A WORD OLDER THAN ROMANIAN
Why do Romanians call Germans “nemți”?
Neamț comes through Slavic from a word family tied to the idea of “mute” — the person whose language you do not understand. A reconstructed Proto-Slavic root reached Romanian and many other languages of Europe through centuries of contact.
- *NĚMЬCЬ
- Proto-Slavic · reconstructed form
- “MUTE”
- the semantic logic reconstructed by etymologists
- 7+ LANGUAGES
- descendants, loans and medieval traces
How the word changes shape from country to country:
- *němьcь Proto-Slavic · reconstructed
- Niemiec Poland
- Němec Czechia
- német Hungary
- neamț Romania
The dictionary: what the word says about itself
The nickname hidden inside an ordinary word
What the dictionaries say
DEX '09
“NEAMȚ, nemți, s. m. German or Austrian man. – From Slav. němĩcĩ.”
Șăineanu, 1929
“Slav. NIEMITI, from NIEMU, mute: the Slavs considered as «mutes» their German neighbours whose language they did not understand.”
DER
“Sl. němĭcĭ, from němŭ «barbar», cf. Greek némtzis, Bulg. němec, Alb. nemets, Hung. nemet, Pol. niemiec.”
Three dictionaries say the same thing: the word comes from Slavic and starts from “mute”. DER glosses němŭ as “barbar”, the foreigner, not the speechless man.
An everyday word today
The nickname is audible only in the etymology. Today, neamț is not in itself an insult: it is a traditional name for a German, although DEX '98 marks it as popular (DEX '09 drops the mark); “german” stays the neutral, standard form in formal register. This page is about the history of a sound, not about people today.
The mirror pair: the other half of the story
“We speak, they are mute”?
The perfectly symmetrical story — the Slavs are “the speaking ones”, the Germans “the mutes” — is memorable, but only the *němъ half has strong etymological support. The origin of *Slověninъ stays disputed: three hypotheses, no consensus.
Three candidates, no winner
The Britannica wrote as early as 1911 that the name of the Slavs had been derived “from slovo, a word, or slava, glory”, but “no explanation is satisfactory”. Today's lexicography has not settled the dispute either: beside the old two stands a third lead, a water name, with slovo and slava filed as alternative etymologies — three hypotheses, no consensus.
slovo, “word”TRADITIONAL STORY
The lovely story: the Slavs, “the speaking ones”. Traditional, not proven.
slava, “glory”HYPOTHESIS
The old rival of slovo, cited since 1911. It commands no consensus either.
a water nameHYPOTHESIS
A disputed third lead: a hydronym such as *Slovǫta, an old name of the Dnieper. No decisive evidence.
From here on: wherever “the speaking ones” appears, read “in the traditional story”.
Two mechanisms, not one
Two ways to name the others
The Slavs invented nothing — but neither does everyone do the same. A people can baptize its neighbours after unintelligible speech or after another neighbour's name, stretched over foreigners. Both mechanisms survive in words we still use.
The foreigner's voice
barbaros
The Greeks heard foreign tongues as babble: barbaros, probably echoic, from the root *barbar-, the echo of unintelligible speech. The barbarians were — at first, without particular contempt — all who were not Greek. This is where *němьcь stands too: unintelligible speech turned into a label.
One neighbour's name, stretched over all
walhaz
A different mechanism: *walhaz starts, in the standard account, from the name of the Celtic Volcae tribe, later generalised to Celts, Romans and Romance-speakers — a proper name turned into a label for foreigners, never an imitation of their voice. Through Slavic, as Vlach, it reached the Romanians themselves: hence Wallachia.
The map: five episodes, from Jordanes to the Saxons
The journey, mapped
Five stops: the world Jordanes describes, the contact zone, the mirror of mechanisms, the guests of Géza, and the languages of today. Each stop moves the map to its place.
Schematic map: the shapes show neighbourhoods, not borders.
