Austria

The very fact that Austria (German Österreich) exists as an independent nation today is an "accident" of history. Austria began as just one of the many different German feudal states that made up the Holy Roman Empire. Culturally and linguistically, the Austrians and Bavarians go together much better than say, the Saxons and Swabians. But because of the power of the Habsburgs through the centuries, and the complicated politics of the 19th century, Felix Austria never joined the other German states (not until 1936 at least, but that's another story), and instead controlled a multi-ethnic empire of its own in Central and Souther Europe.

The name Austria is itself a Latinization of the German Österreich (roughly meaning "eastern realm", and has been used since the Middle Ages in Latin, and in English since at least the 17th century. It has nothing to do with Latin auster, which means "south." This is also the name of the country used in various other European and non-European languages.

The lands making up modern-day Austria were firmly under Roman control from about the end of the first century BC onwards. They were included in the provinces of Noricum, Raetia, Vindelicia, and Pannonia, though mostly Noricum. Noricum was an independent kingdom for a while, but was incorporated as a province in 16 BC. The inhabitants were the Norici, named for the city of Noreia, whose exact location is as of yet unknown. They were a warlike, probably Celtic people living in a loose tribal confederation.

Then all hell broke loose: the Völkerwanderung. Following the dissolution of the Roman Empire, various tribes carved out portions of the former empire, setting up typically short-lived and warring states all over central Europe. The alpine regions that would become Austria were overrun in the 7th century by Slavs who established a realm known as Carantania (the predecessor of Carinthia) in modern southeast Austria and Slovenia; Alamanni took control of the Voralberg region in the Alps, and in the 5th and 6th century, the Bavarians (not yet wearing lederhosen and eating pretzels) extended their territory eastwards. There were also some joyriding Avars in the mix. By the mid-8th, Carantania came under the control of Bavaria, which itself became a duchy in the Carolingian Empire. Bavarians continued to settle along the Danube and in the Alps, which is why Austria is today a German-speaking country (though the displacement of Romance-speakers in the Alps was not complete until perhaps the 17th century).

Those were crazy times, and no one was writing anything down anyway, if anybody could write. But what is known, and well-documented, is that in 976, the Saxon Emperor Otto II set about restructuring the Duchy of Bavaria after a revolt, establishing new marks, or borderlands. The emperor granted a marcha orientalis, or "eastern mark" (modern German Ostmark) to Leopold of Babenberg, who became the first margrave of Austria. At this time, the march corresponded roughly to modern Lower Austria (Niederösterreich).


Though the official name of the new march was an unassuming, boring Latin term describing exactly what it was, the local yokels, speaking Old High German (OHG), called it Ostarrîchi, first recorded in 996 in a deed granting some lands in "the territory known in the vernacular as Ostrarrîchi" to the bishop of Freising. The name is the predecessor to today's Österreich and Austria. The ostar- part is related, though not identical to OHG ōstan, "eastern," and the second element is rihhi, which meant "realm" or "domain" (though the modern Reich has a meaning closer to "empire"). In the following centuries, the variants Osterrîche and Marcha Osterriche also appear.

Austria first appears in the 12th century as a Latin approximation of the OHG name. The "Privigelium Minus," the document granted by Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa) raising Babenberg Austria to the status of duchy, refers to the marchiam Austriae being made into Austriae ducatum. Thus the Duchy of Austria entered history as an independent entity.

RISE OF THE HABSBURGS

In 1278, the Swabian count Rudolph of Habsburg took control of the duchies of Austria and Styria (Steiermark), beginning a dynastic reign that was to last almost 650 years. By 1335, the duchy of Carinthia (Kärnten) and the march of Carniola (Krain) were included in the hereditary lands of the Habsburgs. The County of Tyrol was added in 1363. Although Austria proper included only the region around Vienna, these "Habsburg hereditary lands" came to be referred to as "Austria," and formed the core of the modern state (and most of Slovenia, too).

In 1359, Duke Rudolph IV the Founder (der Stifter), came up with a document known as the "Privilegium Maius," which elevated Austria to archduchy (Erzherzogtum). This was Austria's answer to the Golden Bull of 1356, issued by the Bohemian Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV of the House of Luxembourg, who were major rivals of the Habsburgs. The Golden Bull established the constitutional system of the Holy Roman Empire by naming the seven Prince-Electors (Kurfürsten), conspicuously leaving out Austria. The Privilegium Maius was composed of five deeds, some of which were supposedly issued by Julius Caesar and Nero to the Kingdom of Noricum. The documents gave the Habsburgs a status equal to the Prince Electors, and certain privileges, such as inheritance by primogeniture (including inseparability of the territories) and the right to display certain symbols of rule.


