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I have a question for Scandinavians or Danes!
In Scandinavian language(Norwegian, Swedish and Danish), you call the country Germany "Tyskland", right?
I know what "land" means but Where does the word "Tysk" come from? What is "Tysk"? I would like to know the etymology of the word "Tysk".
The etymology of "tysk" is the same as that of "Dutch". I quote from the Online Etymology Ddictionary:
"Dutch c.1380, used first of Germans generally, after c.1600 of Hollanders, from M.Du. duutsch, from O.H.G. duit-isc, corresponding to O.E. þeodisc "belonging to the people," used especially of the common language of Germanic people, from þeod "people, race, nation," from P.Gmc. *theudo "popular, national" (see Teutonic), from PIE base *teuta- "people" (cf. O.Ir. tuoth "people," O.Lith. tauta "people," O.Prus. tauto "country," Oscan touto "community"). As a language name, first recorded as L. theodice, 786 C.E. in correspondence between Charlemagne's court and the Pope, in reference to a synodical conference in Mercia; thus it refers to Old English. First reference to the German language (as opposed to a Germanic one) is two years later. The sense was extended from the language to the people who spoke it (in Ger., Diutisklant, ancestor of Deutschland, was in use by 13c.). Sense narrowed to "of the Netherlands" in 17c., after they became a united, independent state and the focus of English attention and rivalry. In Holland, duitsch is used of the people of Germany. The M.E. sense survives in Pennsylvania Dutch, who immigrated from the Rhineland and Switzerland." The corresponding word in Old Norse, "þjóð", meant people or nation (and still does in Icelandic) and could be used in the sense þjóðvegr = public highway. So etymologically you can say: tysk = deutsch = dutch = þjóð = þeodisc = (Germanic) peoples or their speech.
In the Icelandic Wikipedia's article about Germany you find the phrase "þýskt þjóðríki" = "German nation state". Etymologically "þýsk" and "þjóð" are the same words, but the latter must have undergone an umlaut which made a new word, "þýsk", for German people and language.
Thank you for answering my question, Fredrik!
By the way, does anyone know where the word "Germany" came from?
Nobody knows for sure, not even the Online Etymological Dictionary. Julius Cæsar might have known, though:
"German "Teuton," 1530, from L. Germanus, first attested in writings of Julius Caesar, who used Germani to designate a group of tribes in northeastern Gaul, origin unknown, probably the name of an individual tribe. It is perhaps of Gaulish (Celtic) origin, perhaps originally meaning "noisy" (cf. O.Ir. garim "to shout") or "neighbor" (cf. O.Ir. gair "neighbor"). The earlier Eng. word was Almain or Dutch. Their name for themselves was the root word of modern Ger. Deutsch (see Dutch). Roman writers also used Teutoni as a German tribal name, and Latin writers after about 875 commonly refer to the German language as teutonicus. See also Alemanni." |