As a flemish person ( dutch speaking belgian) i never even knew it was hard to distinguish German ("Duits ") and Germanic ( "Germaans") for native english speakers, as we ourselves have 2 quite different words for it. It seemed quite obvious. So quite nice to have an explenation why it is do hard for english speakers . Thanks 🤘❤️🇺🇲🇧🇪🇪🇺
To be clear here...I suspect it is an American problem. Our "education" system fails us so deeply that we have no concept of history, no idea where so many modern things actually come from, and no idea whatsoever of our place in history. It is sad but true to paraphrase Metallica...LOL
I believe during the time of the Holy Roman Empire when all the Dutch were unified, English referred to everyone from Austria to Flanders as Dutch, I think the mistake first started around the time of the Netherlands' independence and since the English had more contact with the Netherlands and Flanders we applied the name Dutch to them and differentiated the rest as Germans.
@@SilverWolf09100 It started earlier. The cognate for 'Dutch' as the name for the language seems to originate from the area in about present day Belgium, north of the language border with French. There the Germanic speakers originally called their language Frankish, because they were Franks. But when the Franks had conquered Gaul that also became part of the Frankish empire (hence Latin Francia > French France) and eventually its Romance speakers began calling themselves 'Franks' as well and their language also 'Frankish' (in its Romance form), hence present day 'Franc,ais'. So to distinguish their Germanic Frankish from Romance Frankish (old French), they began to refer to their language als 'Thiudisk', which in Middle Dutch became 'Duitsch' or 'Dietsch'. This name 'Thiudisk' was stimulated by Charlemagne and his successors for all Germanic dialects in their empire, as a unifying term. So gradually Germanic speakers in present day Germany started to use the word as well. So then 'Dutch' was used for a lot of Germanic dialects from the North Sea into the Alpine region. As the difference between those dialects grew bigger, a distinction was made between 'Low German' and 'High German'. High German (Hochdeutsch) was gradually replaced by just German 'Deutsch'. Apart from words like Flemish, Brabatian, Hollandish the general name for the more and more unifying Dutch language became 'Nederduitsch' (Low German). However the German dialects of Northern German were called 'Niederdeutsch' (in High German), so also 'Nederduitsch' got confusing. During the 19th century 'Nederlands' finally became the general Dutch name for what in English is called 'Dutch'. So English adopted 'Dutch' when the Dutch speakers were still calling their own language 'Duitsch' or 'Dietsch'. And when English speakers felt it necessary to distinguish the Germanic language of the Low Countries from the Germanic language of the middle and south of present day Germany (Switzerland and Austria), they stuck to Dutch for the language of their neighbours and took 'German' for the language of present day Germany to distinguish it from Dutch. Since then Dutch speakers switched to another name for their language: Duitsch > Nederduitsch > Nederlands.
@@proinsiasbaiceir6580 interesting, so Deutsch/Duitsch/Dutch was originally a way to seperate the Germanic-speaking parts of the Frankish empire from the Romance-speaking parts. I always found it kind of weird that West Francia (France) kept the name France instead of East Francia (Germany) because most of the Franks lived in the Netherlands, Rhineland, Hesse, and Franconia, with the capital being Aachen, while the west was mostly Gallo-Roman with a Frankish ruling class. I know that this will likely never happen, but I think the most accurate and least confusing way to differentiate all the West-Germanic peoples in English would be something along the lines of English, Netherdutch, Flatdutch, and Highdutch. English of course referring to the Anglo-Saxons of Britain, Netherdutch referring to the Frankish speakers in the Netherlands and Belgium, Flatdutch referring to the Low-Germans or Plattdeutsch who are mostly descended from the Saxons and Frisians, and Highdutch referring to the High Germans (Hochdeutsch) of Bavaria, Austria, Swabia and Switzerland. The only group I'm unsure about is the descendants of the Franks in Germany, I don't know enough about how their dialects fit in to really categorise them, maybe Middledutch? In the end, we would also have to change the name of Germany to Dutchland and likely use Dutch as a catch-all term to describe everyone in Dutchland (Germany) and could call people from the Netherlands Netherdutch or Netherlanders. The reason I think this works well is, because it neatly divides the groups into the original divisions of Irminonic ( Suebi, Marcomanni, Alemanni, etc) Ingvaeonic (Frankish) and Istvaeonic ( Angles, Saxons, Frisians), with the exception being English because it has had a very unique history compared to the other languages and has no resemblance to Plattdeutsch anymore. If we did this in English we would no longer have the German vs Germanic confusion. I hope my rambling made enough sense lol.
The main issue is pseudo-intellectuals using the term "Germanic" to refer to German. It's actually comparable to using "Semitic" to refer to Jews while excluding Arabs, Berbers, Assyrians, Etc.
that is likely correct. It is an illiteracy among American English speakers of history problem, not a word problem. Once I lived in Deutschland, I realized that what we today call "german" is really just a part of of a greater or larger set of "germanic" history, cultures, languages, and ideas. Having studied Germania" in college, I was aware that what the Romans would call "Germania" was in fact a widely disparate group of individual cultures--each with its own unique dialect of the larger Germanic languages. But most Americans are not only not interested in history--unless it is about some sports team or other niche interest. Hell, most Americans know little to nothing about their own family history, let alone a broader knowledge of more ancient history.
The situation with the word Semitic is a bit different. The word „Antisemitism“ is an invention of the 19th century b people who hated Jews and needed a bogus scientific justification for it. So they coined the term „antisemitism“ to give their hate a mantle of respectability. They used the crude racial „science“ of the day to ascribe positive virtues to Germanic „race“ and negative ones to Jews, who they saw as belonging to the Semitic „race“. So in the context of speaking about Antisemitism, pointing out that there are other semitic peoples wouldn’t make any sense, because the word had a meaning that is detached from its original root.
@@nco_gets_it "... But most Americans are not only not interested in history--unless it is about some sports team or other niche interest. Hell, most Americans know little to nothing about their own family history, let alone a broader knowledge of more ancient history...." Nor do most blue-collar working class Germans. It's not a question of nationality, it's a question of priorities; if you're a forklift operator, chances are you have to acquire different skills than someone teaching at university. No matter which country you live in. The misunderstanding might come from the fact that in order for a German to be fluent in English, they're more likely to be well educated. And since that's very likely who will interact with you the most (if you don't speak German/don't speak German all that well), you'll get the wrong impression of the level of education in general. As a native German speaker I can tell you with absolute certainty that my love for history is typically met with bored indifference at best. Just like my eyes glaze over when someone tries to explain the intricacies of soccer to me.
Semitic often refers to Jews in non-linguistic context, I would go as far as to say that Semitic means "of the Jews" (outside of the linguistics) instead of its previous meaning of "of the Middle Eastern group that includes Arabs and Jews". Words change meaning, and it's important to remember context when reading a sentence or paragraph because meanings can change in one context but stay the same in another. That's why "Terrible" means something awful but "Terrific" means something great.
A perfect explanation. I am English but I am also a Deutsche Staatsangehörige, and so many people in England don't realise that English is Germanic. There are more than 10 Germanic languages.
02:58 Interestingly enough, in Mexican (Nahuatl) Germany is called "Teutonica" (literally translated), Estonians refer to Germany as "Saxony" and Germans as "Saxons" (literally translated).
@@dirkbimini5963 As a Dutch, well, it was Americans that screwed that one up. Duits/Deutsch versus Niederlande/Nederland. But then again being Dutch and speaking a Nether-Saxon dialect/language no confusion here.
@@Tripserpentine they are not the only ones. As an older german i still catch myself saying holland instead of nederlands. i do correct myself, though.
Uneducated people get confused by literally anything. Is that a problem of the languages now? Do we need to change over thousand years of languages in development for some people that don't get how languages work and how different languages are connected?
I'm German and I share the opinion that this confusio only exists in English. German = deutsch Germanic = germanisch In French, there's another little confusion German = allemand "allemand" derived from one Germanic tribe (the Allemannii, lit.: all men) that settled the regions of what is today southwestern Germany, Alsace, German-Switzerland. But Germany was formed by more tribes than just the Allemannii, I.e. the Franks, the Saxons, the Bavarians, the Thuringians, the Frisians
In Welsh we call Germany - Yr Almaen 🙂. The word 'window' in Welsh in 'ffenest', in French it's 'fenetre', in German it's 'fenster', in Latin it's 'fenestra'. It's the word that got me on to this linguistical journey.
@@ImaMacGregor I just did a quick search and Swedish is 'fonster'. Also a few other origins it mentioned - 'Window' from Old Norse - 'vindauga' meaning 'wind eye' and also 'eag(th)yrl' from Old English meaning 'eye hole' (can't find the 'thorn' letter on my keypad).
The lack of language awareness is reflected in the American-English language and not just where the Germanophony is concerned. As a French Canadian, I’ve been asked many times if I speak “Canadian” and it was a serious question, not in jest. Thanks for the video! It made me aware that this issue is more widespread than I realized.
Even Latin has Theodiscus and Teutonicus for Deutsch, even though they had kickstarted the inflationary use of the term Germanic{-us} in the first place lol
Right up there with Turkish and Turkic. English has a lot of those unfortunate similar names. Germanic-German, Turkish-Turkic, Indian-Indian. Glad my native tongue has different names for all of those.
Iranian-Iranic is another one. This is an especially bad one since even people who should know better insist on saying "Iranian" to refer to the Iranic peoples or language groups.
The Finnic languages are indeed part of the Finno-Ugric language family. However, not all Finnic languages are spoken in Finland. Here's a breakdown: Finnic Languages: - Finnish (spoken mostly in Finland) - Estonian (including Northern and Southern Estonian) is spoken in Estonia. Southern Estonian is sometimes considered a dialect of Estonian, but rather for political reasons rather than linguistic ones. - Livonian is spoken in Latvia (the last native speaker died in 2022 but there is a language revival movement). - Karelian, Ludic, Veps, Ingrian, and Votic are spoken in Russia. - Meänkieli is spoken in Sweden. - Kven is spoken in Norway. (Both Meänkieli and Kven are often considered dialects of Finnish by linguists.) These languages are collectively called the Finnic languages or sometimes Baltic Finnic languages. They are part of the larger Finno-Permic language group, which also includes the Permic languages (Udmurt, Komi, Permyak, Yazva) spoken near the Ural Mountains in Russia, the Sámi languages (spoken in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia), Mari (spoken in Russia), and the Mordvinic languages (Erzya and Moksha, spoken in Russia). Confusingly, the larger group of Finno-Permic languages is sometimes also called just "Finnic" languages. The Finno-Permic languages are a subgroup of the Finno-Ugric languages. The Finno-Ugric family also includes the Ugric languages: - Hungarian (spoken in and around Hungary). - Khanty and Mansi (spoken in Russia). I hope this clears things up?
Curiously, in Italian we don't have this problem because the word for German is "tedesco" (which is cognate with Deutsch and indicates both a person from Germany and the language) and the country is called "Germania", while "Germanic" is "germanico". All the different names for Germany and Germans in various languages have to do with the region and the people they had main contact with. English is a very interesting case
"tedesco" is actually a "germanic loanword" originated from the old germanic term - þeodisc - meaning kinda "belonging to the people" which got in the early medi eval times introduced into the medi eval Latin language as a latinized germanic term "theodisce" which had its first documented appearance in Latin in 786 C.E. The Germanic tribes as different as those were always refered to themselves as - þeodisc - as kinda an umbrella term in order to point out their common shared germanic culture with similar traditions and shared religion despite being part of different tribes. Basically kinda like saying "Despite I´m Alemannii, you are Baiuvarii, he is Suebi, the other one is Markomanni, Langobardi etc etc but we are all þeodisc"
Same in Swedish, and Scandinavian languages, we have "Tyskland": Germany, "tyskar" : Germans, and "tyska": German, with some differences in spelling and pronounciation, and then there are "germanska språk " : Germanic languages, and "germaner": those people who spoke Germanic and moved around in Europe and settled or got recruited by the Romans or whoever, but also rarely those who in present day speak Germanic languages, or descended from those "germaner".😂 English is a mess.
@@michaelgrabner8977 always thought its from the invading germanic tribe "Teutonen", afaik an early moving tribe (Kimbern + Teutonen), which the roman empire defeted somewhere in the alps.
