2410: Standard Etymologies for Germany Around the World Jul 27, 2021

Around the world, there are roughly 7 etymologies for the country of Germany where various languages derive their exonyms, along with a few exceptional cases. Those would be:

•From Latin 'Germania' as seen in English and Russian

•From 'Alamanni' tribe as in French (Allemagne) and Arabic

•From Germanic ‘Diutisc’ as in German (Deutschland) or Chinese

•From the Saxon tribe, as in Finnish (Saksa) and Romani.

•From Slavic němьcь as in Polish (Niemcy) and Hungarian

•From Prussia, as in Tahitian (Purutia) or Silesian

•A root found in Baltic states without clear origin, like Lithuanian (Vokietija) or Latvian (Vācija)

Some of these roots have applied to different Germanic states too, like Austria or the Holy Roman Empire in various languages. Notably this list means the term used in Romantic French and Spanish is Germanic, and the term used in Germanic English is Romance based. More on the exceptional cases next.