The Privilegium Maius was a forgery, and was recognized as such even at the time. Charles IV, not amused, rejected the power play and refused to recognize the Habsburg claims. Rudolph never used the title archduke for himself, though his great nephew who carried the awesome name of Ernest the Iron (no relation to the Jim Varney character who went to camp) did call himself archduke. In 1453, Emperor Frederick III, himself a Habsburg, was able to use his office to confirm the document. Frederick also introduced the cryptic "A.E.I.O.U." motto used by the family for centuries.


The Habsburg archdukes were, for all intents and purposes, equal to kings, and Austria and the Habsburgs became one and the same, as the documents gave the family a "new legitimacy" to rule in Austria. In any event, the Holy Roman Emperor would be a Habsburg until 1740, when the Habsburg male line died out. The House of Habsburg-Lorraine would take over in 1745. Along the way, the Habsburgs would accumulate other titles, notably King of Bohemia and King of Hungary, resulting in a vast Central European empire with Austria at the center.



AUSTRIAN EMPIRE / AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

When Napoleon Bonaparte upset the old order in Europe, this meant the end of the Holy Roman Empire as it had existed for centuries. In 1803, the Imperial Diet (Reichstag) passed the Reichsdeputationshaupschluss, which was intended to reorganize the Empire, consolidating smaller territories into larger ones and secularizing most of the clerical states. This eliminated many of Austria's smaller allies, and when Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France in 1804, Francis I, already Holy Roman Emperor, granted himself the new title of Emperor of Austria.

The Holy Roman Empire itself ended when Napoleon defeated the Third Coalition at the Battle of Austerlitz. The resulting Treaty of Pressburg forced Austria to give up most of its territory in Germany, Italy, and the Balkans. In 1806, Napoleon's satellite states in German seceded from the Empire to form the Confederation of the Rhine, and Francis I renounced the imperial crown after proclaiming the Holy Roman Empire dissolved. The old empire was gone, but the Austrian Empire remained, and it included Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, among other lands.

The Austrian Empire spent most of the 19th century trying to unify all of the German-speaking peoples under one state (Großdeutschland), but this never happened, and this is why Germany and Austria are two different countries today. Instead, Prussia gained the upper hand in 1866, ensuring that Austria would have no part in any future German state. Modern Germany is actually the descendant of the Prussian-dominated Kleindeutschland unification scheme.

After being excluded from Germany, Austria focused its attention eastwards an inwards. The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 established the "Dual Monarchy," in which the empire was divided into two equal realms under one monarch, Franz Joseph I. Hungary and Austria would have distinct interior policies, but a common foreign and military policy.



MODERN AUSTRIA

One of the most important results of the First World War was the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918. Emperor Charles I went into exile, and the empire broke apart into its constituent national ethnic groups. It was at this time that the borders (more or less) of modern Austria were formed from the core Habsburg lands, though ethnic Germans remained within the borders of Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland) and Italy (South Tyrol). The state was at first called German Austria (Deutschösterreich), and its parliament was strongly in favor of union with Germany, fearing the economic prospects of a small Austria.

But the Treaty of Saint Germain, the 1919 peace treaty between the Allies and Austria, contained provisions that barred any possibility of economic or political union of Austria with Germany. It also prohibited the name "German Austria," so the new state was called the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich), also known as the First Republic.


The First Republic lasted until 1934, when the single-party Federal State of Austria (called the Ständestaat, for the Stände, "estates"), with a quasi-fascist regime led by the Fatherland Front party. Although Nazi sympathies were officially opposed by the government, the Austrian National Socialist Party was able to seize power and pave the way for Hitler's Anschluss, or annexation of Austria into the Third Reich. As a part of the Nazi Germany, Austria became the province of Ostmark, the modern German translation of marcha orientalis.

After World War II, Austria was occupied by the Allied Forces for ten years. In 1955, the modern Republic of Austria was born. The Second Republic has remained an independent (well, whatever that means in modern Europe) and neutral nation, somewhat ambivalent about its Habsburg past.