Same in Dutch, "duits" for german and "germaans" for germanic. Saying that, I realise that Dutch can be another confusing term for English speakers, but that problem also doesn't exist in Dutch. We're Nederlanders. 😊 So, Nederlands, Duits, Germaans, all very clear.
In Finnish, the name for Germany is Saksa. So, it refers to Saxony, which is the coastal province of Germany that had the most dealings in the Baltic Sea.
@@uliwehner Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) is the modern name for the region, where the germanic tribe of the Saxons once lived. So the Finnish explanation became up-to-date again.
Very interesting since for a German there is no confusion at all. Deutsch = our language; germanic = our ancient past. Thanks though for the clarification!
I was unaware of this common misconception. It did make me think of the France. The ancestors of the French are Francs, who are Germanic people but they speak French, a Romance language. Do I have that right or not?
Yes the Francs conquered Gaul from the Romans, adopted Christianity and Latin which turned into French but they were only the ruling class and not the ancestors of most French.
@BobSlydell and to confuse things further: the franks settle also in the benelux and in parts of Germany making them an important part of the german culture aswell. Since Germany developed out of the east frankish realm.
Well interestingly Germany which is the other big contestant for the name succession of the Frankish empire, does call it's Western neighbor "Frankreich". (The unified Frankish empire is called "Frankenreich"). Andalusia in Spain is also named after a germanic group the Vandals. The Germanic people may have originated in Germany, but Medieval Western Europe was formed by thoroughly mixing up Germanic and Romance culture.
@@nacaclanga9947 Originally the Germanic people came from southern Scandinavia and then spread north and south, moved into Germany and pushed out the Celts.
@@panzrok8701 Well, that's not entirely decided. About 10 years ago, some (American) archeologists were excavating in the Harz mountains and decided that the Germanic tribes from there went north, settling Scandinavia. So things are still moving. The theory that mankind comes from Africa, is shaken also. Now we have Romania or Bulgaria, after finding a jaw-bone older than African findings.
Very good that someone adresses this problem. I´m interested in history for about 40 years. Germanic tribes are just one topic among many others for me. I´m German and I have always problems, if I explain ancient germanic history to English speaking friends, who have not cared much for history during their life but at some point got interested in certain questions about germanic tribes. May be the root of the problem is, when the Netherlands became independent from the German Empire. The English decided to continue to call the direct neighbourghs across the channel "dutch" and then had to find a new name for the people to the East of Netherlands.
My Alma mater had an English department, and a Germanic Languages and Literature department. I took a course in Late West Saxon, a Germanic language, but it was offered through the English department. The only language taught by the Germanic Languages department was German. I felt that English should have been part of that department as well.
I can't tell how many times I've had discussions with Americans who INSIST my language is 'German'. . eventhough I'm Danish Thanks for this And Skål : )
"Teutonic" or "Teutonish" is actually a really good term, if only we could shed its negative associations. That's because "Teuton" actually derives from proto-Germanic "*Þeudō" (or else from its Gaulish cognate "Touta"), which is the ancestor of the stem of German "Deutsch" and English "Dutch" (via Middle Low German "Dütsch" or Middle Dutch "Dūtsch"). "*Þeudō" means "people," and with the addition of "-ic" or "-ish," we could interpret this as "People's Language," which is similar to native terms for languages in many parts of the world.
"Teutonic" might work in English, but it might be kinda cringe for Balts and surrounding Slavs. You know, Teutonic knights, northern crusades, and all that…
@@dvv18 That was one of the reasons I thought we could modify it to "Teutonish." It's by no means perfect, but no term ever will be. And of course, like Jackson, I have no expectations that anyone would ever actually take my suggestion into account in the real world. :)
@@dvv18 Im pretty sure that in Polish and the Baltic languages they use different words and not anything related to Teutonic. In German they are just called Deutscher Orden (German order). Calling them Teutonic order is just a weird English thing again.
Germanic is a completely sufficient term. This video is basically nonsense. It’s a non-issue. He’s annoyed at people not being educated enough… well, I’ll be damned but there will always be some of those. Doesn’t matter what you do. But fact of the matter is that you actually already have enough terms to differentiate between the different branches of Germanic. Maybe he should simply spent some time making a video to educate people on those terms, instead of making this imo quite embarrassing, anti-historical video with a bunch of incorrect claims. The reason why some people use Germanic and German interchangeably is because the term Germanic was created and used for the ancient German people living right in todays borders of Germany, not anywhere else. So it really makes some sense actually if you think about it. It was the first area recorded and described as Germanic, with others being known about afterwards so you have the term Germanic being based on the geographical location of Germany like northern Germanic for the Nordics for example. Makes sense, right?
@@Ultima-Signa The word German is more of a problem. The English should have stayed with Dutch/Dutchland and call the Dutch Netherlanders. Calling Germany Germany is like calling Russia Slavia.
When I hear the word Germanic I think of the Germanic tribes that migrated down from the northern latitudes starting several thousand years ago. Perhaps the first time Rome had contact was with the Cimbri around 110 BC. They spread all over Europe over thousands of years. Had a few fights with the Romans. I don't often think of this as applying to the modern nation of Germany. Maybe that's just me.
Not just you! It’s how I picture it as well. Granted our view may be wrong too, but I’m not sure. The Germanic tribes were basically just the “barbarians” of the times.
Another thing many english speaking people do is to confuse the word Norse with Norwegian. Yes Norwegians are descendants of the Norse but so are Danish,swedes, Icelandic and a bunch more. And for some reason back in the olden days many people referred to Danish tounge about all the nordic languages not only Danish. And last the borders between Sweden, Norway and Denmark have been very fluent over the years so pinpointing if someone was from a certain country can be very hard to do. And in some cases the nations was not founded yet so the reference may refer to a tribe that was not stationary.
i always loved the irony of the name Nemec. If you live in say chechia it says "german", and when you move to germany it says: not german. or think of names like nemechek.
@@anotherelvis Germanic is very much a heritage group. England, Norway, and Austria all have distinct cultures from each other, but there's certain attitudes and traditions that we have in common because of our shared heritage from way back when. As a German who's traveled, I know I have a lot more in common culturally with Swedes than I do with Italians, even though the Italians are right across the border and have had a much stronger impact on our history overall. Language is indistinguishable from heritage.
@@anotherelvis it's also heritage as Germanic people were the people north of the Roman Empire, it was however many different tribes and Germanic is what Rome called them , however they all once spread from Scandinavia , being Germanic is like being Slavic or Celtic it's from different cultures Germanic people were those who worshiped Odin although in some places he was called Wooden
From what I studied it used to be more common to use "Dutch" in a way similar to how we use Germanic at least in regards to continentals. For example "Pennsylvania Dutch" referred to those not from the Netherlands but from the broad Palatinate to northern Swiss regions. Problem is that in English due to historic neighboring geography the word Dutch has almost exclusively come to refer to people from the Netherlands. I believe though that before the unified country of Germany came to exist in 1871 that the term Dutch was a non-latinate equivalent to at least continental Germanic.
"Scandic" could've worked. The origin of the Germanic branching seems to have been in what today is southern Sweden, Denmark and the Baltic coast of Germany.
@@MichaelBerthelsen As Jackson said, "Baltic" is already in use for a different group of languages (Latvian, Lithuanian are among them). "Scandic" alone would avoid confusion with any other language or group of languages.
But it’s completely incorrect and anti-historical to do this. The Romans with their written records, researchers and historians named the region Germania and the people living there Germanic. End of story. This is a non-issue. You already have a way to differentiate via the different tribal names + north-Germanic, west-Germanic, east-Germanic, Scandinavian. This video is nonsense, with a lot of outright mis- seemingly even dis-information …
In comparison to the terminological issues plaguing the German-speaking area from a linguistic perspective when it comes to "intra-German linguistics", the "German vs. Germanic" distinction almost seems trivial. For "Standard German" (as opposed to the local dialects), we usually say "Hochdeutsch" ("High German") - thinking that "high" means a value judgement on how well one speaks. In reality, etymologically, it just means that the "upper" (i.e. more mountainous and therefore more Southern regions) had a bigger influence on what today is considered Standard German than the "lower" (i.e. more flat and therefore more Northern regions) of the German-speaking area - which at the time also included Dutch as a "dialect". Then we have the problem that "Swiss German" can mean one of two totally different things: schweizerisches Deutsch (the written variety of German used in Switzerland, which is different from written "German German" only as much as written British English is different from written American English) or "Schweizerdeutsch" which refers to the group of High Alemannic and Highest Alemannic dialects spoken in everyday life in the German-speaking part of Switzerland that are unintelligible to most other German speakers. Then you have the "Bavarian" dialect group - i.e. the group of dialects spoken in Austria except its most-Western part, in most of the German-speaking part of Italy, and yes, also in most of the German state of Bavaria, but not in all of it. But in linguistics, it's still called "Bavarian" even though it is mostly spoken in Austria. One interesting thing about German, I think, is that because the dialectal isoglosses never fully coincided with political boundaries, it did not split up into individual standardized languages.
It's even weirder and funnier, when you take into account that the word German or Germanic - used by Julius Caesar - somehow makes no sense. It's not clear, if he realy knew about that one very minor tribe somewhere in northern Germany that might had that name or if he just made that word up. In Caesars' era, the area what is now Germany was mostly inhabited by celtic tribes in the southern parts as far up as to the central lor mountain ranges. And the area east of River Elbe had been inhabited by Germanic tribes, but later were settled by Slavs and had to be retaken by force over a couple of centuries. We still have a small slavic minority in Brandenburg and Sachsen today, the Sorbs. So, this is probably the same as if we internationally would call the Celtic languages instead 'Pictish', because someone at some time just found it appropriate, we would internationally call Scotland 'Pictland' because of course the Romans, and would have a nice and surely neeeever ever missleading 'pictish'/'pictlandish' distinction and would for some other strange reason call some english people who live abroad 'Pictishs', while the English would refer to them only as 'Southlanders'.🤣
Wait until you find about the etymology of other peoples‘ countries and their inconsistencies and how much that actually makes sense, like France/Gaul, or Spain/Andalusia for example 😂 do you really think the Romans treated other areas all that much different, specifically the early romans?
@9:01 I’d be really interested to know about those “really old English-language works” that refer to the Germanic languages as “Gothic languages”. Would you mind sharing them?
Yeah. Just last week I was dealing with someone who claimed that “The entire english language is more or less derived from German”; said that I was confusing them when I explained that English came from Proto-Germanic, not from German, and that English is more closely related to other Germanic languages than it is to German; and then insisted that “German is known to be one of, if not the easiest language to learn for English speakers” and ignored me when I explained that the reason why they’re confused is because they’re equating German with Germanic when they’re not the same thing and sent them a link to an article by the Foreign Service Institute saying that Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and Swedish are easier to learn for English-speakers than German is.
@@autumnphillips151 Well, you were not right with either points. Both languages belong to the West-Germanic languages branch, English being the easier version of the two. I guess, a 1000 or so years ago, we wouln't have had much of a language barrier. I have always considered it a shame, that English speakers never take the opportunity of learning such a closely related language - be it only for the sake of German literature or reading historic sources of interest. You consider the languages listed by you easier for English speakers to learn than German (or maybe Dutch/Frisian)? No way. Do you even speak German?
@@anna-elisabethbender3123 I think it’s quite obvious that you don’t want to learn and don’t have the reading comprehension skills to do so even if you wanted to, but English is a North Sea Germanic language and its closest relatives are Scots, North Frisian, Saterland Frisian, West Frisian, and Low Saxon. English came from Middle English, which came from Old English, which came from the Anglo-Frisian branch of the North Sea branch of the Western branch of Proto-Germanic, which came from Proto-Indo-European. German came from Middle High German, which came from Old High German, which came from a mix of Frankish (which was Weser-Rhine Germanic) and Elbe Germanic dialects, which came from the Western branch of Proto-Germanic, which came from Proto-Indo-European. And I have no reason to believe that the Foreign Service Institute’s many years of expert research and teaching languages have lead them to have false conclusions about how easily English-speakers can learn certain other languages, and I’m sure that you don’t know better than them. And do you even speak Swedish? I’ve been learning Swedish, and it’s extremely similar to English, probably thanks to both the huge influence that Low Saxon had on the Scandinavian languages when it was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League and the huge influence that Old Norse had on Old English.
