Theodiscus
Theodiscus (in
Etymology
Theodiscus is derived from West Germanic *þiudisk,
The word existed in Old English as þēodisc ("speech", "public", 'native"), came into Middle English as thede ("nation", "people") and was extinct in Early Modern English, although surviving in the English place name Thetford, "public ford". It survives as the Icelandic word þjóð for "people, nation", the Norwegian word tjod for "people", "nation", and the word "German" in many languages including German Deutsch, Dutch Duits, Yiddish דײַטש, Danish tysk, Norwegian tysk, Swedish tyska and Italian tedesco.
The word .
While morphologically similar, the Latin root Teutonic for "Germanic" is more distantly related, and originally a name of a Celtic or Germanic tribe that inhabited coastal Germany. It came probably via Celtic from Proto-Germanic *þeudanaz ("ruler", "leader of the people"), from *þeudō ("people, tribe"), from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂ ("people", "tribe").[5] In modern Welsh it is seen in words such as 'alltud' (exile) from 'allan' (outward) and Breton 'tud' (people).
Semantic development within English
Currently, the first known attestation of theodiscus is to be found in a letter written around the year 786 by the
By the late 14th century, þēodisc had given rise to
Its exact meaning is dependent on context, but tends to be vague regardless.[11] When concerning language, the word duche could be used as a hypernym for several languages (The North est Contrey which lond spekyn all maner Duche tonge — The North [of Europe] is an area, in which all lands speak all manner of "Dutch" languages) but it could also suggest singular use (In Duche a rudder is a knyght – In "Dutch" a rudder [cf. Dutch: ridder] is a knight) in which case linguistic and/or geographic pointers need to be used to determine or approximate what the author would have meant in modern terms, which can be difficult.[12] For example, in his poem Constantyne, the English chronicler John Hardyng (1378–1465) specifically mentions the inhabitants of three Dutch-speaking fiefdoms (Flanders, Guelders and Brabant) as travel companions, but also lists the far more general "Dutchemēne" and "Almains", the latter term having an almost equally broad meaning, though being more restricted in its geographical use; usually referring to people and localities within modern Germany, Switzerland and Austria:
He went to Roome with greate power of Britons strong, |
He went to Rome with a large number of Britons, Guelders, Burgundians , and Frenchmen,"Dutchmen", Lombards, also many Germans.[14] |
—Excerpt from "Constantyne", John Hardyng | —J. Rivington, The Chronicle of Iohn Hardyng |
By early 17th century, general use of the word Dutch had become exceedingly rare in Great Britain and it became an
In the United States, the word "Dutch" remained somewhat ambiguous until the start of the 19th century. Generally, it referred to the Dutch, their language or the Dutch Republic, but it was also used as an informal monniker (for example in the works of James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving) for people who would today be considered Germans or German-speaking, most notably the Pennsylvania Dutch. This lingering ambiguity was most likely caused by close proximity to German-speaking immigrants, who referred to themselves or (in the case of the Pennsylvania Dutch) their language as "Deutsch" or "Deitsch".[18][19][20][21][22][23]
Semantic development within Dutch
From Old Dutch *thiudisk a southern variant duutsc and a western variant dietsc developed in Middle Dutch. In the earliest sources, its primary use was to differentiate between Germanic and the Romance dialects, as expressed by the Middle Dutch poet Jan van Boendale, who wrote:[15][24]
Want tkerstenheit es gedeelt in tween, |
Because Christendom is divided in two parts, |
—Excerpt from "Brabantsche Yeesten", by Jan van Boendale (1318)[25] |
During the High Middle Ages "Dietsc/Duutsc" was increasingly used as an umbrella term for the specific Germanic dialects spoken in the Low Countries, its meaning being largely implicitly provided by the regional orientation of medieval Dutch society: apart from the higher echelons of the clergy and nobility, mobility was largely static and hence while "Dutch" could by extension also be used in its earlier sense, referring to what to today would be called Germanic dialects as opposed to Romance dialects, in many cases it was understood or meant to refer to the language now known as Dutch.[15][16][26] Apart from the sparsely populated eastern borderlands, there was little to no contact with contemporary speakers of German dialects, let alone a concept of the existence of German as language in its modern sense among the Dutch. Because medieval trade focussed on travel by water and with the most heavily populated areas adjacent to Northwestern France, the average 15th century Dutchman stood a far greater chance of hearing French or English than a dialect of the German interior, despite its relative geographical closeness.[27] Medieval Dutch authors had a vague, generalised sense of common linguistic roots between their language and various German dialects, but no concept of speaking the same language existed. Instead they saw their linguistic surroundings mostly in terms of small scale regiolects.[28]
The 15th century saw the first attested use of "Nederlandsch" (