From the Vistula to the Dnieper · sixth century
Jordanes' Sclaveni and Antes
Jordanes seats the Sclaveni between Noviodunum, the Dniester and the Vistula, and the Antes between the Dniester and the Dnieper; Procopius adds that they spoke the same language — and once shared a single name, the Spori. The map is schematic and never shows where *němьcь was born: Jordanes records people, not the word.
Between the Elbe and the Vistula · Common Slavic
The contact zone
Slavic and Germanic speech meet here; linguists reconstruct Proto-Slavic *němьcь, “one who does not speak [Slavic]”. The asterisk says it all: the form is inferred, never read in a document.
Greece and Germania · two mechanisms
The mirror
In the south, the Greeks hear barbaros — unintelligible voice turned into a label; in the west, *walhaz starts from the name of the Volcae and spreads over foreigners. Two different mechanisms — and walhaz will head east, toward the Vlachs.
Transylvania · 1141–1162
The guests of Géza
King Géza II calls German hospites to guard Transylvania's borders — people from Flanders to Lorraine, collectively called “Saxons” only later. The Slavic nickname will find here the neighbours it will describe.
From Poland to Greece · today — and yesterday
One family, not one word
Slavic inheritances — Niemiec, Němec, Nemec, не́мец —, Slavic loans — német, neamț — and traces: Νεμίτζοι in Byzantium, Nemc in Mann. Today, Greeks say Γερμανός, Albanians gjerman.
The evidence: who saw it and what survived
The witnesses, from Jordanes to the Saxons
Jordanes, sixth century
“Beginning at the source of the Vistula, the populous race of the Venethi dwell… yet they are chiefly called Sclaveni and Antes.”
The next passage maps their extent: the Sclaveni from Noviodunum and Lake Mursian to the Dniester — and northward to the Vistula; the Antae from the Dniester to the Dnieper. Mierow's translation is in the public domain and is quoted word for word.
Procopius, quoted
“Both the two peoples have also the same language, an utterly barbarous tongue,” writes Procopius — adding that the Sclaveni and Antae “actually had a single name in the remote past; for they were both called Spori in olden times”. Dewing's translation is in the public domain and is quoted word for word.
What stayed in the ground
Three objects from the centuries of contact: handmade pots and dress fittings.
The guests of Transylvania
The colonization of Transylvania by Germans, later collectively known as the Transylvanian Saxons, began under King Géza II of Hungary, between 1141 and 1162. The first hospites came mostly from the west — from Flanders, Brabant, Lorraine and Luxembourg — and their duty was guarding the borders; the fortified churches still carry their name.
The double inheritance: a Roman name, a Slavic nickname
The Romanian paradox
Romanian kept Rome's name for itself and the Slavic nickname for Germans. The neighbours kept their share too: the Germanic word for foreigners reached, through Slavic, the Romanians themselves — the Vlachs.
The story of the self-name, from Roman to Romanian →
The word, taken apart
Proto-Slavic *němьcь, reconstructed, means, piece by piece, “one who does not speak [Slavic]”: *němъ, “mute”, plus the suffix *-ьcь. A rival theory ties it to the name of the Germanic Nemetes tribe — rejected by Vasmer on phonetic and geographic grounds — and the Romanian dictionaries build on the “mute” sense.
Five forms, after DER
The Romanian etymological dictionary lists, beside the Slavic form, the forms of five languages:
- Greek némtzis
- Bulg. němec
- Alb. nemets
- Hung. nemet
- Pol. niemiec
Find a language
Pick a language: the map flies to it, the rest dim, and the link to Proto-Slavic draws itself.
Pick the language
neamțSLAVIC LOAN
DEX '09: “German or Austrian man. – From Slav. němĩcĩ.”
NiemiecINHERITED
DER: Pol. niemiec; from Proto-Slavic *němьcь, “niemówiący (po słowiańsku)”, one who does not speak (Slavic).