OTHER LANGUAGES

Most languages, including English, use the Latin name Austria, or a variant of it, like Hungarian Ausztria, Turkish Avusturya, Slovenian Avstrija, Croatian Austrija, etc. All Germanic languages besides English have translation of Österreich: Dutch Oostenrijk, Danish Østrig, Swedish Österrike, Icelandic Austurríki. Finnish also has a translation: Itävalta.

The modern French name is Autriche, which is a corrupted version of the German name. The French name is also the source of اتریش (Otrîsh) in modern Farsi and other Central Asian languages.

The names for Austria in Czech and Slovak are Rakousko and Rakúsko, respectively. This form derives from the town and castle of Raabs an der Thaya, known as Rakous in Czech. Originally the name referred simply to the medieval county of Raabs, but later to all of Austria.

Finally, the Arabic name deserves attention. النمسا (an-Nimsā) derives from the Slavic word for Germans, nemtsy (see Germany).

Portugal

The history of Portugal (same in Portuguese) closely parallels that of Spain, its neighbor on the Iberian peninsula. Portugal was a major player during the Age of Exploration, and her empire left its mark all over the world, most notably in Brazil, and it's no accident that most Angolans you are likely to meet are Portuguese-speaking Catholics. The first global empire, its possessions spanned the globe and included enclaves as far away as Japan, where the trade they brought turned Nagasaki from a small fishing village into the island nation's most important, and then only, window to the outside world. The name of Portugal itself comes from what was once an unassuming little settlement on the Douro River in northern Iberia.

Like all of Europe south of the Danube and West of the Rhine, the lands that would become what we know as Portugal were once a part of the Roman Empire. But before the Romans became the sole superpower in their day, there was the long and famous struggle with the Carthaginians for the control of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula known as the Punic Wars. The Second Punic War, which ended in 201 BC, left the Romans "in control" of the peninsula, but they would have to fight for it over the next century or two as they dealt with uppity Celtic tribes and local warlords. Eventually, though, by the time the Republic became the Empire, Iberia was divided into several provinces and was one of the nicer neighborhoods of Rome. (See Spain)

During the course of all this, the Romans came across a little Celtic settlement on the peninsula's western seaboard at the mouth of the Douro River. The village, on the river's southern bank, was known as Cale, and it had a deep-water port on the other side, in Latin, portus (root portu-). Perhaps you see where this is going. Since ports are important, eventually this Portus Cale, or "Port of Cale" rose in prominence, and the settlement became known by that name in the Second Century BC. Today the metropolitan area of Porto, Portugal's second-largest city home of port wine, sprawls along the northern bank of the Douro (It's Portuguese name, o Porto, simply means "the port"). On the southern bank is Vila Nova de Gaia, or just Gaia, which is the "new city" of Cale, replacing the original one which was deserted and destroyed by the Moors. "Gaia" is just the name "Cale" as it evolved from Latin to Portuguese. The following picture shows a view of Porto from Gaia:

While the "Portus" part of the name is easy to understand, where does "Cale" come from? Some wishful thinkers have tried to put forth the idea that the city was originally settled by Greeks, and that the word derives from the Greek καλλις (kallis), "beautiful", referring to the beauty of the Douro Valley. This was back when it was cool to be associated with Greece, before that country became more well-known for living off the welfare of other European nations whose citizens do not retire will full pension at age 58 than for its ancient culture. Despite the economic problems in Portugal, the Portuguese are happy to say "yeah, well, at least we're not Greece."

No, it's much more likely that the name comes from the Gallaeci, the Celtic tribe who also lent their name to the later Roman province of Gallaecia north of the Douro, and thus to the modern region of Galicia in Spain (Roman Gallaecia also included northern Portugal). The Romans did not always distinguish between "C" and "G", and though a Roman invented "G" around 230 BC (yes, someone invented "G!"), the two were often used interchangeably, so along with Gallaecia and Gallaeci, one finds Callaecia and Callaeci, which may be more accurate anyway, since the Greek name for the tribe was Καλλαικοι (Kallaikoi), using kappa instead of gamma. The name, however it is spelled, is similar to other words for Celtic people and places; the Gauls, Galicia (in Spain and the Ukraine), the Galatians of the Bible, and perhaps even the word "Celtic" itself may all derive from the name source (see France).

