Why do we have different names in different languages for different countries? Shouldn’t we all call the country by whatever name the citizens of that country call it?

Question

Like Germany vs Deutchland

In: 1

Answer 1

What you’re talking about is the difference between exonyms (what foreigners call a place or people) and endonyms (what people call themselves or their land). These are found in [just about every language](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym).

Germany is an interesting example because it has a lot of varying names: Allemagne in French, Alemania in Spanish, Germania in Italian, Niemcy in Polish, and Saksa in Finnish, just to name a few. These widely varying names are largely the result of Germany not being an united region until 1871.

* The names Germany and Germania both derive from the Latin **Germania** , meaning “land of the Germani.”
* The Spanish Alemania and French Allemagne both derive from **Alemanni**, a Germanic tribe who the 9th century monk Walafrid Strabo claimed called themselves the Suebi.
* The Finnish Saxsa derives from the name of another Germanic tribe, the Saxons.
* The Polish Niemcy is thought to derive from the proto-Slavic **němьcь**, possibly meaning “the mute ones.” This is also the origin of the terms for Germany or Germans in all other Slavic languages; for instance, némec in Russian, Němec in Czech, and nemec in Serbo-Croatian all mean “German”.
* Deutschland, however, is an endonym. Deutsch derives from the proto-Germanic **þiudiskaz**, “of the people” or “of the tribe.” It’s of the same origin as the words **Dutch** and **Duits**, which is why they look so similar.