@@paradoxmowell the british conquered Sri Lanka in 1817 . The Deutsche Einigung was founded in 1866. Before 1866 Britain would have been dealing with states like Prussia or Hanover. The historical connection of the british language with Germany is shorter then its connection with Ceylon.
@@francesconicoletti2547what exactly are you referring to in 1866? Cause Einigung (unification) can't be funded, do you maybe mean Norddeutscher Bund?
I humbly suggest that English-language scholars (or scholarly hobbyists) should avoid the confusion by calling the German language(s) Deutsch and Dutch Nederlands. Same goes for the modern nations: call them Deutschland & Nederland. Then any term with the stem german- (like germanic) can be understood to be an umbrella term. Great vid, great channel, thx JC!
As a german myself, I always wondered why my people are called different ways, depending on which language you use: tedeski, saska, aleman, niemcy or german....just to name a few. And we ourselfs call ourselfs deutsch. Which is a word that's not based on a name... but on a verb. To be deutsch means: to be able to understand the common language. But english speakers picked Germany, as the name for my country. Why, out of all options, the most confusing one? The actual germanic people had been the ancestors to most of the northern europeans of theese days... yeah, I know, not of the finns. But that's another story. Let's come back to the actual problem... to call one nation german is like... calling England "the celts" Sure, there have been celts in england. But in France, Belgium, Ireland and maybe a dozend other european countries, as well. So, why on earth would you call a modern nation Celts? Can't you see that it meight be a little confusing? Then, why did you english speakers call my people germans? We are deutsch. If you talk about germans to actual germans, the first thing that comes to their mind are bearded, axe weaving barbarians, from two thousand years ago... you know, those guys who constantly battled against the Roman Empire. The ancestors to the Vikings. But hey, we are used to the bidder fact that every nation on earth seems to pick their own special name for us... So, germans it is. ... and it's way better than Niemcy. Ask some polish people. They will tell you why 😉
"To call one nation german is like... calling England "the celts" Sure, there have been celts in england. But in France, Belgium, Ireland and maybe a dozend other european countries, as well." Doesn't calling one single nation "Deutschland" pose the same problem, because there just as well has been deutsch people in South Tyrol, Austria, Liechtenstein, DDR etc.
Has anyone considered naming the languages by the wider geography? Ancient North and Baltic Sea languages for example. This would cover them all I believe. You could then say this includes Old English and German if asked what they are.
I think this should be it. Language families should be named after where their proto-language started. Nordic for Germanic languages. Northern Alpine for Italic/Romance and Celtic. Etc
For heavens sake, why? Because some American students cannot come to terms with history or proper terminology?? Our languages have been categorized into North/West/East Germanic languages for a long time. English and German being West Germanic, just for example. Germanic or German? If this is already a problem, how wii these students get a degree?
German: The language is Deutsch, the country is Deutschland, the neighboring country is called Niederland and the language is Niederländisch Dutch: the language is Nederlands and the country is Nederland. The neighboring country is Duitsland and the language is Duits. Pretty clear to me that Germany should be called Dutchland and the language should be called Dutch, the Netherlands is fine but the language should be called Netherlandic. This would reserve German and Germanic both exclusively for reference to the language family
For me as a German the English way to refer to us is weird to begin with as has been pointed out. I'd be totally fine with renaming the country/language. Tyskland, Duitsland, Düütsland or something like that feels much more at home than 'Germany'. Then 'the Germanic languages' would work better. Of course it's out of scope, but still.
Mainland germanic languages can all be called varieties of "Brabantish" (after a southern Dutch joke). In Germany that would become "Very Eastern Brabantish"
How about 'Thiudish', hearkening back to the original proto-Germanic term "thiudiskaz". That would differentiate it from German and Dutch in all the languages, not just English. I also like how it is the archaic term. The Scandinavian language speakers could call it 'Thiudisk', which would be even closer to the original term. I like it better than 'Teutonic'. But I am also OK with Teutonic, as it is similar and already has some previous traction.
Wouldn't really work in other germanic languages as english and icelandic are the only major germanic languages that retain the "th" sound. However I would love to see the english name for germany change to "Thiudland" or something similar
@@Klodhvig - Good point.. the other germanic languages would wind up pronouncing it with a 't' or a 'd' sound. At that point it would probably wind up sounding too similar to "Deutsch" or "Tysk" :)
The goths came from Sweden according to Roman sources . And first moved to Poland and much later migrated south. So they are not the root of Germanic languages.
Actually the word "teutonisch" is used in german to describe typical german virtues or behavior etc. in an ironic way. Also the historic "Deutscher Orden" is in english known as "Teutonic Order". So it would make more sense to call Germans Teutons than the Germanics.
I think Germanic is a good term for it. Proto-Germanic was probably spoken in what the Romans a bit later called Germania. To associate Germanic with modern day Germany is quite appropriate in my mind. That's the hub of ancient Germanic peoples and languages. Of course modern day Denmark (and the Netherlands) is also important, but Germany is close enough to the idea. Of course we have to anyway always explain some of it to non-academics. Here we just need to distinguish ancient Germanic from modern German so that people don't think that the modern variety is somehow more "Germanic" than any other. But that's with any linguistic idea, you have to just explain it briefly.
dutch prinzibly means deutsch the pensilvania dutch speakers ... they usually call there langurage deitsch wich is pretty much how we here in southwest germany where those guys came from also refere to deutsch...
As in some languages its speakers call their own people just 'human beings' mostly in an archaic form, this might be an idea for an English alternative for 'Germanic'. Most modern Germanic languages use a cognate of German 'Mensch' for 'human being'. In English that form got extinct. Middle English had 'mennish' (meaning people). The word comes from a Protogermanic word which originaly was an adjective. So English could revive 'Mennish' giving it a new meaning: 'Germanic'. As the confusing German-Germanic is just an English problem, the other Germanic languages can stick to their cognates of 'Germanic'.
Don’t underestimate your influence on the English language as spoken, by giving hope to the remnant that keeps “wh” unvoiced, like in “where” and “when”. Also, I believe Teuton is cognate with Deutsch, Dutch, and Tedesco. The Nemyetsky Languages has a nice ring to it.
As a German Id propose to call German -> Dutch and Dutch -> Netherlandic, this would make more sense etymologically and would be more practical, since the reason the dutch are called dutch is because back then they called themselves "duitsch" or "nederduitsch" until they started to distance themselves from us
My grandfather would say " what tribe are YOU from? " As a child I thought he was referring to native Americans but he meant historically. Just a few thousand years ago we were nomad groups.
"Teutonic" languages is perfect in the already wacky way of saying things in English. Would be a lot easier to get people on board with naming a language family they arent really familiar with altogether than renaming the German language they already are familiar with.
Would it be fair to say that Germanic is a subset of Celt, given specifically Brythonic or Cymru/Cymraeg shares words with what we know of as Germanic? Or is that more likely to be cross polinisation lingustics?
I was at a monument in Germany where it spelled "die Deutschen" as "die Teutschen." As Germany has many dialects that pronounce words differently, I'm assuming that this could have been before the written language was standardized. I thought it looked like the word Teutonic Knights. So, I'm wondering if there is a relation, perhaps over time the unvoiced T became a voiced D. I can't remember for sure but I think it was in Bavaria. If so, maybe an old Bavarian form.
@@Jefff72 yes, Teutonic comes from the same root as Deutsch, which is Proto-Germanic *theodan/theodisc. In most Germanic languages it shifted to voiced, and became diutisk and then eventually Deutsch. In Latin it was borrowed via Celtic and didn’t undergo the voicing, yielding “teutonicus”. I’m not sure if the “Teutschen” is meant to refer to ancient Teutoni or to modern Germans, perhaps that was the difference?
As best I can remember I first came across the term Germanic at the age of 10 when I was reading about the Battle of the Cataulanian Plains and the disposition of the various Germanic tribes. I had no problem distinguishing between modern Germany created in 19th Century and the various Germanic tribes that were historically recognized 2000 years prior to that. The fact that some people 10 years or more older than I was at that time do not have the ability to understand that distinction means that their intellectual strength does not lie in language based analyses. I have a grandson whose mechanical analytical ability has been superior to mine since he was 8 years old, and I am not lacking in that area. But he struggles with language. My wife with 2 engineering masters degrees from top ranked schools did not speak until she was 4 years old and still struggles with languages. The problem isn't with the words, it is people taking courses in areas outside their zones of intellectual competency and not recognizing that.
BTW, is it just a coincidence that, in English, "german" also means "cousin" (sorta)? .Or might *that* be why we chose *that* term to refer to our cousins across the German (i.e. North) Sea?
I like the suggestion of Gothic. I also wonder if Runic or “Futhic” as an homage to the runic alphabets could work; admittedly, I have no idea if other languages used a runic alphabet but I’d personally prefer these over Germanic.
Oh, that’s the best suggestion I’ve seen! The word “runes” refers specifically to the writing systems used by Germanic peoples, no one else. The only problem I can see is that “Runic” implies that they are written in runes, and that’s of course not the case with modern Germanic languages, so it might be interpreted as only referring to ancient Germanic languages.
I am german. An idea to solve this issue could be to replace "german" by "deutsch" or even "deutsh" to get it clear as the english version of this word. Then you would just adapt to other western germanic languages (dutch and german for example. I do speak both).
@@Kjalarrr One thing that was raising some red flags for me was how he was unsure about the term "teutonic" half-implying there was a bad connotation with it. Teutonic is in the end just the Latin form of the word "Deutsch" and also "Dutch".
I just think that Germanic is the oldest common term for an area where peoples and tribes spoke the languages that we want to describe. IIRC, the Allemanni were based more in the area of modern-day Austria, Czechia, and Hungary. Gothic sounds nice, too, but it is a later term.
It's indeed very unlikely that there is any relation between ger-manic and ger = spear, just a coincidence. Especially as there is no evidence for the word ger = spear in the oldest time, Tacitus mentions (c. 6) the spear as most commen weapon among the germanic tribes and even gives the germanic word: framea. A word wich is totally extinct today and derivations of it are not used in any germaic language for spear anymore, but is clearly not related to ger.
@@Ulfberth What you said is true, but 100% beside the point I made. The word "German(ia)" itself is used by Caesar and Tacitus If the etymology of that word would be Ger-man = Spear-man, then the Germanic word for Spear in the time of Ceasar and Tacitus should be "ger". As luck preserved us the germanic word for spear in the time of Tacitus (one of the very few germanic words at all the Roman historians give us, most other words are only names of people or tribes), and that word is NOT ger, we can be sure that the etymology of Ger-man = Spear-man is wrong. That is not only my personal theory, the spear-etymology is rejected by every scholar writing about ancioent germanic history or language. At least those scholars who still bother to mention that theory, what (more or less) newer books don't even do at all. This proven wrong etymology is not even mentioned anymore for example by Bleckmann, Die Germanen 2009 or Wolfram, Die Germanen, ed.9, 2009. P.S. (edited): You said "almost nothing of the Germanic language has been handed down from this "oldest time" of Ceasar and Tacitus." Yes. Almost. But the word for spear is. Tacitus, Germania c. 6: hastas, vel ipsorum vocabulo frameas gerunt.
@@Ulfberth 1. Modern scholars think the theory of Ger-man = spear-man is not woth mentioning. 2. Your only argument for that theory is the fact that nearly a millenium after the name Germani came up, there is a word "ger" = spear in some Germanic languages. 3. The fact that Tacitus provides us another word for spear can be ignored, because there could be several words. Some of the things you say are true. There could indeed be several words for spear-like weapons, like there are today, English spear, lance, javelin or German Speer, Lanze, Spieß. And it is true that we have the word ger = spear in much later sources. But where is the positive evidence for your claim Ger-man = spear-man? Or, even one step before that, where is your positive evidence for ger = spear in the age of Tacitus and Ceasar? Of course there COULD BE several names for that type of weapon. "Could be" is not evidence.
