crusanite
alphatoronado
fun story about this post!! this is because germany ~as a unified geopolitical entity~ did not exist until 1870-ish! before that the region was a mass of very small kingdoms. so there was no need for the surrounding countries (which in general DID exist as unified entities for a lot longer than that) to have a single word for GERMANY
as a result of this, the words for germany in other languages tend to reflect the region of germany they had contact with. french calls germany “allemagne” because the french interacted with the allemannic tribe(s?) first. the english word “germany” comes through latin from the germanic tribes of gaul. finnish “saksa” comes from sachsen, etc. (interestingly, the word “deutsch” seems to come from an old high german word for “people who speak germanic languages,” and is thus probably the best blanket term for germans)
and then there is the ever-contentious “nemecko” and similar words (see also polish and russian). when i took russian i was told that the russian word is very closely related to the term for mute people, and this was because when early russians first came across early germans, they were like “what the fuck are you guys saying?? you obviously just flat-out can’t speak at all” and the name stuck
see also the wikipedia page on this topic
ash-is-boss
cjs-scribbles
lesbianhatsune