So then how did the name of this town come to be the name for a whole country? Well, as we know, the Roman Empire, as a political entity, more or less fell apart in the West as various Germanic peoples overran the former provinces and even the Eternal City itself. In the early 5th century AD, Iberia was conquered by Suevi and Vandals, with the help of the Alans, a group of Sarmatian tribes who had been joyriding all the way from Central Asia and loving this whole "Fall of Rome" thing. Soon after that, the Visigoths came to town and defeated the Vandals and Alans. The Suevi held out in the northeast for a little while, but they too fell to the Visigoths, whose kingdom would last about a century and a half before being swallowed up by Moors from North Africa. At this time, Portus Cale was known, to the dismay of pedants (if there were still any in Western Iberia at that time) as "Portucale".

The Moors conquered the whole area, but remaining Christian kingdoms wasted no time reconquering the land from the Muslims. In 868, a Galician warlord by the name of Vímara Peres, vassal of Alfonso III, King of Asturias, León, and Galicia, was sent to reconquer the lands between the rivers Minho and Douro. Peres succeeded, and as a reward he was given control of the newly conquered lands, and the title "Count of Portugal." The form of the name around this time was "Portugale," with a predictable voicing of the consonant between vowels (a common feature of Iberian Romance languages).

Once there was a political entity called "Portugale" it was smooth sailing for the name: this polity born in the Reconquista just kept reconquering, and it enjoyed a fair amount of autonomy as part of the Kingdom of León (sometimes the Kingdom of Galicia), but the county was abolished, then reinstated in the 11th century, when Henry, a Burgundian Knight, was given the title by King Alfonso VI of León. This Second County of Portugal was a direct dependency of León by 1097, but Henry wanted independence. After Henry died, his son Afonso and widow Theresa were involved in a drawn-out and complicated series of conflicts that led up to the Battle of São Mamede in 1128, in which Afonso's forces fought the forces of his mother, who was a puppet of Galicia, who was a puppet of León (I said it was complicated).

In 1129 Afonso declared himself Prince of Portugal, and in 1139 King of Portugal, a pretty ballsy move. León recognized Portugal's independence in 1143, and in 1179, the Kingdom of Portugal was officially recognized by Pope Alexander III. Thus, what would become modern Portugal was born. The land borders were set by 1250, and the capital moved from Coimbra to Lisbon in 1255.

LUSO-

The "Luso-" root used in words having to do with Portugal or the Portuguese language, such as lusophone, lusophile, Luso-Brazilian, etc. come from the name of the Roman province of Lusitania, which included modern Portugal south of the Douro and modern Extremadura in Spain. The province was named for the indigenous (or so it seemed to the the Romans) Lusitani people, who may have been Celtic.

Spain

Spain (Spanish España), that sunny country on the Iberian Peninsula whose offspring spread their culture and faith throughout most of America and to many other parts, has a long and complicated history. At the western edge of the ancient Mediterranean world, it was an important source of natural resources and warriors.

The modern name Spain derives of course from the Latin name for the Iberian peninsula, Hispania. Its course into English follows Anglo-French Espayne, which in turn derived from late Latin Spania. Hispania, however, has a disputed history, no doubt because the name is so ancient. As Spain was at one time settled by the same Phonecians who founded Carthage, its name could likely derive from a Punic source:^ʔi-spn-ya, with the first element designating a land or island, and the last meaning "region." The Semitic root is related to Hebrew saphan, meaning "hares, hydraxes." Some Romans (including Cicero and Catullus, for example) therefore took the name Hispania to be derived from a Punic source meaning "land of hares." The Punic root could also mean "north" (Hebrew sphan), or "to forge metals." Modern observers, however, tend to see these theories as perhaps a bit romantic.
Another likely theory has the word Hispania derived from the same source as Seville, Latin Hispalis. The words for the city and the country may then derive from an older Iberian word *hispa, whose meaning is lost. Still others refer to the poetic usage of Hesperia ultima, "the farthest west," from Greek Ἑσπερία, "land of the setting sun / western land." (this would ultimately would derive from Indo-European *wes-pero, which gives us also vesper "evening" in Latin, and whose reduced form is the source of English "west"). Whatever the case, a certain lack of clarity is to be expected, given the ancient history of the Iberian peninsula, which was also home to several languages still unkown to us today.

