Given, it does not take much to confuse me but I am once again puzzled. I am trying to reconcile the difference between “Germany” and “Deutschland.” The best explanation I can find is that “Deutschland” is the German word for “Germany.”
That makes it sound like Someone could rename France to GreatWineVille with the same logic: “France” is the French word for “GreatWineVille.” Was the term Germany applied by the rest of the world without consideration of the people native to the area? How is Germany referred to within its own borders?
By people speaking in German, as “Deutschland”. To confuse things even more, the French call Germany “Allemagne”, and, while the Italians call Germany “Germania” they call the German language “tedesco”.
Interestingly, France was renamed, since it used to be called Gaul (“Gallia” in Latin). The country was renamed after the Franks, who invaded and took over what was Gaul about 1,500 years ago.
And “Germany” is the English word for Deutschland.
I’m not sure why there should be the expectation that the name of a country in English (or another language) should match the name that the inhabitants of that country use for it. After all, our names for other things differ in our respective languages.
Since the mid-twentieth century, when many new countries became independent, it has become a practice to call countries by the name they call themselves. However, this was never a standard previously. Historically, people have had their own names for the folks on the other side of the hill (often something like “the rat-eaters”; “the people who marry their sisters”, etc.), while each group called themselves by a name equivalent to “The People,” “Us,” or “Real Human Beings.”
Not the entire rest of the world, but yes … that’s exactly what happened.
It’s very common. For example, we dont refer to China as Zhōngguó, or Japan as Nihon. Conversely, Mandarin Chinese speakers refer to the United States as Meiguó, not as “United States” or “America” rendered in the phonetic rules of Mandarin.
Another example: Finland calls itself and its language Suomi (which, according to Wikipedia, is derived from the Proto-Baltic word “zeme” for land, so there you go).
As ascenray points out, using the untranslated names of foreign personages is a relatively modern practice in English. For example, we refer to the patrons of Christopher Columbus/Cristobal Colon/Cristoforo Colombo/Cristoffa Corombo, Fernando de Aragon and Isabel de Castila, as Ferdinand and Isabella. (However, in a full English translation Isabel would be Elizabeth.) We also call the husband of Mary I, Felipe II of Spain, by his translated name Philip II.
Spanish has even more of a tendency than English to translate proper names, even continuing today. For example, in the Spanish Wikipedia Queen Elizabeth II is Isabel II del Reino Unido.
Many languages use a different word for some places that are foreign to them, or at least translate them. As the post above said, it’s called an exonym, and it’s by no means confined to English. In French, the country between Mexico and Canada is called 'Les Etats-Unis", for example. And of course, they call Germany “Allemagne”, as has been mentioned here.
But English people can speak English to refer to a “Deutschland” anywhere in the world. You don’t have to learn another language to refer to a place where they happen to speak a different language. “Germany” is an English word, just like “wall.” “Deutschland” is a German word, just like “Wand.”
