Germans: people, identity, and history

The adjective diutisc or theodisk originally meant something like "belonging to the people" or "speaking the language of the people" and was used from late Carolingian times to designate the non-Romanian-speaking population of the Frankish Empire, but also the Anglo-Saxons. It originated in distinction to the Latin of the priests as well as to walhisk, the term for the Romanes, from which the word Welsche originated.

The first evidence for the term is a passage from the 4th century Gothic Bible of Wulfila. He refers to the gentiles, the heathen peoples, with the adjective thiudisko.

The language of Germanic or Old Germanic tribes was first referred to as diutisc or theodisk in a letter from the papal nuncio Gregory of Ostia to Pope Hadrian I about two synods that had taken place in England in 786. The letter literally stated that the council's decisions were communicated tam latine quam theodisce ("in Latin as well as in the vernacular") "so that all might understand" (quo omnes intellegere potuissent). In its (Old High) German form diutsch or tiutsch, it can first be attested in the writings of Notker the German.

It was not until the 10th century that the word diutisc came to be applied to the inhabitants of the East Frankish Empire, the largest part of which, in terms of area, now belongs to Germany.

Unlike all other nationality designations of Indo-European languages, the word for people of German ethnicity is a substantivized adjective. In most other designations, the name of the country is the basis of a derivation of the personal designation (cf. England - Engländer). This reflects the fact that Germans have not established a common political association whose name could form the basis of the designation of members of the state. The nationality designation "German" has therefore retained the vagueness of derivation from the language designation. Thus Austrians and German-speaking Swiss would also be "Germans" (Deutschsprachige) in the original linguistically derived sense, but no longer in the nation-state sense, although overlaps can occur here, especially when historical circumstances are involved (for example, Austria as the leading power of the German Confederation until 1866).

Due to the declension rules for adjectives, the nationality designation takes on an unusual variety of forms. When it comes to the correct formation of forms, even many native speakers are unsure: Is it "all Germans" or "all Germans", "we Germans" or "we Germans"? According to the Duden, the so-called strong or weak forms are both acceptable. Because of the adjectival form, there is also no feminine derivative form (cf. the German - the Italian or in the plural: the German women - the Italians).

In terms of language typology, too, the term German in the original sense of "German-speaking" forms a peculiarity, insofar as it is an asymmetrical pluricentric language with several standard varieties. "German is considered a prototypical example of a language supported by a pluricentric linguistic culture" (Ludwig Eichinger). This complexity and heterogeneity is also historically conditioned and the cause of many ambiguities and misunderstandings, which are expressed, for example, in the question of whether German-speaking Swiss speak and write German or Swiss German or Swiss High German and how far the spelling rules of Federal German extend.