@@Ulfberth @2 and 3: Either frame(a) is a germanic word, or Tacitus, for no reason, invented a germanic word that somehow fits linguistic to Germanic *framje/a- (bringing forward) from ahd. fremmen, old saxon fremmian, old english framian, old friesish fremma with that meaning. What was your reason to mistrust his account... wait, let me see, yes, he was a Roman. @4: Strawman at it's best. While the theory that the word German derives from Gaulish indeed exists, that is not was most scholars or even a notable percentage say. The most accepted "explanation" is actual works about germanic history is... we don't know the origin of the word. I definetly prefer scholars who admit that we don't know the answer to a certain question over pure speculation without any evidence. @ "but I also see no clear evidence why it doesn't have to be correct." Hitchens's razor. What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. German beeing derived from ger-man = spear-man is a positive claim. Burden of proof is on those who make that claim.
@@Ulfberth "That Framea means Spear is a positive claim. That Framea is THE Germanic Word for Spear is a positive claim. Burden of proof is on who makes that claim. What proof does Tacitus have? What do you have? ; " My proof is Tacitus' account. He wrote in a time when the Germanic language, before splitting up into the different languages we have today, was still in use. He had the possibility to speak to Germanic people directly in Rome, at least slaves, probably others like merchants. It's his unambigous account that framea is the Germanic word for lat. hasta. Hastas, vel ipsorum vocabulo frameas gerunt.
Interesting. I see what you mean but it never even occurred to me as potentially confusing and I don't recall hearing anyone else complain. But obviously I wouldn't have the same exposure to students asking the question.
I recall reading that it was referring to the fact that the homelands of the Indo-European languages stretch from Iceland in the northwest to the Indian subcontinent in the southeast-basically the same reasons for the term “Indo-European”, plus just pointing out that the Germanic languages were geographically the furthest from the Indo-Iranic languages and that the other Indo-European branches were between them.
We don't have this "problem" in Norwegian as we say "germansk" or "germanske språk" for instance, but we don't have the word "German" for the specific group of people (we say tysk/tysker/tyskere). I don't really see it as a problem anyway, though. German, Germanic, both good terms. People are perfectly able to understand that Anglo Americans aren't "English" in "that" way. Or that not everyone who speaks English *is* English. Can't see that Germanic vs German is any more difficult to understand.
you actually see people all the time confusing German with Germanic , even Brits who think the Anglo-Saxons who invaded England were all Germans because they were Germanic tribes, they were however more Danes and Dutch than Germans , although the very Northern most part of modern Germany between Denmark and the Netherlands were also included , that is where the ancient Saxons lived, not as now where Saxony is in a more central part of Germany , Angles came from Denmark and so did Jutes who also were part of the Germanic tribes invading England, plus Frisians from the Netherlands
@@veronicajensen7690 True. That a bit like Jyllanders thinking that the Danes who invaded Jutland were "Swedes" or came "from Sweden" because largest chunk of the Danes' ancient original territory (Skåne) is in Sweden now, but Sjælland still excepted ofc.
i think the only reasonable choice is Tuetonic, but if we rule that out, one that might be interesting would be Hundic, (or possibly just Hund?) on the pattern of Centum/Satem. another option might be Hanseatic, which while it does have the drawbacks of being a) anachronistic and b) not particularly inclusive, it has the benefit of sounding like a language, and while it could cause confusion with the other meaning of the word, anyone who knows enough to care about the hanseatic league should know enough not to get confused.
As someone who has always been fascinated with languages and learning about Proto-Indo-European and about the history and peoples of ancient Europe, I always understood that there were several different Germanic tribes (the ancestors and cousins of modern Germans) that spoke dialects of Indo-European that diverged into several different languages that were part of the Germanic sub-family/branch of Indo-European. So it is only logical to think that while all Germans are Germanic, not all Germanics are German. It was made pretty clear in the books I have read about these subjects in my earlier years and school days, as I was once an avid reader. I never was confused about the matter at all. If young'ins and other people who are not so inclined in critical thinking skills and logic are befuddled by the matter, I do not think it is the fault of the teachers or of the subject matter itself. The heart of the confusion with modern folks seem to lie within their short attention spans. I see no fault with the terms used to describe these languages and the people/tribes that spoke therm, IMHO.
Hey there's an alternate history video (can link if needed) that explores what Europe could have been like if sea levels were lower and Britain was connected to the mainland. There, he proposes calling the area Lividia, from Latin, unsure of exact origin. So it's slightly different but Lividian as opposed to Germanic could work.
I feel like I've heard the term 'North Sea languages' in some modern works. Which I feel could be an apt replacement. If we necessarily need a replacement at all.
How about "Theodisc languages"? From an actually attested native Germanic term people used to refer to themselves (at least in West-Germanic speaking territories. Not sure if a cognate term with similar meaning existed in the north.) Excerpt from Wikipedia: Theodiscus (in Medieval Latin, corresponding to Old English þēodisc, Old High German diutisc and other early Germanic reflexes of Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz, meaning "popular" or "of the people")
I understand and agree that it is an interesting problem but at the same time I always hate it when we have to adapt to ignorance. Lowering the bar instead of rising it.
That'd limit it's area or peoples to the Teutsch like in semplicissimus Teutsch, and the land of the teutsch/teutonic aka Teutschland and not to germanic and indo-germanic languages.
Does anyone know whether the following fact is related to this question? From the last centuries of the Holy Roman Empire in the Early Modern Period onwards, the ruler used the official royal title of „König in Germanien“ when documents ceased to be written in Latin. Although this title, refering to the royal dominion of the Holy Roman Emperors over what is today Germany, practically could be translated as “King of Germany”, the literal translation is “King in Germania”. This wording is a little untypical for this period and can as far as I know only be found in another royal title of the 18th century: „König in Preußen“: When in 1701 Margrave Frederick III of Brandenburg, Duke of Prussia, crowned himself “King in Prussia”, he intentionally avoided to style himself “King of Prussia” in order not to offend the King of Poland, who at that time ruled the western half of the historic region that was then called Prussia. Meanwhile the title “König in Germanien” has a very similar wording. They could have just styled themselves „König von Deutschland“ (King of Germany) although I am unsure whether the word Germany was at that time already totally established as the term for the German nation. But even if, why did they not style themselves „König von Germanien“ (King of Germania)? Maybe it is similar to the Prussian question in that they didnʼt want to offend other Germanic nations like the Dutch, the Danes, Swedish or Norwegian, by implicitly claiming the whole of Germania (all Germanic countries). Instead they might have chosen to just stick with “King in Germania”
People get confused because they seem to think that the countries that exist today always existed. In other words, people think very nationally which doesn't always line up with ethnicity or culture or language. I am very Germanic on both sides of my family. My grandparents immigrated here, not from Germany but from what was Austro-Hungary. Spoke a germanic language that wasn't german as my brother found out when he took german in high school & tried to talk to Granma lol. My Dad's side very clearly Nordic & Irish (based on the sir names & appearance)
Thanks for an interesting video,DrC. :) Why not give Teutonic a bit of a push? It's distinctive enough from other terms. In Italian they use Germania for the country but Tedesco for the people. If they used the same construction as they do for Austria (Austriaco) then German would be Germaniaco or an interesting translation to English Ger-maniacs.
I see what you are striving at, but I don't think it is really germane. That moment where you were speechless reaching mentally for a new term was priceless, haha. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for a brilliant suggestion from a subject matter expert because I was stumped. Tacitusian ?
As a German it is really weird to talk about these things in English. It's like you said, it's like planting a German flag or at least it is often misunderstood that way. There is no close connection for me between the words "Deutsch" and "Germanisch" but that distinction gets really blurry when speaking English. I still find the mess in terminology quite amusing. Especially when it comes to the word "Dutch". Must be annoying for Pennsylvania Dutch people though.
I propose "Jutish Languages". Jutland (the Danish peninsula) is the proposed ancient homeland of the germanic people who migrated north, east south and west from there to become the distinct people we know today. It was even the starting point of the Angles who went to Britain. And it is still the border area in which west-germanic (german etc) and north-germanic (danish etc) languages meet.
As a flemish person ( dutch speaking belgian) i never even knew it was hard to distinguish German ("Duits ") and Germanic ( "Germaans") for native english speakers, as we ourselves have 2 quite different words for it. It seemed quite obvious. So quite nice to have an explenation why it is do hard for english speakers . Thanks 🤘❤️🇺🇲🇧🇪🇪🇺
To be clear here...I suspect it is an American problem. Our "education" system fails us so deeply that we have no concept of history, no idea where so many modern things actually come from, and no idea whatsoever of our place in history. It is sad but true to paraphrase Metallica...LOL
I believe during the time of the Holy Roman Empire when all the Dutch were unified, English referred to everyone from Austria to Flanders as Dutch, I think the mistake first started around the time of the Netherlands' independence and since the English had more contact with the Netherlands and Flanders we applied the name Dutch to them and differentiated the rest as Germans.
@@SilverWolf09100 I wrote about the same a minute ago before I saw that you already mentioned the same idea.
@@SilverWolf09100 It started earlier. The cognate for 'Dutch' as the name for the language seems to originate from the area in about present day Belgium, north of the language border with French. There the Germanic speakers originally called their language Frankish, because they were Franks. But when the Franks had conquered Gaul that also became part of the Frankish empire (hence Latin Francia > French France) and eventually its Romance speakers began calling themselves 'Franks' as well and their language also 'Frankish' (in its Romance form), hence present day 'Franc,ais'. So to distinguish their Germanic Frankish from Romance Frankish (old French), they began to refer to their language als 'Thiudisk', which in Middle Dutch became 'Duitsch' or 'Dietsch'. This name 'Thiudisk' was stimulated by Charlemagne and his successors for all Germanic dialects in their empire, as a unifying term. So gradually Germanic speakers in present day Germany started to use the word as well. So then 'Dutch' was used for a lot of Germanic dialects from the North Sea into the Alpine region. As the difference between those dialects grew bigger, a distinction was made between 'Low German' and 'High German'. High German (Hochdeutsch) was gradually replaced by just German 'Deutsch'. Apart from words like Flemish, Brabatian, Hollandish the general name for the more and more unifying Dutch language became 'Nederduitsch' (Low German). However the German dialects of Northern German were called 'Niederdeutsch' (in High German), so also 'Nederduitsch' got confusing. During the 19th century 'Nederlands' finally became the general Dutch name for what in English is called 'Dutch'.
So English adopted 'Dutch' when the Dutch speakers were still calling their own language 'Duitsch' or 'Dietsch'. And when English speakers felt it necessary to distinguish the Germanic language of the Low Countries from the Germanic language of the middle and south of present day Germany (Switzerland and Austria), they stuck to Dutch for the language of their neighbours and took 'German' for the language of present day Germany to distinguish it from Dutch. Since then Dutch speakers switched to another name for their language: Duitsch > Nederduitsch > Nederlands.
@@proinsiasbaiceir6580 interesting, so Deutsch/Duitsch/Dutch was originally a way to seperate the Germanic-speaking parts of the Frankish empire from the Romance-speaking parts. I always found it kind of weird that West Francia (France) kept the name France instead of East Francia (Germany) because most of the Franks lived in the Netherlands, Rhineland, Hesse, and Franconia, with the capital being Aachen, while the west was mostly Gallo-Roman with a Frankish ruling class.
I know that this will likely never happen, but I think the most accurate and least confusing way to differentiate all the West-Germanic peoples in English would be something along the lines of English, Netherdutch, Flatdutch, and Highdutch. English of course referring to the Anglo-Saxons of Britain, Netherdutch referring to the Frankish speakers in the Netherlands and Belgium, Flatdutch referring to the Low-Germans or Plattdeutsch who are mostly descended from the Saxons and Frisians, and Highdutch referring to the High Germans (Hochdeutsch) of Bavaria, Austria, Swabia and Switzerland. The only group I'm unsure about is the descendants of the Franks in Germany, I don't know enough about how their dialects fit in to really categorise them, maybe Middledutch? In the end, we would also have to change the name of Germany to Dutchland and likely use Dutch as a catch-all term to describe everyone in Dutchland (Germany) and could call people from the Netherlands Netherdutch or Netherlanders.
