this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
892 points (98.4% liked)

YUROP

1210 readers
5 users here now

A laid back community for good news, pictures and general discussions among people living in Europe.

Other European communities

Other casual communities:

Language communities

Cities

Countries

founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Malgas@beehaw.org 22 points 3 months ago

IIRC a lot (all?) of these come from the names of specific Germanic tribes that these languages had contact with back before Germany existed as a unified entity, which then metathesized into a demonym for the entire cultural group and then the nation state. "Saksa", for example, is a doublet of "Saxon".