakers call Deutschland Germany, don't give us all the credit here. And it's called that cause the UK hated keeping track of what y'all were calling yourselves, so they chose bigotry instead (a common theme for England). The rest of us usually don't know the history and just have a word with no context as to why it is that way.
For those Americans who don't understand, calling it Germany is like calling First Nation land "Indialand" because "how can anyone keep track of what they call it? It's always changing!"
Actually, it was the Romans who came up with the term "Germani" for the various tribes at the nortthern end of the world. The anglo-saxons being one of them.
Really? That's why I got a down vote? Dude, my metaphor in the first comment was likening it to "if we (Americans) called First Nation land 'Indialand'". So, no. If you map the metaphor back onto to the counter, it's the UK's fault, not America's.
For all of Lemmy’s positive qualities, it’s still filled with nerds with a complex about keeping the record straight. Some like to be rude about it, like you and I, and others simply enjoy sharing information for the sake of it.
For more context: They don't just mean the same thing. One is a pronoun and the other is an adjective. Like the difference between the word THAT in the following sentences: "That which is given" vs "Hand me that."
I find that when speaking about them in isolation I also have to take a split-second to remember which one is which. But after a bit of practice, when actually forming sentences, you'll develop a feeling for it and using the wrong one will sound wrong to your ears so you won't need to think about it.
63 Comments
Gullible@sh.itjust.works · 99 pts · 230d
The US still looking weird by calling Germany “Germany.”
missingno@fedia.io · 62 pts · 230d
About as weird as calling Nihon "Japan".
trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world · 53 pts · 230d
Tbf a good chunk of Europe calls it "land of people that can't speak" basically
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 42 pts · 230d
They're clearly thinking of the Dutch.
UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 230d
They can speak, they just act like they can't in front of foreigners. I am learning "Dutch" and am 100% convinced this whole language is a hoax
agavaa@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 230d
Cause they can't!1!
But for real, for those who are curious: the border between Germany and Poland is effectively the border between western and eastern Europe. So to Slav people Germans lived right over there, and yet spoke something incomprehensible; so we called them "mute" (in Poland at least). If I can't understand you you are mute to me, basically. And the word for "Germans" is the same as for "Germany", so we call the country itself mutes 😅
Demdaru@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 229d
For fun with words:
I wonder how confusing these are for people not speaking polish xD
Tuuktuuk@anarchist.nexus · 1 pts · 222d
Literally it's more like "non-speakers", though, isn't it? Nie + mowić = Not + to speak.
So, maybe in contemporary Polish the word has been polished to mean "mute", but could be that they were "those damn non-speakers [of our Polish] across that river-thing!"
agavaa@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 222d
Well, the "mówić" part is not present, the root of the word is more similar to "niemy", meaning "mute"; the Polish word comes from "non-speaker", as in "not speaking at all". but that's just speculation on my part, I'm no linguist or etymologist 🤷♀️
Tuuktuuk@anarchist.nexus · 2 pts · 221d
At least Wiktionary completely agrees with you!
user224@lemmy.sdf.org · 20 pts · 230d
Nemecko
Nemý
Never realized that.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org · 5 pts · 230d
Still better than Rakousko/Rakúsko. Czech and Slovak are the only languages where the word for Austria does not originate from "Österreich" but from Ratgoz, a single proto-Austrian guy's name.
trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 230d
Yeah right? When it hit me I was like hmmm
ceiphas@feddit.org · 28 pts · 230d
Du meinst Deutschland.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 230d
And what about the Romance languages. They call Germany “Land of the Alemanni”, they called an entire country full of different tribes after a single Germanic tribe that lived near the French/Italian border. It’s like calling the entire country of the Netherlands Amsterdam.
Dicska@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 230d
It's like calling the entire country of the Netherlands Holland. Holland(ia?) is part of the Netherlands which gave the name of the country in a bunch of languages.
This is weird, by the way, I just wrote about the exact same thing not too long ago.
gerryflap@feddit.nl · 6 pts · 229d
I can open your link, but as someone who's Dutch, the way this all works in English is so absurd. Here we call Germany "Duitsland" and they speak "Duits". This is quite similar to what they say themselves, "Deutschland" and "Deutsch". We call our country "Nederland" and our language "Nederlands". This is again similar in German.
Then why is English "Germany", "German" and "Holland"/"The Netherlands" and "Dutch". It's so silly. There are of course historic reasons, but can't we all just collectively change it?
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 3 pts · 229d
Face it, even the Anglophones know what you speak is simply Drunk German. :P
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 229d
Yeah but don't you say Japan instead of Nihon/Nippon? Every language does this to a certain extent.
Dicska@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 229d
I think we can - but just see how many people in your country call Turkey Türkiye (they made a request back in 2022) - and that was just one country, not all.
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 5 pts · 229d
They already call it Turkije which is a lot closer to Türkiye.
Dicska@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 229d
That's admirable! I looked it up in translate and got a completely different result. I think I know what was going on : ) 🦃
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 4 pts · 229d
Never trust machine translation to know what you're talking about ;)
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 229d
Instructions unclear, I now eat türkiye for Thanksgiving.
mech@feddit.org · 18 pts · 230d
The weirdest ones are the Finns, calling Germany Saksa.