The reason I think this works well is, because it neatly divides the groups into the original divisions of Irminonic ( Suebi, Marcomanni, Alemanni, etc) Ingvaeonic (Frankish) and Istvaeonic ( Angles, Saxons, Frisians), with the exception being English because it has had a very unique history compared to the other languages and has no resemblance to Plattdeutsch anymore. If we did this in English we would no longer have the German vs Germanic confusion.
I hope my rambling made enough sense lol.
The main issue is pseudo-intellectuals using the term "Germanic" to refer to German. It's actually comparable to using "Semitic" to refer to Jews while excluding Arabs, Berbers, Assyrians, Etc.
that is likely correct. It is an illiteracy among American English speakers of history problem, not a word problem. Once I lived in Deutschland, I realized that what we today call "german" is really just a part of of a greater or larger set of "germanic" history, cultures, languages, and ideas. Having studied Germania" in college, I was aware that what the Romans would call "Germania" was in fact a widely disparate group of individual cultures--each with its own unique dialect of the larger Germanic languages. But most Americans are not only not interested in history--unless it is about some sports team or other niche interest. Hell, most Americans know little to nothing about their own family history, let alone a broader knowledge of more ancient history.
The situation with the word Semitic is a bit different.
The word „Antisemitism“ is an invention of the 19th century b people who hated Jews and needed a bogus scientific justification for it. So they coined the term „antisemitism“ to give their hate a mantle of respectability. They used the crude racial „science“ of the day to ascribe positive virtues to Germanic „race“ and negative ones to Jews, who they saw as belonging to the Semitic „race“.
So in the context of speaking about Antisemitism, pointing out that there are other semitic peoples wouldn’t make any sense, because the word had a meaning that is detached from its original root.
@@nco_gets_it "... But most Americans are not only not interested in history--unless it is about some sports team or other niche interest. Hell, most Americans know little to nothing about their own family history, let alone a broader knowledge of more ancient history...."
Nor do most blue-collar working class Germans. It's not a question of nationality, it's a question of priorities; if you're a forklift operator, chances are you have to acquire different skills than someone teaching at university. No matter which country you live in.
The misunderstanding might come from the fact that in order for a German to be fluent in English, they're more likely to be well educated. And since that's very likely who will interact with you the most (if you don't speak German/don't speak German all that well), you'll get the wrong impression of the level of education in general.
As a native German speaker I can tell you with absolute certainty that my love for history is typically met with bored indifference at best. Just like my eyes glaze over when someone tries to explain the intricacies of soccer to me.
Semitic often refers to Jews in non-linguistic context, I would go as far as to say that Semitic means "of the Jews" (outside of the linguistics) instead of its previous meaning of "of the Middle Eastern group that includes Arabs and Jews". Words change meaning, and it's important to remember context when reading a sentence or paragraph because meanings can change in one context but stay the same in another. That's why "Terrible" means something awful but "Terrific" means something great.
A perfect explanation. I am English but I am also a Deutsche Staatsangehörige, and so many people in England don't realise that English is Germanic. There are more than 10 Germanic languages.
02:58 Interestingly enough, in Mexican (Nahuatl) Germany is called "Teutonica" (literally translated), Estonians refer to Germany as "Saxony" and Germans as "Saxons" (literally translated).
Instead of changing the word "Germanic" to something else, we should start saying "Deutsch" instead of "German".
The word would be too close to Dutch in my oppinion.
@@dirkbimini5963 Well, we could switch to calling that "Nederlands"...
@@RowanAckermanOr Netherlandish
@@dirkbimini5963 As a Dutch, well, it was Americans that screwed that one up. Duits/Deutsch versus Niederlande/Nederland. But then again being Dutch and speaking a Nether-Saxon dialect/language no confusion here.
@@Tripserpentine they are not the only ones. As an older german i still catch myself saying holland instead of nederlands. i do correct myself, though.
don't know if this confusion is only in the English language. But in Swedish Germanic = Germanska and German= Tyska
I think Tyska just comes from the same root Deutsch and Dutch come from and means "of the people"
@@eothorn3217no, it does not mean „of the people“, it means „how the people talk“
Uneducated people get confused by literally anything. Is that a problem of the languages now? Do we need to change over thousand years of languages in development for some people that don't get how languages work and how different languages are connected?
Its similar for Norwegian and Danish. German = Tysk
I'm German and I share the opinion that this confusio only exists in English.
German = deutsch
Germanic = germanisch
In French, there's another little confusion
German = allemand
"allemand" derived from one Germanic tribe (the Allemannii, lit.: all men) that settled the regions of what is today southwestern Germany, Alsace, German-Switzerland.
But Germany was formed by more tribes than just the Allemannii, I.e. the Franks, the Saxons, the Bavarians, the Thuringians, the Frisians
In Welsh we call Germany - Yr Almaen 🙂. The word 'window' in Welsh in 'ffenest', in French it's 'fenetre', in German it's 'fenster', in Latin it's 'fenestra'. It's the word that got me on to this linguistical journey.
And English "fenestrate" is a small opening.
@@ImaMacGregor I just did a quick search and Swedish is 'fonster'. Also a few other origins it mentioned - 'Window' from Old Norse - 'vindauga' meaning 'wind eye' and also 'eag(th)yrl' from Old English meaning 'eye hole' (can't find the 'thorn' letter on my keypad).
@@CarmenJaneCrafts
alt+0254 = þ. For uppercase thorn its alt+0222
Fenster? Wasn't that the hooker with dysentery?
In Old Saxon window is windlow means windhole
The lack of language awareness is reflected in the American-English language and not just where the Germanophony is concerned. As a French Canadian, I’ve been asked many times if I speak “Canadian” and it was a serious question, not in jest. Thanks for the video! It made me aware that this issue is more widespread than I realized.
I respect their desire to ignore the French language, I wish more people were like that
This confusion only occurs in English. In German, it's Germanic = Germanisch, but German = Deutsch.
he said as much. basically the entire point of making the video.
Even Latin has Theodiscus and Teutonicus for Deutsch, even though they had kickstarted the inflationary use of the term Germanic{-us} in the first place lol
And then there is "Dutch" for "Niederländisch" to confuse poor anglophones even more...
Right up there with Turkish and Turkic. English has a lot of those unfortunate similar names. Germanic-German, Turkish-Turkic, Indian-Indian. Glad my native tongue has different names for all of those.
Iranian-Iranic is another one. This is an especially bad one since even people who should know better insist on saying "Iranian" to refer to the Iranic peoples or language groups.
@@Sindraug25 Finnish-Finnic.
@@Sindraug25 the term indo-iranian isn't helping that's for sure.
@@visserskarel pardon my ignorance but aren't all finnic groups within Finland and the related groups outside of it are ugric?
The Finnic languages are indeed part of the Finno-Ugric language family. However, not all Finnic languages are spoken in Finland. Here's a breakdown:
Finnic Languages:
- Finnish (spoken mostly in Finland)
- Estonian (including Northern and Southern Estonian) is spoken in Estonia. Southern Estonian is sometimes considered a dialect of Estonian, but rather for political reasons rather than linguistic ones.
- Livonian is spoken in Latvia (the last native speaker died in 2022 but there is a language revival movement).
- Karelian, Ludic, Veps, Ingrian, and Votic are spoken in Russia.
- Meänkieli is spoken in Sweden.
- Kven is spoken in Norway.
(Both Meänkieli and Kven are often considered dialects of Finnish by linguists.)
These languages are collectively called the Finnic languages or sometimes Baltic Finnic languages.
They are part of the larger Finno-Permic language group, which also includes the Permic languages (Udmurt, Komi, Permyak, Yazva) spoken near the Ural Mountains in Russia, the Sámi languages (spoken in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia), Mari (spoken in Russia), and the Mordvinic languages (Erzya and Moksha, spoken in Russia).
Confusingly, the larger group of Finno-Permic languages is sometimes also called just "Finnic" languages.
The Finno-Permic languages are a subgroup of the Finno-Ugric languages.
The Finno-Ugric family also includes the Ugric languages:
- Hungarian (spoken in and around Hungary).
- Khanty and Mansi (spoken in Russia).
I hope this clears things up?
Curiously, in Italian we don't have this problem because the word for German is "tedesco" (which is cognate with Deutsch and indicates both a person from Germany and the language) and the country is called "Germania", while "Germanic" is "germanico". All the different names for Germany and Germans in various languages have to do with the region and the people they had main contact with. English is a very interesting case
"tedesco" is actually a "germanic loanword" originated from the old germanic term - þeodisc - meaning kinda "belonging to the people" which got in the early medi eval times introduced into the medi eval Latin language as a latinized germanic term "theodisce" which had its first documented appearance in Latin in 786 C.E.
The Germanic tribes as different as those were always refered to themselves as - þeodisc - as kinda an umbrella term in order to point out their common shared germanic culture with similar traditions and shared religion despite being part of different tribes.
Basically kinda like saying "Despite I´m Alemannii, you are Baiuvarii, he is Suebi, the other one is Markomanni, Langobardi etc etc but we are all þeodisc"
Same in Swedish, and Scandinavian languages, we have "Tyskland": Germany, "tyskar" : Germans, and "tyska": German, with some differences in spelling and pronounciation, and then there are "germanska språk " : Germanic languages, and "germaner": those people who spoke Germanic and moved around in Europe and settled or got recruited by the Romans or whoever, but also rarely those who in present day speak Germanic languages, or descended from those "germaner".😂
English is a mess.
Amore per i fratelli di Italia from Germania
@@michaelgrabner8977 always thought its from the invading germanic tribe "Teutonen", afaik an early moving tribe (Kimbern + Teutonen), which the roman empire defeted somewhere in the alps.
Same in Dutch, "duits" for german and "germaans" for germanic. Saying that, I realise that Dutch can be another confusing term for English speakers, but that problem also doesn't exist in Dutch. We're Nederlanders. 😊 So, Nederlands, Duits, Germaans, all very clear.
In Finnish, the name for Germany is Saksa. So, it refers to Saxony, which is the coastal province of Germany that had the most dealings in the Baltic Sea.
you probably mean "was". Sachsen today does not have any beaches. just a tiny little place wedged between Thuringia, bavaria and czechia.
@@uliwehner Well at least we Finnish people are only 800 years behind on the news on that. Unlike with 'kuningas'...
@@kupariseppo7566 which kuningas are we talking about here?
@@uliwehner Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) is the modern name for the region, where the germanic tribe of the Saxons once lived. So the Finnish explanation became up-to-date again.
Very interesting since for a German there is no confusion at all. Deutsch = our language; germanic = our ancient past. Thanks though for the clarification!
I was unaware of this common misconception. It did make me think of the France. The ancestors of the French are Francs, who are Germanic people but they speak French, a Romance language. Do I have that right or not?
Yes the Francs conquered Gaul from the Romans, adopted Christianity and Latin which turned into French but they were only the ruling class and not the ancestors of most French.
@BobSlydell and to confuse things further: the franks settle also in the benelux and in parts of Germany making them an important part of the german culture aswell. Since Germany developed out of the east frankish realm.
Well interestingly Germany which is the other big contestant for the name succession of the Frankish empire, does call it's Western neighbor "Frankreich". (The unified Frankish empire is called "Frankenreich").
Andalusia in Spain is also named after a germanic group the Vandals. The Germanic people may have originated in Germany, but Medieval Western Europe was formed by thoroughly mixing up Germanic and Romance culture.
@@nacaclanga9947 Originally the Germanic people came from southern Scandinavia and then spread north and south, moved into Germany and pushed out the Celts.
@@panzrok8701
Well, that's not entirely decided. About 10 years ago, some (American) archeologists were excavating in the Harz mountains and decided that the Germanic tribes from there went north, settling Scandinavia. So things are still moving. The theory that mankind comes from Africa, is shaken also. Now we have Romania or Bulgaria, after finding a jaw-bone older than African findings.
Americans are also having a hard time distinguishing Sweden from Switzerland, and even Australia from Austria.
And Dutch and Danish.
@@chrishofland2135 You beat me to it, I was about to write that.
Very good that someone adresses this problem. I´m interested in history for about 40 years. Germanic tribes are just one topic among many others for me. I´m German and I have always problems, if I explain ancient germanic history to English speaking friends, who have not cared much for history during their life but at some point got interested in certain questions about germanic tribes.