For most of its history, Spain has been more a geographial entity than a political one. Roman Hispania was divided into several provinces:

At the time of Caesar Augustus, these included Lusitania (most of modern Portugal and Extremadura), named for the Lusitani, an Indo-European tribe who may have been Celtic; Baetica (roughly modern Andalusia), named for the river Baetis (called Baits by the Phonecians), which is today the Guadalquivir, and Tarraconensis, named for Tarraco (now Tarragona), which was the capital of the province, its name perhaps coming from a Phonecian word for "citadel," tarchon. Hispania was gradually Romanized.

In the 5th century, various Germanic tribes overran the western Roman Empire, including the Suevi, and Vandals, who settled in the northwest and the south, respectively. In the next few centuries, the whole peninsula (as well as part of southern France) was united under the Visigoths, and the Visigothic Kingdom based in Toledo would be the ancestor of the medieval kingdoms of northern Spain. In their roughly 3 centuries of rule, however, the Visigoths themselves remained apart from the locals, contributing to their downfall. The Visigothic language had very little impact on embryonic Spanish.

In 711, Muslim Berbers and Arabs conquered almost the whole peninsula except for a few northern enclaves and established the Muslim domain known as al-Andalus (الأندلس), a name whose origin is disputed (see Andalusia). The Muslims had a profound effect on the local culture and left behind a wealth of place-names. Almost from the beginning, Christian kingdoms in the north, remnants of Visigothic rule, fought to regain lands lost to the Muslims: la Recoquista. In 1469, Isabella of Castile married Ferdinand of Aragon, establishing the Kingdom of Spain, making Spain a political entity rather than a geographical area. Modern Spain directly derives from this kingdom.

Switzerland

Switzerland, German die Schweiz, French la Suisse, Italian Svizzera, and officially the Swiss Confederation (Confoederatio Helvetica in Latin, hence CH as its country code), is everyone's favorite tax haven. Perhaps literally the most democratic nation on Earth, it sits in the middle of the Alps and snubs its nose at the bureaucratic monstrosity known as the European Union. It has a cheese for every valley, a square flag flown by the most patriotic people in Europe, and great choclate. Switzerland has had a history of isolation "from it all," which one would expect given its location.

In Roman times, the region comprising modern Switzerland first belonged to the Celtic Helvetii tribe. Their name could be a compund of Celtic elements: *elu-et(u) "rich in land" (cf. Welsh elw "gain, profit" and Old Irish il- "many"). The lands belonging to the Helvetii were conquered and incorporated into the Roman Empire as parts of the provinces Germania Superior and Rhaetia (probably derived from Celtic rait "mountain land"). Like much of the rest of the Empire, this land passed into Frankish control, eventually ending up split up between the duchies of Burgundy and Alemannia (later Swabia). When the Holy Roman Empire emerged around the year 1000, these lands counted among its dominions.

The name Switzerland of course has nothing to do with the Helvetii, but comes from the little Alemanic communiy of Schwyz, which was one of the founding cantons of the Swiss Confederation in 1291 (along with Uri and Unterwalden [Nidwalden + Obwalden]), a loose community of self-governing entities. The name is first attested as Suittes in the 10th century, probably from Old High German suedan, "to burn," perhaps referring to the practice of burning the forest to build settlements and plant crops. After the Swabian War in 1499, when the Swiss achieved de facto independence from the Holy Roman Empire, the name of Schwyz was applied to the whole confederation. The English name comes from the obsolete ethnonym Switzer, from Alemannic Schwiizer, used to describe a resident of Schwyz. The adjective "Swiss," however, comes from French Suisse.


As the Confederation expanded, it remained a very loose Eidgenossenschaft (literally meaning an association by oath), with cantons run democratically, aristocratically, theocratically, and anything else you can imagine (but no kings). The Reformation assured that some of the cantons were safe havens for radical Reformers like John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli.

And then the French Revolution spoiled the party: Revolutionary France conquered Switzerland and imposed the hated Helvetic Republic, stealing some land to boot (Mulhouse, for example). The Helvetic was a French satellite, but not particularly loyal, refusing to fight against the Russians and Austrians at the beginning of what was to become the Napoleonic Wars. When Napoleon finally came onto the scene, he brokered the Act of Mediation (1803), which established more or less the government of modern Switzerland, with a relatively stronger federal government, but largely self-governing cantons. It was also at this time that die Schweiz became the Standard German name of the country. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna fully recognized Swiss independence from France, and Switzerland's permanent neutrality was forst formally recognized by all parties. But just see what happens if you try to invade 'em ...