NěmecINHERITED
From Proto-Slavic *němьcь, “foreigner, German” — by form, němý, “mute”, with the suffix -ec.
NemecINHERITED
A direct descendant of Proto-Slavic *němьcь, like the Czech.
németSLAVIC LOAN
DER: Hung. nemet; a “szláv jövevényszó”, a Slavic loan from *němъ, “mute” (UESz).
не́мецINHERITED
DER: Bulg. němec. Written не́мец, read némec.
nemetsHISTORICAL FORM
DER: Alb. nemets. Today: gjerman, “German”. Mann (1948) lists nemec, “mute”, and Nemc, “German, Austrian” — Slavic loans with a historical sense.
némtzisMEDIEVAL RECORD
DER: Greek némtzis. Byzantine: Νεμίτζοι in Attaleiates (11th c.); today: Γερμανός.
*němьcь — Proto-Slavic, reconstructed (from *němъ, “mute”) RECONSTRUCTED
Six places, one word-family
Poland
Niemiec
Kraków: Wawel and the old town, seen from a balloon.
Czechia
Němec
Prague: Charles Bridge over the Vltava.
Hungary
német
Budapest: Parliament on the Danube bank.
Bulgaria
не́мец
Veliko Tarnovo: the Tsarevets fortress.
Albania
nemets
Berat: the old town, seen from the castle.
Greece
némtzis
Meteora: the Roussanou monastery.
Test yourself: five questions
Whose ears are these?
Five questions from this page. The score stays here, on this device, until you clear it.
What did Proto-Slavic *němъ mean?
“Mute” — hence *němьcь, “one who does not speak [Slavic]”. DER also glosses it as “barbar”, the foreigner.
question 1 of 5
Who called whom “the mutes”?
The Slavs called the Germans so: the neighbours whose language they did not understand, after Șăineanu, 1929.
question 2 of 5
What do we know for sure about “the Slavs, the speaking ones”?
The traditional story, disputed: since 1911, “no explanation is satisfactory”.
question 3 of 5
What does the asterisk in *němьcь mean?
The form is inferred by linguists from later languages; no document preserves it directly.
question 4 of 5
What is Proto-Germanic *walhaz usually derived from?
The standard account starts from Volcae, the name of a Celtic tribe, later generalised to neighbours — a different mechanism from “barbaros”.
question 5 of 5
Score: 0 of 5
The link is in the clipboard.
Sources
Dictionaries first, then the old witnesses and modern etymologies. Every risky claim points at its source.
Dictionaries
- neamț: DEX '09, MDA2, Șăineanu, DER
- němьcь: the Proto-Slavic reconstruction, with descendants
- slověninъ: the Proto-Slavic reconstruction, with the three leads
- němьcь from němъ; the Nemetes link, rejected: Vasmer
- német, a “szláv jövevényszó”: the Hungarian etymological dictionary
- nemec, “mute”, and Nemc, “German”: Mann's Albanian-English dictionary, 1948
- Niemiec from Proto-Slavic *němьcь: the Polish etymology
- Němec from *němьcь, via němý with -ec: the Czech etymology
- Γermanós, “German”: the modern word
- gjerman, “German”: the modern Albanian word
Old witnesses
- Jordanes, Getica, transl. Mierow 1915
- Procopius, transl. Dewing, vol. IV: one language, the Spori
- Νεμίτζοι in Attaleiates, 11th c. — Bonn ed., scan
- Procopius, in the 1911 Britannica's account: the Slavs
- The Saxon settlement under Géza II, 1141–1162
Modern etymologies
- barbaros: from *barbar-, the echo of foreign speech
- walhaz, through Vlach, to the Romanians and Wallachia
- *walhaz, “the foreigner”: Celts first, then speakers of Latin
- Volcae → walhisc: Duden on the origin of welsch
- the name of the Slavs, disputed: Mesiarkin, 2017
Neighbouring stories
Type: Fraunces, Newsreader and Atkinson Hyperlegible, under the SIL Open Font Licence.