In the second half of the 16th century the neologism "Nederduytsch" (literally: Nether-Dutch, Low-Dutch) appeared in print, in a way combining the earlier "Duytsch" and "Nederlandsch" into one compound. The term was preferred by many leading contemporary grammarians such as Balthazar Huydecoper, Arnold Moonen and Jan ten Kate because it provided a continuity with Middle Dutch ("Duytsch" being the evolution of medieval "Dietsc"), was at the time considered the proper translation of the Roman Province of Germania Inferior (which not only encompassed much of the contemporary Dutch-speaking area / Netherlands, but also added classical prestige to the name) and amplified the dichotomy between Early Modern Dutch and the "Dutch" (German) dialects spoken around the Middle and Upper Rhine which had begun to be called overlantsch of hoogdutysch (literally: Overlandish, High-"Dutch") by Dutch merchants sailing upriver.[32] Though "Duytsch" forms part of the compound in both Nederduytsch and Hoogduytsch, this should not be taken to imply that the Dutch saw their language as being especially closely related to the German dialects spoken in Southerwestern Germany. On the contrary, the term "Hoogduytsch" specifically came into being as a special category because Dutch travelers visiting these parts found it hard to understand the local vernacular: in a letter dated to 1487 a Flemish merchant from Bruges instructs his agent to conduct trade transactions in Mainz in French, rather than the local tongue to avoid any misunderstandings.[32] In 1571 use of "Nederduytsch" greatly increased because the Synod of Emden chose the name "Nederduytsch Hervormde Kerk" as the official designation of the Dutch Reformed Church. The synods choice of "Nederduytsch" over the more dominant "Nederlandsch", was inspired by the phonological similarities between "neder-" and "nederig" (the latter meaning "humble") and the fact that it did not contain a worldly element ("land"), whereas "Nederlandsch" did.[32]
As the Dutch increasingly referred to their own language as "Nederlandsch" or "Nederduytsch", the term "Duytsch" became more ambiguous. Dutch humanists, started to use "Duytsch" in a sense which would today be called "Germanic", for example in a dialogue recorded in the influential Dutch grammar book "Twe-spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst", published in 1584:
R. ghy zeyde flux dat de Duytsche taal by haar zelven bestaat/ ick heb my wel laten segghen, |
R: You've just said that the Dutch language exists in its own right, |
—Excerpt from "Twe-spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst", by Hendrik Laurenszoon Spiegel (1584)[33][25] |
Beginning in the second half 16th century, the nomenclature gradually became more fixed, with "Nederlandsch" and "Nederduytsch" becoming the preferred terms for Dutch and with "Hooghduytsch" referring to the language today called German. Initially the word "Duytsch" itself remained vague in exact meaning, but after the 1650s a trend emerges in which "Duytsch" is taken as the shorthand for "Hooghduytsch". This process was probably accelerated by the large number of Germans employed as agricultural day laborers and mercenary soldiers in the Dutch Republic and the ever increasing popularity of "Nederlandsch" and "Nederduytsch" over "Duytsch", the use of which had already been in decline for over a century, thereby acquiring its current meaning (German) in Dutch.[28]
While "Nederduytsch" briefly eclipsed the use of "Nederlandsch" during the 17th century, it always remained a somewhat officious, literary and scholarly term among the general populace and steadily started to lose ground to "Nederlandsch" in print after 1700.
The graph below visualises the decline of "Duytsch" and rise and decline of "Nederduytsch" as an ethnonym and the eventual dominance of "Nederlands":[35]
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
In the late 19th century "Nederduits" was reintroduced to Dutch through the German language, where prominent linguists, such as the Brothers Grimm and Georg Wenker, in the nascent field of German and Germanic studies used the term to refer to Germanic dialects which had not taken part in the High German consonant shift. Initially this group consisted of Dutch, English, Low German and Frisian, but in modern scholarship only refers to Low German-varieties. Hence in contemporary Dutch, "Nederduits" is used to describe Low German varieties, specifically those spoken in Northern Germany as the varieties spoken in the eastern Netherlands, while related, are referred to as "Nedersaksisch".[36] Likewise in the 19th century, the term "Diets" was revived by Dutch linguists and historians as a poetic name for Middle Dutch and its literature.[37]
Semantic development within German
The second recorded use of "theodisca" as a reference to a Germanic language was Old High German. In 788, the Annals of the Frankish Kingdom report the punishment of a Bavarian duke: "quod theodisca lingua herisliz dictum", meaning "known in the language of the people as herisliz". Herisliz is a German word now obsolete: the "slicing", i.e. tearing apart of the "Heer" (Desertion).[1]
In German dialects, a large amount of forms of "theodiscus" existed throughout the
See also
- The dictionary definition of theodiscus at Wiktionary
- The dictionary definition of "þiudiskaz" at Wiktionary
- Teutons
- Furor Teutonicus
- Theodism
- Theodoric
- Walha
- Túath
- Name of the Goths
Notes
- ^ a b M. Philippa e.a. (2003-2009) Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands [diets]
- ^ W. Haubrichs, "Theodiscus, Deutsch und Germanisch - drei Ethnonyme, drei Forschungsbegriffe. Zur Frage der Instrumentalisierung und Wertbesetzung deutscher Sprach- und Volksbezeichnungen." In: H. Beck et al., Zur Geschichte der Gleichung "germanisch-deutsch" (2004), 199-228
- ISBN 0-19-929668-5, p. 269.
