this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 98 points 2 weeks ago (10 children)

The US still looking weird by calling Germany “Germany.”

[–] missingno@fedia.io 61 points 2 weeks ago

About as weird as calling Nihon "Japan".

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 53 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Tbf a good chunk of Europe calls it "land of people that can't speak" basically

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 40 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They're clearly thinking of the Dutch.

[–] UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago

They can speak, they just act like they can't in front of foreigners. I am learning "Dutch" and am 100% convinced this whole language is a hoax

[–] agavaa@lemmy.world 28 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Cause they can't!1!

But for real, for those who are curious: the border between Germany and Poland is effectively the border between western and eastern Europe. So to Slav people Germans lived right over there, and yet spoke something incomprehensible; so we called them "mute" (in Poland at least). If I can't understand you you are mute to me, basically. And the word for "Germans" is the same as for "Germany", so we call the country itself mutes 😅

[–] Tuuktuuk@anarchist.nexus 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Literally it's more like "non-speakers", though, isn't it? Nie + mowić = Not + to speak.

So, maybe in contemporary Polish the word has been polished to mean "mute", but could be that they were "those damn non-speakers [of our Polish] across that river-thing!"

[–] agavaa@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Well, the "mówić" part is not present, the root of the word is more similar to "niemy", meaning "mute"; the Polish word comes from "non-speaker", as in "not speaking at all". but that's just speculation on my part, I'm no linguist or etymologist 🤷‍♀️

[–] Tuuktuuk@anarchist.nexus 2 points 6 days ago

At least Wiktionary completely agrees with you!

[–] Demdaru@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

For fun with words:

  • Niemcy - polish for Germans
  • Niemcy - polish for Germany
  • Niemy - polish for mute
  • Jadę do Niemiec - "I am riding to Germany"
  • Jadę z niemcami - "I am riding with germans"
  • Jadę z niemcem - "I am riding with a german"
  • Jadę z Niemczech - "I am riding from Germany"
  • Jadę z niemym - "I am riding with a mute"

I wonder how confusing these are for people not speaking polish xD

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Nemecko
Nemý

Never realized that.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Still better than Rakousko/Rakúsko. Czech and Slovak are the only languages where the word for Austria does not originate from "Österreich" but from Ratgoz, a single proto-Austrian guy's name.

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah right? When it hit me I was like hmmm

[–] ceiphas@feddit.org 28 points 2 weeks ago

Du meinst Deutschland.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

And what about the Romance languages. They call Germany “Land of the Alemanni”, they called an entire country full of different tribes after a single Germanic tribe that lived near the French/Italian border. It’s like calling the entire country of the Netherlands Amsterdam.

[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

It's like calling the entire country of the Netherlands Holland. Holland(ia?) is part of the Netherlands which gave the name of the country in a bunch of languages.

This is weird, by the way, I just wrote about the exact same thing not too long ago.

[–] gerryflap@feddit.nl 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I can open your link, but as someone who's Dutch, the way this all works in English is so absurd. Here we call Germany "Duitsland" and they speak "Duits". This is quite similar to what they say themselves, "Deutschland" and "Deutsch". We call our country "Nederland" and our language "Nederlands". This is again similar in German.

Then why is English "Germany", "German" and "Holland"/"The Netherlands" and "Dutch". It's so silly. There are of course historic reasons, but can't we all just collectively change it?

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 points 2 weeks ago

Face it, even the Anglophones know what you speak is simply Drunk German. :P

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago

as someone who’s Dutch, the way this all works in English is so absurd

Yeah but don't you say Japan instead of Nihon/Nippon? Every language does this to a certain extent.

[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I think we can - but just see how many people in your country call Turkey Türkiye (they made a request back in 2022) - and that was just one country, not all.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They already call it Turkije which is a lot closer to Türkiye.

[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's admirable! I looked it up in translate and got a completely different result. I think I know what was going on : ) 🦃

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Never trust machine translation to know what you're talking about ;)

[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

I usually add context for this exact reason. You get lazy once, and there you go.

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

Instructions unclear, I now eat türkiye for Thanksgiving.

[–] mech@feddit.org 18 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

The weirdest ones are the Finns, calling Germany Saksa.
I'm German and I feel more at home when I'm in Finland than in Sachsen.

[–] bstix@feddit.dk 8 points 2 weeks ago

Finnish Saksa is a reference to the Saxon tribe from Old Saxon in Northern Germany, not the current Sachsen.

[–] First_Thunder@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What about the Portuguese! ALEMANHA for Germany

[–] Spezi@feddit.org 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

In Grench it’s Allemagne. The Alemanni were a german tribe at the rhine.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 11 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

In Grench

Is that the Grinch's native language?

[–] Spezi@feddit.org 8 points 2 weeks ago

No, its the French-Greek hybrid they speak in Freece

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

Parlez vous Grancais?

[–] remon@ani.social 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not any weirder than any other English speaking country.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago

Or any country really. I'd be curious to see if a chart of languages ranked on how many countries' endonyms are also the same word in that language. But there's definitely no language that doesn't have exonyms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

English speakers call Deutschland Germany, don't give us all the credit here. And it's called that cause the UK hated keeping track of what y'all were calling yourselves, so they chose bigotry instead (a common theme for England). The rest of us usually don't know the history and just have a word with no context as to why it is that way.

For those Americans who don't understand, calling it Germany is like calling First Nation land "Indialand" because "how can anyone keep track of what they call it? It's always changing!"

[–] b_tr3e@feddit.org 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Actually, it was the Romans who came up with the term "Germani" for the various tribes at the nortthern end of the world. The anglo-saxons being one of them.

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, just like it was an Italian man that first called them Indians. Wouldn't make it Italy's fault if Americans called it Indialand, though.

[–] mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So Americans alone are at fault for using the term German in English then? The chain of logic here is impressive I’ll say that.

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Really? That's why I got a down vote? Dude, my metaphor in the first comment was likening it to "if we (Americans) called First Nation land 'Indialand'". So, no. If you map the metaphor back onto to the counter, it's the UK's fault, not America's.

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why put that on the US? We just carried on calling it what the English did.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] 87Six@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

We romanians call it Germania as well for some reason

[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

By making yourself look like a dork?

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

For all of Lemmy’s positive qualities, it’s still filled with nerds with a complex about keeping the record straight. Some like to be rude about it, like you and I, and others simply enjoy sharing information for the sake of it.