May be the root of the problem is, when the Netherlands became independent from the German Empire. The English decided to continue to call the direct neighbourghs across the channel "dutch" and then had to find a new name for the people to the East of Netherlands.
Been waiting for something like this, appreciate you 🙏🏼
My Alma mater had an English department, and a Germanic Languages and Literature department. I took a course in Late West Saxon, a Germanic language, but it was offered through the English department. The only language taught by the Germanic Languages department was German. I felt that English should have been part of that department as well.
"Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Nice reference!
@@Thindorama Thanks! When I think of Germania Magna, I think of the Teutoburg Forest. 🙂
Cesar spoke english? only in the movies
NUMQUAM
Aquae sekstiae
I can't tell how many times I've had discussions with Americans who INSIST my language is 'German'. . eventhough I'm Danish
Thanks for this
And Skål : )
Sounds familiar, being Dutch. And when you start explaining their language is equally German as yours they don't get it. American Ignorance.
"Teutonic" or "Teutonish" is actually a really good term, if only we could shed its negative associations. That's because "Teuton" actually derives from proto-Germanic "*Þeudō" (or else from its Gaulish cognate "Touta"), which is the ancestor of the stem of German "Deutsch" and English "Dutch" (via Middle Low German "Dütsch" or Middle Dutch "Dūtsch"). "*Þeudō" means "people," and with the addition of "-ic" or "-ish," we could interpret this as "People's Language," which is similar to native terms for languages in many parts of the world.
"Teutonic" might work in English, but it might be kinda cringe for Balts and surrounding Slavs. You know, Teutonic knights, northern crusades, and all that…
@@dvv18 That was one of the reasons I thought we could modify it to "Teutonish." It's by no means perfect, but no term ever will be. And of course, like Jackson, I have no expectations that anyone would ever actually take my suggestion into account in the real world. :)
@@dvv18 Im pretty sure that in Polish and the Baltic languages they use different words and not anything related to Teutonic. In German they are just called Deutscher Orden (German order). Calling them Teutonic order is just a weird English thing again.
Germanic is a completely sufficient term. This video is basically nonsense. It’s a non-issue. He’s annoyed at people not being educated enough… well, I’ll be damned but there will always be some of those. Doesn’t matter what you do. But fact of the matter is that you actually already have enough terms to differentiate between the different branches of Germanic. Maybe he should simply spent some time making a video to educate people on those terms, instead of making this imo quite embarrassing, anti-historical video with a bunch of incorrect claims. The reason why some people use Germanic and German interchangeably is because the term Germanic was created and used for the ancient German people living right in todays borders of Germany, not anywhere else. So it really makes some sense actually if you think about it. It was the first area recorded and described as Germanic, with others being known about afterwards so you have the term Germanic being based on the geographical location of Germany like northern Germanic for the Nordics for example. Makes sense, right?
@@Ultima-Signa The word German is more of a problem. The English should have stayed with Dutch/Dutchland and call the Dutch Netherlanders. Calling Germany Germany is like calling Russia Slavia.
There's sometimes a similar confusion between Italic vs Italian
Yes, but the speakers of Italic languages got lucky with the alternate term “Romance languages” being at their disposal.
@@autumnphillips151 Lucky Latin ousted all its siblings lol
When I hear the word Germanic I think of the Germanic tribes that migrated down from the northern latitudes starting several thousand years ago. Perhaps the first time Rome had contact was with the Cimbri around 110 BC. They spread all over Europe over thousands of years. Had a few fights with the Romans. I don't often think of this as applying to the modern nation of Germany. Maybe that's just me.
Not just you! It’s how I picture it as well. Granted our view may be wrong too, but I’m not sure. The Germanic tribes were basically just the “barbarians” of the times.
@@RedGreenLeft aah, yes, rhabarber barbara
Another thing many english speaking people do is to confuse the word Norse with Norwegian.
Yes Norwegians are descendants of the Norse but so are Danish,swedes, Icelandic and a bunch more.
And for some reason back in the olden days many people referred to Danish tounge about all the nordic languages not only Danish.
And last the borders between Sweden, Norway and Denmark have been very fluent over the years so pinpointing if someone was from a certain country can be very hard to do.
And in some cases the nations was not founded yet so the reference may refer to a tribe that was not stationary.
I love this man's cynicism. The disenfranchised expert.
Go, Crawford, Go!
Go, Crawford, Go!
I loved this video, I'm studying Slavic language and hearing you mention "немецкий" made me really happy. Keep up the good work Dr.Crawford!
i always loved the irony of the name Nemec. If you live in say chechia it says "german", and when you move to germany it says: not german. or think of names like nemechek.
Whenever I tell my family we're of Germanic heritage they keep saying "We're not German" and I have to emphasis the IC and what it means
A linguist would probably say that Germanic is a language group. It is not a heritage.
@anotherelvis language is an aspect of culture is an aspect of heritage
@@anotherelvis Linguists have the right to be wrong, same as everyone else.
@@anotherelvis Germanic is very much a heritage group.
England, Norway, and Austria all have distinct cultures from each other, but there's certain attitudes and traditions that we have in common because of our shared heritage from way back when. As a German who's traveled, I know I have a lot more in common culturally with Swedes than I do with Italians, even though the Italians are right across the border and have had a much stronger impact on our history overall. Language is indistinguishable from heritage.
@@anotherelvis it's also heritage as Germanic people were the people north of the Roman Empire, it was however many different tribes and Germanic is what Rome called them , however they all once spread from Scandinavia , being Germanic is like being Slavic or Celtic it's from different cultures Germanic people were those who worshiped Odin although in some places he was called Wooden
From what I studied it used to be more common to use "Dutch" in a way similar to how we use Germanic at least in regards to continentals. For example "Pennsylvania Dutch" referred to those not from the Netherlands but from the broad Palatinate to northern Swiss regions. Problem is that in English due to historic neighboring geography the word Dutch has almost exclusively come to refer to people from the Netherlands. I believe though that before the unified country of Germany came to exist in 1871 that the term Dutch was a non-latinate equivalent to at least continental Germanic.
germanic is an adjective, is it not?
Do English speakers struggle with the distinction between "Romance (languages)" and "Romanian" as well then? 🤔
And Romani.
@@marjae2767 Right!
"Scandic" could've worked. The origin of the Germanic branching seems to have been in what today is southern Sweden, Denmark and the Baltic coast of Germany.
Scandi-Baltic, maybe?🤷😊
@@MichaelBerthelsen As Jackson said, "Baltic" is already in use for a different group of languages (Latvian, Lithuanian are among them). "Scandic" alone would avoid confusion with any other language or group of languages.
That sounds like Denmark to me ;)
@@peterfireflylund Why would it? Scandinavia is Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
But it’s completely incorrect and anti-historical to do this. The Romans with their written records, researchers and historians named the region Germania and the people living there Germanic. End of story. This is a non-issue. You already have a way to differentiate via the different tribal names + north-Germanic, west-Germanic, east-Germanic, Scandinavian. This video is nonsense, with a lot of outright mis- seemingly even dis-information …
In comparison to the terminological issues plaguing the German-speaking area from a linguistic perspective when it comes to "intra-German linguistics", the "German vs. Germanic" distinction almost seems trivial.
For "Standard German" (as opposed to the local dialects), we usually say "Hochdeutsch" ("High German") - thinking that "high" means a value judgement on how well one speaks. In reality, etymologically, it just means that the "upper" (i.e. more mountainous and therefore more Southern regions) had a bigger influence on what today is considered Standard German than the "lower" (i.e. more flat and therefore more Northern regions) of the German-speaking area - which at the time also included Dutch as a "dialect".
Then we have the problem that "Swiss German" can mean one of two totally different things: schweizerisches Deutsch (the written variety of German used in Switzerland, which is different from written "German German" only as much as written British English is different from written American English) or "Schweizerdeutsch" which refers to the group of High Alemannic and Highest Alemannic dialects spoken in everyday life in the German-speaking part of Switzerland that are unintelligible to most other German speakers.
Then you have the "Bavarian" dialect group - i.e. the group of dialects spoken in Austria except its most-Western part, in most of the German-speaking part of Italy, and yes, also in most of the German state of Bavaria, but not in all of it. But in linguistics, it's still called "Bavarian" even though it is mostly spoken in Austria.
One interesting thing about German, I think, is that because the dialectal isoglosses never fully coincided with political boundaries, it did not split up into individual standardized languages.
Wow! 😳
It's even weirder and funnier, when you take into account that the word German or Germanic - used by Julius Caesar - somehow makes no sense. It's not clear, if he realy knew about that one very minor tribe somewhere in northern Germany that might had that name or if he just made that word up.
In Caesars' era, the area what is now Germany was mostly inhabited by celtic tribes in the southern parts as far up as to the central lor mountain ranges. And the area east of River Elbe had been inhabited by Germanic tribes, but later were settled by Slavs and had to be retaken by force over a couple of centuries. We still have a small slavic minority in Brandenburg and Sachsen today, the Sorbs.
So, this is probably the same as if we internationally would call the Celtic languages instead 'Pictish', because someone at some time just found it appropriate, we would internationally call Scotland 'Pictland' because of course the Romans, and would have a nice and surely neeeever ever missleading 'pictish'/'pictlandish' distinction and would for some other strange reason call some english people who live abroad 'Pictishs', while the English would refer to them only as 'Southlanders'.🤣
Great point. Well put.
Wait until you find about the etymology of other peoples‘ countries and their inconsistencies and how much that actually makes sense, like France/Gaul, or Spain/Andalusia for example 😂 do you really think the Romans treated other areas all that much different, specifically the early romans?
@@Ultima-Signa There is a lot less ire in Ireland in the last few decades.
@9:01 I’d be really interested to know about those “really old English-language works” that refer to the Germanic languages as “Gothic languages”. Would you mind sharing them?
Clarity. Appreciate you.
Thank you! This gives me two or three headaches every week.
Yeah. Just last week I was dealing with someone who claimed that “The entire english language is more or less derived from German”; said that I was confusing them when I explained that English came from Proto-Germanic, not from German, and that English is more closely related to other Germanic languages than it is to German; and then insisted that “German is known to be one of, if not the easiest language to learn for English speakers” and ignored me when I explained that the reason why they’re confused is because they’re equating German with Germanic when they’re not the same thing and sent them a link to an article by the Foreign Service Institute saying that Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and Swedish are easier to learn for English-speakers than German is.
@@autumnphillips151
Well, you were not right with either points. Both languages belong to the West-Germanic languages branch, English being the easier version of the two. I guess, a 1000 or so years ago, we wouln't have had much of a language barrier. I have always considered it a shame, that English speakers never take the opportunity of learning such a closely related language - be it only for the sake of German literature or reading historic sources of interest. You consider the languages listed by you easier for English speakers to learn than German (or maybe Dutch/Frisian)? No way. Do you even speak German?
@@anna-elisabethbender3123 Nothing I said was “not right”, and you are very confused.
@@anna-elisabethbender3123 I think it’s quite obvious that you don’t want to learn and don’t have the reading comprehension skills to do so even if you wanted to, but English is a North Sea Germanic language and its closest relatives are Scots, North Frisian, Saterland Frisian, West Frisian, and Low Saxon. English came from Middle English, which came from Old English, which came from the Anglo-Frisian branch of the North Sea branch of the Western branch of Proto-Germanic, which came from Proto-Indo-European. German came from Middle High German, which came from Old High German, which came from a mix of Frankish (which was Weser-Rhine Germanic) and Elbe Germanic dialects, which came from the Western branch of Proto-Germanic, which came from Proto-Indo-European.
And I have no reason to believe that the Foreign Service Institute’s many years of expert research and teaching languages have lead them to have false conclusions about how easily English-speakers can learn certain other languages, and I’m sure that you don’t know better than them. And do you even speak Swedish? I’ve been learning Swedish, and it’s extremely similar to English, probably thanks to both the huge influence that Low Saxon had on the Scandinavian languages when it was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League and the huge influence that Old Norse had on Old English.
Thank you Jackson -- well said. It helps a _lot_ .
Thanks for the video on this topic, Jackson.