- ^ J. de Vries (1971), Nederlands Etymologisch Woordenboek [diets]
- ^ "Teutonic | Origin and meaning of the name teutonic by Online Etymology Dictionary".
- ^ Dümmler, Ernst. Epistolae Karolini Aevi 2, MGH 3 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1895), pp. 20-9 at 28
- ^ Alice L. Harting-Correa: Walahfrid Strabo's Libellus de Exordiis Et Incrementis Quarundam in ... [1]
- ^ Cornelis Dekker: The Origins of Old Germanic Studies in the Low Countries [2]
- ISBN 0-19282-038-9.
- ^ P.A.F. van Veen en N. van der Sijs (1997), Etymologisch woordenboek: de herkomst van onze woorden, 2e druk, Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht/Antwerpen
- ^ H. Kurath: Middle English Dictionary, part 14, University of Michigan Press, 1952, 1346.
- ^ H. Kurath: Middle English Dictionary, part 14, University of Michigan Press, 1952, 1345.
- ^ F.C. and J. Rivington, T. Payne, Wilkie and Robinson: The Chronicle of Iohn Hardyng, 1812, p. 99.
- ^ F.C. and J. Rivington, T. Payne, Wilkie and Robinson: The Chronicle of Iohn Hardyng, 1812, p. 99
- ^ a b c d M. Philippa e.a. (2003-2009) Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands [Duits]
- ^ a b c L. Weisgerber, Deutsch als Volksname 1953
- ^ Rawson, Hugh, Wicked Words, Crown Publishers, 1989.
- ^ Hughes Oliphant Old: The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Volume 6: The Modern Age. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007, p. 606.
- ^ Mark L. Louden: Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language. JHU Press, 2006, p.2
- ^ Irwin Richman: The Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Arcadia Publishing, 2004, p.16.
- ^ The Pennsylvania Dutch Country, by I. Richman, 2004: "Taking the name Pennsylvania Dutch from a corruption of their own word for themselves, "Deutsch," the first German settlers arrived in Pennsylvania in 1683. By the time of the American Revolution, their influence was such that Benjamin Franklin, among others, worried that German would become the commonwealth's official language."
- ^ Moon Spotlight Pennsylvania Dutch Country, by A. Dubrovsk, 2004.
- ^ Pennsylvania Dutch Alphabet, by C. Williamson.
- ^ J. de Vries (1971), Nederlands Etymologisch Woordenboek
- ^ a b L. De Grauwe: Emerging Mother-Tongue Awareness: The special case of Dutch and German in the Middle Ages and the early Modern Period (2002), p. 102–103
- ^ L. De Grauwe: Emerging Mother-Tongue Awareness: The special case of Dutch and German in the Middle Ages and the early Modern Period (2002), p. 98-110.
- ^ A. Duke: Dissident Identities in the Early Modern Low Countries (2016)
- ^ a b L. De Grauwe: Emerging Mother-Tongue Awareness: The special case of Dutch and German in the Middle Ages and the early Modern Period (2002), p. 102.
- ^ M. Janssen: Atlas van de Nederlandse taal: Editie Vlaanderen, Lannoo Meulenhoff, 2018, p.29.
- ^ F. W. Panzer:Nibelungische Problematik: Siegfried und Xanten, 1954, p.9.
- ^ M. de Vries & L.A. te Winkel: Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, the Hague, Nijhoff, 1864-2001.
- ^ a b c G.A.R. de Smet, Die Bezeichnungen der niederländischen Sprache im Laufe ihrer Geschichte; in: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 37 (1973), p. 315-327
- ^ L.H. Spiegel: Twe-spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst (1584)
- ^ W. de Vreese: Over de benaming onzer taal inzonderheid over "Nederlandsch", 1910, p. 16-27.
- ^ This graph is based on the figures cited in M. Janssen: Atlas van de Nederlandse taal: Editie Vlaanderen, Lannoo Meulenhoff, 2018, p.29. and W. de Vreese: Over de benaming onzer taal inzonderheid over "Nederlandsch", 1910, p. 16-27. and G.A.R. de Smet, Die Bezeichnungen der niederländischen Sprache im Laufe ihrer Geschichte; in: Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 37 (1973), p. 315-327.
- ^ M. Janssen: Atlas van de Nederlandse taal: Editie Vlaanderen, Lannoo Meulenhoff, 2018, p. 82.
- ^ M. Janssen: Atlas van de Nederlandse taal: Editie Vlaanderen, Lannoo Meulenhoff, 2018, p. 30.