I'm German and I feel more at home when I'm in Finland than in Sachsen.
bstix@feddit.dk · 8 pts · 230d
Finnish Saksa is a reference to the Saxon tribe from Old Saxon in Northern Germany, not the current Sachsen.
First_Thunder@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 230d
What about the Portuguese! ALEMANHA for Germany
Spezi@feddit.org · 10 pts · 230d
In Grench it’s Allemagne. The Alemanni were a german tribe at the rhine.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 230d
Is that the Grinch's native language?
Spezi@feddit.org · 8 pts · 229d
No, its the French-Greek hybrid they speak in Freece
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 229d
Parlez vous Grancais?
1rre@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 230d
remon@ani.social · 14 pts · 230d
Not any weirder than any other English speaking country.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 230d
Or any country really. I'd be curious to see if a chart of languages ranked on how many countries' endonyms are also the same word in that language. But there's definitely no language that doesn't have exonyms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym
chuckleslord@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 229d
English speakers call Deutschland Germany, don't give us all the credit here. And it's called that cause the UK hated keeping track of what y'all were calling yourselves, so they chose bigotry instead (a common theme for England). The rest of us usually don't know the history and just have a word with no context as to why it is that way.
For those Americans who don't understand, calling it Germany is like calling First Nation land "Indialand" because "how can anyone keep track of what they call it? It's always changing!"
b_tr3e@feddit.org · 6 pts · 229d
Actually, it was the Romans who came up with the term "Germani" for the various tribes at the nortthern end of the world. The anglo-saxons being one of them.
chuckleslord@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 229d
Yeah, just like it was an Italian man that first called them Indians. Wouldn't make it Italy's fault if Americans called it Indialand, though.
mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 227d
So Americans alone are at fault for using the term German in English then? The chain of logic here is impressive I’ll say that.
chuckleslord@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 227d
Really? That's why I got a down vote? Dude, my metaphor in the first comment was likening it to "if we (Americans) called First Nation land 'Indialand'". So, no. If you map the metaphor back onto to the counter, it's the UK's fault, not America's.
Ricaz@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 230d
TYSKLAND
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 229d
Why put that on the US? We just carried on calling it what the English did.
Gullible@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 229d
To spur discussion, mostly
87Six@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 229d
We romanians call it Germania as well for some reason
RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com · 1 pts · 228d
By making yourself look like a dork?
Gullible@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 228d
For all of Lemmy’s positive qualities, it’s still filled with nerds with a complex about keeping the record straight. Some like to be rude about it, like you and I, and others simply enjoy sharing information for the sake of it.
Surp@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 230d
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 42 pts · 229d
I constantly mix up sore and sono. 😮💨
For more context: They don't just mean the same thing. One is a pronoun and the other is an adjective. Like the difference between the word THAT in the following sentences: "That which is given" vs "Hand me that."
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 229d
Just remember that "no" is the particle that indicates possession, so you need to show what it's possessing if you use it.
Sore can be used as a subject or object directly:
Compared to:
Using "no" to show possession can be used without indicating the possessed word with regular nouns, but not the kono/sono/ano words.
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 6 pts · 229d
Thank you for actually talking about the post ;)
I find that when speaking about them in isolation I also have to take a split-second to remember which one is which. But after a bit of practice, when actually forming sentences, you'll develop a feeling for it and using the wrong one will sound wrong to your ears so you won't need to think about it.
dwemthy@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 229d
It helps me that 'no' marks possession or relation so 'sono' is like a shortening of 'sore no' and that means something more specific comes after.
PodPerson@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 229d
But both of those examples are pronouns?
Lumidaub@feddit.org · 5 pts · 229d
I think they were just saying that in both sentences "that" has different meanings.
Maybe clearer:
Sore ha ringo desu - that is an apple
Sono ringo wo kaimasu - I'll buy that apple
(ringo is apple)
PodPerson@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 229d
An - that example makes more sense
humanspiral@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 229d
what about koitsu ... Germany line?
Uruanna@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 228d
Doitsu means whichever, or Germany (deformed from Deutsch)
rumba@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 229d
I was screwing around on Duolingo for a while, trying different languages. Happened upon Russian.
After you get through the alien character set and sounds, it was pretty easy, or so I thought.
There are 16 verb classes There is formal and informal dialect Nouns are gendered.
ickplant@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 229d
I happen to be Russian, and yeah. Not the language to learn for funsies.
rumba@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 229d
Hey, until I got to grammar, it was great!
db2@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 230d
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nhD9gyRSz0g
nialv7@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 229d
Ok but then what about are, ano, aitsu?
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 229d
This, that, tentacle monster.
87Six@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 229d
I'm expecting the last one to mean "anal"
Big_Boss_77@lemmynsfw.com · 3 pts · 229d
As someone who's family is trying to learn Japanese in order to better enjoy our trip there... I feel this in the depths of my soul...
rbos@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 230d
Jax@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 228d
Yes but English has weird words so it's the worst language on Earth.
Signed by those that are likely reading at a third grade level.
Edit: me me word good