"hi, I'm old rizz specialist Jackson Crawford"
In Portuguese we have different words for it: Alemanha (Germany) and alemão (German), but germânico (germanic).
If English people changed Ceylon to Sri Lanka and Birma to Myanmar, why can't they change Germany to Deutschland?
To be honest some still say Persia
It worked the other way, English people called Ceylon and Burma as near pronunciation of the native speakers for the country.
Germany would have to ask for a change in exonym, and the word “Germany” has too much history in English for it to make sense to be changed.
@@paradoxmowell the british conquered Sri Lanka in 1817 . The Deutsche Einigung was founded in 1866. Before 1866 Britain would have been dealing with states like Prussia or Hanover. The historical connection of the british language with Germany is shorter then its connection with Ceylon.
@@francesconicoletti2547what exactly are you referring to in 1866? Cause Einigung (unification) can't be funded, do you maybe mean Norddeutscher Bund?
I humbly suggest that English-language scholars (or scholarly hobbyists) should avoid the confusion by calling the German language(s) Deutsch and Dutch Nederlands. Same goes for the modern nations: call them Deutschland & Nederland. Then any term with the stem german- (like germanic) can be understood to be an umbrella term. Great vid, great channel, thx JC!
As a german myself, I always wondered why my people are called different ways, depending on which language you use:
tedeski, saska, aleman, niemcy or german....just to name a few.
And we ourselfs call ourselfs deutsch. Which is a word that's not based on a name... but on a verb. To be deutsch means: to be able to understand the common language.
But english speakers picked Germany, as the name for my country. Why, out of all options, the most confusing one?
The actual germanic people had been the ancestors to most of the northern europeans of theese days... yeah, I know, not of the finns. But that's another story.
Let's come back to the actual problem... to call one nation german is like... calling England "the celts"
Sure, there have been celts in england. But in France, Belgium, Ireland and maybe a dozend other european countries, as well.
So, why on earth would you call a modern nation Celts? Can't you see that it meight be a little confusing?
Then, why did you english speakers call my people germans? We are deutsch.
If you talk about germans to actual germans, the first thing that comes to their mind are bearded, axe weaving barbarians, from two thousand years ago... you know, those guys who constantly battled against the Roman Empire. The ancestors to the Vikings.
But hey, we are used to the bidder fact that every nation on earth seems to pick their own special name for us... So, germans it is.
... and it's way better than Niemcy. Ask some polish people. They will tell you why 😉
"To call one nation german is like... calling England "the celts" Sure, there have been celts in england. But in France, Belgium, Ireland and maybe a dozend other european countries, as well." Doesn't calling one single nation "Deutschland" pose the same problem, because there just as well has been deutsch people in South Tyrol, Austria, Liechtenstein, DDR etc.
Is that better that in Russian there are no connection between Germany (Германия) and Germans (Немцы)?
Thank you for addressing this. So few Americans understand the difference!
Has anyone considered naming the languages by the wider geography? Ancient North and Baltic Sea languages for example. This would cover them all I believe. You could then say this includes Old English and German if asked what they are.
I think this should be it.
Language families should be named after where their proto-language started.
Nordic for Germanic languages.
Northern Alpine for Italic/Romance and Celtic.
Etc
For heavens sake, why? Because some American students cannot come to terms with history or proper terminology?? Our languages have been categorized into North/West/East Germanic languages for a long time. English and German being West Germanic, just for example. Germanic or German? If this is already a problem, how wii these students get a degree?
Germanic is ok, you don't need another name for it. But English speakers might start calling the Germans deutsch.
or Dutch for that matter.
@@deutschermichel5807 yes, but then you need another word for Dutch.
@@ronf1160 Like a Netherlander ?
@@marryof995 maybe.
German: The language is Deutsch, the country is Deutschland, the neighboring country is called Niederland and the language is Niederländisch
Dutch: the language is Nederlands and the country is Nederland. The neighboring country is Duitsland and the language is Duits.
Pretty clear to me that Germany should be called Dutchland and the language should be called Dutch, the Netherlands is fine but the language should be called Netherlandic. This would reserve German and Germanic both exclusively for reference to the language family
For me as a German the English way to refer to us is weird to begin with as has been pointed out. I'd be totally fine with renaming the country/language. Tyskland, Duitsland, Düütsland or something like that feels much more at home than 'Germany'.
Then 'the Germanic languages' would work better. Of course it's out of scope, but still.
Mainland germanic languages can all be called varieties of "Brabantish" (after a southern Dutch joke). In Germany that would become "Very Eastern Brabantish"
How about 'Thiudish', hearkening back to the original proto-Germanic term "thiudiskaz". That would differentiate it from German and Dutch in all the languages, not just English. I also like how it is the archaic term. The Scandinavian language speakers could call it 'Thiudisk', which would be even closer to the original term.
I like it better than 'Teutonic'. But I am also OK with Teutonic, as it is similar and already has some previous traction.
Although Teutonic is specifically used to a refer to a Germanic tribe thatʼs extinct. Thatʼs like calling everyone “Lombards”
Wouldn't really work in other germanic languages as english and icelandic are the only major germanic languages that retain the "th" sound.
However I would love to see the english name for germany change to "Thiudland" or something similar
@@Klodhvig - Good point.. the other germanic languages would wind up pronouncing it with a 't' or a 'd' sound. At that point it would probably wind up sounding too similar to "Deutsch" or "Tysk" :)
I think we'll stick with Germanic, but I do like the alternative "Gothic Languages".
You might get into fistfights with architects and art historians about their use of Gothic
I likle "Punk-Rock Languages" better
@@lakrids-pibe As long as it's not "Emo Languages"
Also the Goths were one kind of barbarian Germanic Tribe. They're not Saxons, Swabians, Franks, or so on.
The goths came from Sweden according to Roman sources .
And first moved to Poland and much later migrated south.
So they are not the root of Germanic languages.
Actually the word "teutonisch" is used in german to describe typical german virtues or behavior etc. in an ironic way. Also the historic "Deutscher Orden" is in english known as "Teutonic Order". So it would make more sense to call Germans Teutons than the Germanics.
I think Germanic is a good term for it. Proto-Germanic was probably spoken in what the Romans a bit later called Germania. To associate Germanic with modern day Germany is quite appropriate in my mind. That's the hub of ancient Germanic peoples and languages. Of course modern day Denmark (and the Netherlands) is also important, but Germany is close enough to the idea.
Of course we have to anyway always explain some of it to non-academics. Here we just need to distinguish ancient Germanic from modern German so that people don't think that the modern variety is somehow more "Germanic" than any other. But that's with any linguistic idea, you have to just explain it briefly.
Ha ha…Grimmic it is!
Do we look so grim? 😮
I think he is refering to Grimm as in Grimms law the sound changes that define the unique characteristics of Germanic languages
Grimmic languages are indeed very grim languages
@@Jîm-o9d huh, i thought he meant the Grimm brothers
@@thomas.thomas Grimms law because of the brothers Grimm, they were linguists who also collected so called "fairy tales"
dutch prinzibly means deutsch the pensilvania dutch speakers ... they usually call there langurage deitsch wich is pretty much how we here in southwest germany where those guys came from also refere to deutsch...
This discussion could only happen in English
As in some languages its speakers call their own people just 'human beings' mostly in an archaic form, this might be an idea for an English alternative for 'Germanic'. Most modern Germanic languages use a cognate of German 'Mensch' for 'human being'. In English that form got extinct. Middle English had 'mennish' (meaning people). The word comes from a Protogermanic word which originaly was an adjective. So English could revive 'Mennish' giving it a new meaning: 'Germanic'. As the confusing German-Germanic is just an English problem, the other Germanic languages can stick to their cognates of 'Germanic'.
Don’t underestimate your influence on the English language as spoken, by giving hope to the remnant that keeps “wh” unvoiced, like in “where” and “when”.
Also, I believe Teuton is cognate with Deutsch, Dutch, and Tedesco.
The Nemyetsky Languages has a nice ring to it.
Didn’t know how bad I needed to know this. Now I know. Thank you algorithm
As a German Id propose to call German -> Dutch and Dutch -> Netherlandic, this would make more sense etymologically and would be more practical, since the reason the dutch are called dutch is because back then they called themselves "duitsch" or "nederduitsch" until they started to distance themselves from us
I'm German and I speak German with German people and English with Germanic people
With Germanic people, or Germanic speakers to make it even clearer. Saying this as a Lebanese American whose first language is English.
Wwwas llllabasch du wallah
@@m0-m0597Das ist dann wohl „Neudeutsch“
@@tschakatschada Talahon-Deutsch.
I speak Dutch, German, English and French with Germanic people.
My grandfather would say " what tribe are YOU from? " As a child I thought he was referring to native Americans but he meant historically. Just a few thousand years ago we were nomad groups.
"Teutonic" languages is perfect in the already wacky way of saying things in English. Would be a lot easier to get people on board with naming a language family they arent really familiar with altogether than renaming the German language they already are familiar with.
Would it be fair to say that Germanic is a subset of Celt, given specifically Brythonic or Cymru/Cymraeg shares words with what we know of as Germanic? Or is that more likely to be cross polinisation lingustics?
Ok, I'm new here, but i just can't get over how the groundhog and mouth harp sync up at 00:20
That's fun!
Germanic should remain. Changing to accommodate the ignorant is to run counter to proper education.
I was at a monument in Germany where it spelled "die Deutschen" as "die Teutschen." As Germany has many dialects that pronounce words differently, I'm assuming that this could have been before the written language was standardized. I thought it looked like the word Teutonic Knights. So, I'm wondering if there is a relation, perhaps over time the unvoiced T became a voiced D. I can't remember for sure but I think it was in Bavaria. If so, maybe an old Bavarian form.
@@Jefff72 yes, Teutonic comes from the same root as Deutsch, which is Proto-Germanic *theodan/theodisc. In most Germanic languages it shifted to voiced, and became diutisk and then eventually Deutsch. In Latin it was borrowed via Celtic and didn’t undergo the voicing, yielding “teutonicus”. I’m not sure if the “Teutschen” is meant to refer to ancient Teutoni or to modern Germans, perhaps that was the difference?
As best I can remember I first came across the term Germanic at the age of 10 when I was reading about the Battle of the Cataulanian Plains and the disposition of the various Germanic tribes. I had no problem distinguishing between modern Germany created in 19th Century and the various Germanic tribes that were historically recognized 2000 years prior to that. The fact that some people 10 years or more older than I was at that time do not have the ability to understand that distinction means that their intellectual strength does not lie in language based analyses. I have a grandson whose mechanical analytical ability has been superior to mine since he was 8 years old, and I am not lacking in that area. But he struggles with language. My wife with 2 engineering masters degrees from top ranked schools did not speak until she was 4 years old and still struggles with languages. The problem isn't with the words, it is people taking courses in areas outside their zones of intellectual competency and not recognizing that.
What about Jastorfic?
BTW, is it just a coincidence that, in English, "german" also means "cousin" (sorta)? .Or might *that* be why we chose *that* term to refer to our cousins across the German (i.e. North) Sea?
I like the suggestion of Gothic. I also wonder if Runic or “Futhic” as an homage to the runic alphabets could work; admittedly, I have no idea if other languages used a runic alphabet but I’d personally prefer these over Germanic.
Oh, that’s the best suggestion I’ve seen! The word “runes” refers specifically to the writing systems used by Germanic peoples, no one else. The only problem I can see is that “Runic” implies that they are written in runes, and that’s of course not the case with modern Germanic languages, so it might be interpreted as only referring to ancient Germanic languages.
Thanks for clearing that up!
I've heard 'Runic languages' used as a byname for the Germanic family, which although it has it's difficulties, I tend to fancy nonetheless.
I am german. An idea to solve this issue could be to replace "german" by "deutsch" or even "deutsh" to get it clear as the english version of this word. Then you would just adapt to other western germanic languages (dutch and german for example. I do speak both).
I don't think it's that confusing. No offense, but sometimes natural English speakers should just get over themselves and think for a moment.
For real.
Exactly. Also he’s saying a lot of outright incorrect things in regards to history and the meaning of words.
@@Ultima-Signa For example?
I'm with you on that. Its not a huge issue really. People just need to pay more attantion to detail when they speak.
