Linguistics Humor

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Deutschland Germany Allemagne Tyskland Vokietija Niemcy Nemecko Saksa... (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] takeheart 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

If I recall historia correctly the use "of the people" root to refer to a distinction language can be traced back to Christian missionaries and clergimen of medieval times who needed to translate religious teachings from latin to the common tongue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I'm not sure if it's because of Christianity.

Calling a language "of the people" pops up often across different cultures. Quechua for example does the same; the native name of the language is "runa simi", it's basically "people's language".

And in the case of the Germanic languages it's so common that it was likely already in Proto-Germanic, thus probably older than the christianisation of those tribes.