France

La France. Since Roman times, France has been a major theater of European history. In Classical times, the region covered by most of the modern Republic of France was Gaul, Gallia, which would become a Roman province. The name, which shares a root with other places dominated by Celts (Galatia in Poland, Galicia in Spain, etc.), but the origin of this name is uncertain. Some have proposed Proto-Celtic *g(h)al- "powerful," or that it is named for a Gallos River that is now unknown. In any case, this was the name of the country until the arrival of the Franks.

Roman Gaul was subdivided into three major parts: Cisalpine Gaul, Gallia Cisalpina, meaning "Gaul on this side of the Alps" was eventually merged into Italy. Narbonese Gaul, Gallia Narbonensis, covered a chunk of southeast France (modern Provence, Côte d'Azur, and Languedoc regions). It was centered on the city of Narbonne (L Narbo). It was also called Transalpine Gaul -- Gallia Transalpina -- ... guess why. The biggest part, which would become modern France, Belgium (Wallonia at least), and parts of Germany and the Netherlands, was called Gallia Comata, "long-haired Gaul," filled with what were to the Romans the equivalent a savage, hairy bikers.

It was this region which Julius Caesar refers to in his famous Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres. Gallia Belgica was named for the Belgae (see Belgium), Gallia Aquitania in the southeast for the Aquitani (see Aquitaine), and Gallia Lugdunensis in the east for Lugdunum, modern Lyons (see Lyons).

But France, of course, is named for these Franks. The tribe was probably named for a type of spear called *frankon in Proto-Germanic. The Latin name for their land, Francia, referred simply to the territory of these ferocious barbarians. In the 3rd century, Francia was an triangle of land north and east of the Rhine. As the Franks expanded, the name did as well, but for a long time Francia and Gaul were used simultaneously, as the Franks themselves were a minority among the Gallo-Romans (And this is why the Frankish language is dead and modern French descends from the Vulgar Latin of Gaul).

In the 5th century, the Franks began to dominate northern Gaul, and in 486, Clovis I united much of Gaul. In good time he converted to Catholicism (not Arianism, the heretic faith of the Goths), made his capital at Paris, and founded the Merovingian Dynasty. The seed of modern France had been planted. By the time Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the West in 800, the Franks were at the peak of their power. The Frankish Empire was divided up permanently after a civil war among his grandsons: Lothair got the central part, including the Low Countries, Alsace, Lorraine ("Lotharingia") Burgundy, and northern Italy; Louis the German received East Francia, which would eveolve into the Holy Roman Empire and modern Germany; and Charles the Bald got West Francia, which would become the core of modern France, including Aquitaine. Interestingly, France is still called Frankreich in German, which literally means "Empire of the Franks" (although the ethnonym is französisch, deriving from the Latin name).


West Francia crumbled in the early Middle Ages, with the various dukedoms struggling for power, making France a vague decentralized region -- a very violent place. Hugh Capet was elected as Rex Francorum ("King of the Franks") in 987. From that point on, the idea of la France was strongly associated with le roi, whose power (and France's) grew and grew until 1789 ... and it's been downhill ever since. We've gone back and forth from republic to monarchy, with an empire thrown in there under Napoleon, and couple of other revolutions and assorted radicalism, like the Paris Commune in 1871. As of today, June 19, 2010 at 7:35 pm (GMT +1), the Fifth Republic reigns, and they even have a smart logo that looks like an American sports league:

Germany

Germany (Deutschland in German), right in the center of Europe both geographically, and at least since medieval times, also politically, has a wide variety of names. Modern Germany did not come into being until 1871 with the formation of the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm I. Before that, the name "Germany" was used in English to refer to the region where "Germans" lived, meaning the people of a certain ethnic, cultural, and linguistic stock who populated central Europe, especially those within the Holy Roman Empire.

GERMANY

Because of Germany's central location and its often chaotic history, it is referred to by several unrelated names in various languages. The English name is derived from the Latin Germania, used as early as the 3rd century BC to refer to lands east of the Rhine. The origin of the name is uncertain, though it seems to be a Gaulish term -- the Germans never referred to themselves as such. Julius Caesar, in his Commentaries on the Gallic War (c. 50-40 BC), and Tacitus, in Germania (98 AD), recognized, though crudely, the differences between the Celtic Gauls and Balgae and the Germans, seeing the latter as more barbaric and dangerous though admiring their industiousness (big surprise), among other virtues. Magna Germania came to refer to the lands east of the Rhine (modern Germany), which were for the most part only ever partially subdued. Roman expanison into Magna Germania ended with the battle of Teutoberg Forest in 9 AD. The two provinces of Germania Superior (roughtly modern-day Switzerland, Baden, and Alsace) and Germania Inferior (Belgium, Luxembourg, Flanders) remained a part of the Empire until the rise of the Franks in the 5th century.