@@Kjalarrr One thing that was raising some red flags for me was how he was unsure about the term "teutonic" half-implying there was a bad connotation with it. Teutonic is in the end just the Latin form of the word "Deutsch" and also "Dutch".
I just think that Germanic is the oldest common term for an area where peoples and tribes spoke the languages that we want to describe. IIRC, the Allemanni were based more in the area of modern-day Austria, Czechia, and Hungary. Gothic sounds nice, too, but it is a later term.
I’ve seen the word “Teutonic” used to apply to Germanic people. This word may or may not have some negative connotations, I’m not sure.
What about Thiodish, from thiudisk
"German" may be latin but "Geirmenn" (sp?) means "spear-men" in Norse? Any relation between the two words?
It's indeed very unlikely that there is any relation between ger-manic and ger = spear, just a coincidence. Especially as there is no evidence for the word ger = spear in the oldest time, Tacitus mentions (c. 6) the spear as most commen weapon among the germanic tribes and even gives the germanic word: framea. A word wich is totally extinct today and derivations of it are not used in any germaic language for spear anymore, but is clearly not related to ger.
@@Ulfberth What you said is true, but 100% beside the point I made.
The word "German(ia)" itself is used by Caesar and Tacitus
If the etymology of that word would be Ger-man = Spear-man, then the Germanic word for Spear in the time of Ceasar and Tacitus should be "ger".
As luck preserved us the germanic word for spear in the time of Tacitus (one of the very few germanic words at all the Roman historians give us, most other words are only names of people or tribes), and that word is NOT ger, we can be sure that the etymology of Ger-man = Spear-man is wrong.
That is not only my personal theory, the spear-etymology is rejected by every scholar writing about ancioent germanic history or language. At least those scholars who still bother to mention that theory, what (more or less) newer books don't even do at all. This proven wrong etymology is not even mentioned anymore for example by Bleckmann, Die Germanen 2009 or Wolfram, Die Germanen, ed.9, 2009.
P.S. (edited): You said "almost nothing of the Germanic language has been handed down from this "oldest time" of Ceasar and Tacitus." Yes. Almost. But the word for spear is. Tacitus, Germania c. 6: hastas, vel ipsorum vocabulo frameas gerunt.
@@Ulfberth 1. Modern scholars think the theory of Ger-man = spear-man is not woth mentioning.
2. Your only argument for that theory is the fact that nearly a millenium after the name Germani came up, there is a word "ger" = spear in some Germanic languages.
3. The fact that Tacitus provides us another word for spear can be ignored, because there could be several words.
Some of the things you say are true. There could indeed be several words for spear-like weapons, like there are today, English spear, lance, javelin or German Speer, Lanze, Spieß. And it is true that we have the word ger = spear in much later sources.
But where is the positive evidence for your claim Ger-man = spear-man? Or, even one step before that, where is your positive evidence for ger = spear in the age of Tacitus and Ceasar? Of course there COULD BE several names for that type of weapon. "Could be" is not evidence.
@@Ulfberth @2 and 3: Either frame(a) is a germanic word, or Tacitus, for no reason, invented a germanic word that somehow fits linguistic to Germanic *framje/a- (bringing forward) from ahd. fremmen, old saxon fremmian, old english framian, old friesish fremma with that meaning.
What was your reason to mistrust his account... wait, let me see, yes, he was a Roman.
@4: Strawman at it's best. While the theory that the word German derives from Gaulish indeed exists, that is not was most scholars or even a notable percentage say. The most accepted "explanation" is actual works about germanic history is...
we don't know the origin of the word.
I definetly prefer scholars who admit that we don't know the answer to a certain question over pure speculation without any evidence.
@ "but I also see no clear evidence why it doesn't have to be correct."
Hitchens's razor. What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. German beeing derived from ger-man = spear-man is a positive claim. Burden of proof is on those who make that claim.
@@Ulfberth "That Framea means Spear is a positive claim. That Framea is THE Germanic Word for Spear is a positive claim. Burden of proof is on who makes that claim. What proof does Tacitus have? What do you have? ; "
My proof is Tacitus' account. He wrote in a time when the Germanic language, before splitting up into the different languages we have today, was still in use.
He had the possibility to speak to Germanic people directly in Rome, at least slaves, probably others like merchants. It's his unambigous account that framea is the Germanic word for lat. hasta.
Hastas, vel ipsorum vocabulo frameas gerunt.
Interesting. I see what you mean but it never even occurred to me as potentially confusing and I don't recall hearing anyone else complain. But obviously I wouldn't have the same exposure to students asking the question.
very interesting, thank you! any idea how the term "indogermanisch" came to be?
I recall reading that it was referring to the fact that the homelands of the Indo-European languages stretch from Iceland in the northwest to the Indian subcontinent in the southeast-basically the same reasons for the term “Indo-European”, plus just pointing out that the Germanic languages were geographically the furthest from the Indo-Iranic languages and that the other Indo-European branches were between them.
We don't have this "problem" in Norwegian as we say "germansk" or "germanske språk" for instance, but we don't have the word "German" for the specific group of people (we say tysk/tysker/tyskere). I don't really see it as a problem anyway, though. German, Germanic, both good terms. People are perfectly able to understand that Anglo Americans aren't "English" in "that" way. Or that not everyone who speaks English *is* English. Can't see that Germanic vs German is any more difficult to understand.
Exactly. And while English is spoken by many people living in North America, not all of them are considered Americans.
you actually see people all the time confusing German with Germanic , even Brits who think the Anglo-Saxons who invaded England were all Germans because they were Germanic tribes, they were however more Danes and Dutch than Germans , although the very Northern most part of modern Germany between Denmark and the Netherlands were also included , that is where the ancient Saxons lived, not as now where Saxony is in a more central part of Germany , Angles came from Denmark and so did Jutes who also were part of the Germanic tribes invading England, plus Frisians from the Netherlands
@@veronicajensen7690 True. That a bit like Jyllanders thinking that the Danes who invaded Jutland were "Swedes" or came "from Sweden" because largest chunk of the Danes' ancient original territory (Skåne) is in Sweden now, but Sjælland still excepted ofc.
I think this is true for every Germanic language except English
In Dutch it's "Duitsland" and the "Germaanse talen"
What about the "Brythonic hypothesis"?
Would a good analogy be "Latin" when describing the Spanish or Italian language? Or how bout "Romantic"?
i think the only reasonable choice is Tuetonic, but if we rule that out, one that might be interesting would be Hundic, (or possibly just Hund?) on the pattern of Centum/Satem.
another option might be Hanseatic, which while it does have the drawbacks of being a) anachronistic and b) not particularly inclusive, it has the benefit of sounding like a language, and while it could cause confusion with the other meaning of the word, anyone who knows enough to care about the hanseatic league should know enough not to get confused.
I am a hobbyist and this helped me a lot!
As someone who has always been fascinated with languages and learning about Proto-Indo-European and about the history and peoples of ancient Europe, I always understood that there were several different Germanic tribes (the ancestors and cousins of modern Germans) that spoke dialects of Indo-European that diverged into several different languages that were part of the Germanic sub-family/branch of Indo-European. So it is only logical to think that while all Germans are Germanic, not all Germanics are German. It was made pretty clear in the books I have read about these subjects in my earlier years and school days, as I was once an avid reader. I never was confused about the matter at all. If young'ins and other people who are not so inclined in critical thinking skills and logic are befuddled by the matter, I do not think it is the fault of the teachers or of the subject matter itself. The heart of the confusion with modern folks seem to lie within their short attention spans. I see no fault with the terms used to describe these languages and the people/tribes that spoke therm, IMHO.
Hey there's an alternate history video (can link if needed) that explores what Europe could have been like if sea levels were lower and Britain was connected to the mainland. There, he proposes calling the area Lividia, from Latin, unsure of exact origin. So it's slightly different but Lividian as opposed to Germanic could work.
Honestly, it doesn't need to be catchy...
I feel like I've heard the term 'North Sea languages' in some modern works. Which I feel could be an apt replacement. If we necessarily need a replacement at all.
Well, “North Sea Germanic” refers specifically to the Anglo-Frisian and Low Saxon (I refuse to call it “Low German”) languages.
How about "Theodisc languages"? From an actually attested native Germanic term people used to refer to themselves (at least in West-Germanic speaking territories. Not sure if a cognate term with similar meaning existed in the north.)
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
Theodiscus (in Medieval Latin, corresponding to Old English þēodisc, Old High German diutisc and other early Germanic reflexes of Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz, meaning "popular" or "of the people")
I understand and agree that it is an interesting problem but at the same time I always hate it when we have to adapt to ignorance. Lowering the bar instead of rising it.
I kind of like the idea of calling them the "Thiudiskaz" or in short "Thiu" languages.
Thiudic?
@@EllieK_814 or like that yes
Ironically that’s the etymological root of the word Deutsch
@@UA-camdoesntneedhandles and technically also of sweden (an older version though)
That'd limit it's area or peoples to the Teutsch like in semplicissimus Teutsch, and the land of the teutsch/teutonic aka Teutschland and not to germanic and indo-germanic languages.
Perfect timing. I just had this conversation with a friend earlier today at work
Hehe, 'perfect' timing would have been seeing this video before you had that conversation 😂
There's confusion?
Does anyone know whether the following fact is related to this question?
From the last centuries of the Holy Roman Empire in the Early Modern Period onwards, the ruler used the official royal title of „König in Germanien“ when documents ceased to be written in Latin. Although this title, refering to the royal dominion of the Holy Roman Emperors over what is today Germany, practically could be translated as “King of Germany”, the literal translation is “King in Germania”.
This wording is a little untypical for this period and can as far as I know only be found in another royal title of the 18th century: „König in Preußen“: When in 1701 Margrave Frederick III of Brandenburg, Duke of Prussia, crowned himself “King in Prussia”, he intentionally avoided to style himself “King of Prussia” in order not to offend the King of Poland, who at that time ruled the western half of the historic region that was then called Prussia.
Meanwhile the title “König in Germanien” has a very similar wording. They could have just styled themselves „König von Deutschland“ (King of Germany) although I am unsure whether the word Germany was at that time already totally established as the term for the German nation. But even if, why did they not style themselves „König von Germanien“ (King of Germania)? Maybe it is similar to the Prussian question in that they didnʼt want to offend other Germanic nations like the Dutch, the Danes, Swedish or Norwegian, by implicitly claiming the whole of Germania (all Germanic countries). Instead they might have chosen to just stick with “King in Germania”
Thoughts on the etymology of Germani?
Yes, in West Germany we spoke West Germanic. Fun times.
People get confused because they seem to think that the countries that exist today always existed. In other words, people think very nationally which doesn't always line up with ethnicity or culture or language. I am very Germanic on both sides of my family. My grandparents immigrated here, not from Germany but from what was Austro-Hungary. Spoke a germanic language that wasn't german as my brother found out when he took german in high school & tried to talk to Granma lol. My Dad's side very clearly Nordic & Irish (based on the sir names & appearance)
Thanks for an interesting video,DrC. :)
Why not give Teutonic a bit of a push? It's distinctive enough from other terms.
In Italian they use Germania for the country but Tedesco for the people. If they used the same construction as they do for Austria (Austriaco) then German would be Germaniaco or an interesting translation to English Ger-maniacs.
I see what you are striving at, but I don't think it is really germane.
That moment where you were speechless reaching mentally for a new term was priceless, haha. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for a brilliant suggestion from a subject matter expert because I was stumped. Tacitusian ?
As a German it is really weird to talk about these things in English. It's like you said, it's like planting a German flag or at least it is often misunderstood that way.
There is no close connection for me between the words "Deutsch" and "Germanisch" but that distinction gets really blurry when speaking English.
I still find the mess in terminology quite amusing. Especially when it comes to the word "Dutch". Must be annoying for Pennsylvania Dutch people though.
I propose "Jutish Languages". Jutland (the Danish peninsula) is the proposed ancient homeland of the germanic people who migrated north, east south and west from there to become the distinct people we know today. It was even the starting point of the Angles who went to Britain. And it is still the border area in which west-germanic (german etc) and north-germanic (danish etc) languages meet.
It is thought that the Frisians migrated from southern Sweden instead of Jutland, so that's not really an option.