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What does German mean?
Deutschland is another name for Germany (Federal Republic of Germany). Deutschland in German and Germany in English. Germany is located in the central region of Europe with an area of 357,042 square kilometers. Germany is bordered by Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France to the west, and Denmark to the north, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, and the Nordic countries across the sea.
Historically, Germany was still a geographical region, including today’s Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, and part of Italy. That was the scope of the German state at that time.
Origin of a country name
The word “Deutsch” comes from the Old German word “diot”, which means “people”. Diutis also appears in Latin. In 860 AD, the first Germanic poet whose name can be identified, Otfried, mentioned theodiscus in a dialect work written in Latin, saying that it was a Frankish dialect.
By the 12th century, the meaning of theodiscus was expanded to include tribal peoples. Also, since the 9th century, another word for these tribal peoples, “Teutonicus”, which was derived from the word Teutonic and largely replaced “theodiscus”, may be due to Many of these tribal peoples are descendants of the Teutons, or they admire the bravery of the Teutons. In general, these tribes and peoples who have a common language later call themselves and the people teutsch-deutsch, that is, Germany. It should be noted that the tribe here is Volk (single nation), not nation (single nation).
As for the origins of the German state, it is quite complicated. In fact, “Where is Germany?” is a historical issue that has troubled Germans for a long time. We Chinese call Germany Germany for short, but it is easy to confuse the two different historical aspects of Land and Reich. “Germany” mainly refers to the land and the motherland, which belongs to the category of national integration, while “Germany” can refer to the political state of the country and belongs to the category of national politics.
In a unified nation-state, “country” and “country” are basically the same, and even interchangeable. In our concept, China naturally represents the country and country of the Chinese nation, and “Germany” also naturally represents the country and country of the German nation, but this is not entirely the case. For a German who has been in the process of national integration and political division for a long time, “homeland” and “country” are inconsistent and separate from each other.
In 1830 the great writer Goethe said bitterly: “We do not have a city, not even a place where we can firmly point out: this is Germany! If we ask this in Vienna, the answer is: this is Austria! If we ask this in Berlin , the answer is: this is Prussia!” The contemporary Austrian Prime Minister Metternich also said that there was a German nation, “purely a myth” and “Germany” is just a geographical concept.
It was only after Bismarck unified Germany in 1871 that Germany could truly contain the same meaning as a country and a country, and the translation of Germany into “Germany” was only true in name.
Population
82.37 million (end 2001), mainly Germans, with a few Danes, Gypsies and Sorbians. There are 7.5 million foreigners, or 9% of the population. General German. 33.7% of the residents believe in Protestant Christianity, and 33.2% believe in Roman Catholicism.