As I said, the exact origin of the name may never be known , though many theories have been advanced. One links the name with the Old Irish [OI] gair, "neighbor," which gives the rather bland explanation that the Belgic Gauls referred to the Germans as simply a neighboring people. Jakob Grimm proposed that the name was related to OI gairm (Proto-Celtic *gar-), "battle cry," referring to their warlike nature, though this could well be a bit of 19th-century romanticism.

DEUTSCHLAND

Deutschland, the name Germans use to refer to their own country, the land of the Deutsch. This word simply means "of the people," and comes from Old High German [OHG] diutisc, from Proto-Germanic *þeudiskaz < *þeudō "people, folk." This is the same source of the name Theodoric (and hence, Dietrich, Dirk, Derek, etc.), Tolkien's character Théoden, and ultimately, of the word "Teutonic," which comes to English via the Latin name for a Germanic tribe, the Teutoni. The Proto-Indo-European root, *teuta, is the source of Irish tuath "country" and maybe even Latin totus, "whole." The word "Dutch," which refers more to people from the Netherlands, comes into English from a Low German dialect -- although the "Pennsylvania Dutch" in the US are actually of German stock, reflecting a time when the distinction was not so clear.


After the breakup of Charlemagne's Empire, Germanic-speaking Franks in Western Francia (modern France) started to refer to their language no longer as frengisk ("Frankish"), but as diutisc "folkish" in order to distinguish themselves from Romance-speaking Franks. This trend spread to Eastern Francia (roughly modern Germany) by the 10th century.

Most ther Germanic languages use a variation of this name: Scandinavian Tyskland, Dutch Duitsland, etc. East Asian languages also use this name, with Japanese Doitsu and Chinese Déguó, a pun which literally translates to "moral country."

ALLEMAGNE

In most Romance languages (French Allemagne, Spanish Alemania, Portuguese Alemanha), in several languages of the Near East (Arabic 'Almāniyā, Persian 'Ālmān, Turkish Almanya), and in various Celtic languages (Welsh Yr Almaen, Breton Alamagn), a name is used which derives from the name of the Alamanni, a Germanic tribe who had settled in the Upper Rhine Valley. Today, "Alemannic" refers to the dialect of German spoken in the Black Forest around Freiburg im Breisgau. Even the English name for German was more commonly "Almain" until the 16th century. This name was probably spread to other nations by the French.

The origin of the name Alemanni itself is disputed. It almost certainly comes from PG *Alamanniz, which can be derived two ways: It could mean "all men," referring to a confederation of tribes, or the al- part is related to Latin alius "other" and English "else," and it means "foreign men, aliens."

SAKSA

In Finnic languages (Finnish Saksa, Estonia Saksamaa), the name comes from the Saxons, who were prominent in the East along the Elbe (modern Saxony is in the former East Germany). The warlike Saxons, whom the Franks only subdued and converted after a long series of bloody conflicts, were named for the seax, the single-edged knife or sword they wielded.

NIEMCY

In most Slavic languages, the name for the Germany may be derived from a Slavic root meaning "mute" or "dumb": Polish Niemcy, Czech Německo, Ukrainian Nimeččyna, and (non-Slavic) Hungarian Némeország. According to this theory, the Slavs, who derived their own name from slovo, "word," referred to foreigners, and then specifically Germanic tribes, as nemoy, "mute, dumb, or those who cannot talk." A better but less colorful theory has this name coming from the Nemetes, a tribe mentioned by Caesar and Tacitus living in the area around modern Speyer in southwest Germany on the Rhine. Their name is probably derived from a Celtic word nemeton, "sacred space, sacred grove." The Arabic name for Austria, an-Nimsā, may also come from this name.

OTHER

In Latvian and Lithuanian, the words for Germany are Vācija and Vokietija, most likely from German Volk, "people, folk." Old Norse used the term Suðvegr, "south way," as opposed to Norðvegr, the "north way," Norway. And in Tahitian, Purutia is a variation of Prusse, the French name for Prussia.

First post -- test post

I'm posting this first post as a test, to make sure all of this works out.