The difference between Endonym and Exonym

[Taranis]

I know this may sound trivial, but in discussions about ancient ethnicities, this gets consistently confused. Namely, the difference between the self-designation of an ethnic group (endonym) and the foreign designation of the same ethnic group (exonym). Here are some modern examples of exonyms (in English) versus their respective endonyms:

[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]Albanians[/TD]
[TD]Shqiptar[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Basques[/TD]
[TD]Euskaldunak[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Croats[/TD]
[TD]Hvrati[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Finns[/TD]
[TD]Suomalaiset[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Dutch[/TD]
[TD]Nederlanders[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Germans[/TD]
[TD]Deutsche[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Greeks[/TD]
[TD]Ellēnes[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Hungarians[/TD]
[TD]Magyarok[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Japanese[/TD]
[TD]Nihonjin[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Welsh[/TD]
[TD]Cymry[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

The same, of course, applies for ancient ethnic groups:

[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]Proto-Germanic tribes[/TD]
[TD]Germani (Lat.), *Nemsi (Proto-Slavic)[/TD]
[TD]*Θeudiskaz[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Ancient Egyptians[/TD]
[TD]Aigyptoi (Gr.), Mizrahim (Hebrew)[/TD]
[TD]K-M-T (*Kemet, Coptic "Kimi")[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Etruscans[/TD]
[TD]Etrusci, Tusci (Lat.), Tyrsenoi (Gr.)[/TD]
[TD]Rasna, Rasena[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Gauls[/TD]
[TD]Celtae, Galli (Lat.), Galatoi, Keltoi (Gr.), *Walhaz (Proto-Germanic)[/TD]
[TD]*Keltī, *Wolkī[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Picts[/TD]
[TD]Picti (Lat.), Cruithne (Irish), Pryden (Old Welsh)[/TD]
[TD]?[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

This is, of course, far from exhaustive. But, if you didn't know this before, remember this next time you talk about ancient ethnic group...

 

[Eochaidh]

[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]Dutch[/TD]
[TD]Nederlanders[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Germans[/TD]
[TD]Deutsche[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

I like this part. The correct name for Germans is used in English as the incorrect name for people from what we would call, Holland. And both Dutch and Holland are incorrect.

We use the word Dutch very often here in Pennsylvania, i.e. the state in which Philadelphia is located. We use the phrase Pennsylvania Dutch to refer to those Germans (& some Swiss & Bohemians) who arrived before the American Revolution. The most famous of the Pennsylvania Dutch are the Amish, but they are just one group in the large swath of counties around Philadelphia which were settled by the Pennsylvania Dutch and which still have a large population of them, especially in the rural areas.

Some people, other than the Amish, still speak the language called Pennsylvania Dutch as a second language throughout these counties. And Kutztown University is teaching the Pennsylvania Dutch language and culture. The Pennsylvania Dutch language is considered a dialect of German.

The phrase "Dutchey" is used to describe their unique mannerisms, especially with language when they use the German syntax with English and things like "Throw the horse over the fence some hay", come out.

The book that Sparkey recommended about English folkways in America, taught me that the Pennsylvania Quakers sought out German Pietists to immigrate to Pennsylvania because they shared the Quaker worldview. These are the people that we now call Pennsylvania Dutch.

These people are differentiated from those that we call Germans and who arrived in the USA after the Revolution of 1848 and beyond.

So to be on topic, we think that we use the wrong term to denote the Pennsylvania Dutch (thinking that Dutch means Holland), but we are using the correct term.
We think that we use the correct term when we refer to the later arrivals as Germans, but we are really using the incorrect one.

 

[8mike]

[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Croats[/TD]
[TD]Hvrati[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Japanese[/TD]
[TD]Nihonjin[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

well Hvrati could simply be a shift of the same word Croati, also Japan is a shift from Nippon. Am i right?

 

[LeBrok]

Mike might be right. Japan is highly anglicized form of Nipon. In some other european countries older form of this word is used, like Japonia with J as Y is still in use, pronouns Yaponia, Yapon - Nipon, now we are really close.

There was some evolution of Hrvati (IIRC), to Chorvat (singular), to anglicized Croat.

 

[zanipolo]

Persian ............... Sarmatian ( by strabo )

Finns ................ Suomalai

breton ................ Breizh


Where does the term Wend fit in? , clearly a 7th century made up word by germans who meant either slav and/or balts from the east, but never used by them (germans ) in the balkans

 

[Yetos]

Persian ............... Sarmatian ( by strabo )

where did you see that?
can you give a link of Strabo? cause Herodotus describes them (Sauromates) as Finnic culture.

 

[zanipolo]

where did you see that?
can you give a link of Strabo? cause Herodotus describes them (Sauromates) as Finnic culture.

i do not understand why you are mixing sarmatia with the finnic suomi.

I said in strabo works and also in wiki sarmatians , its quoted that strabo says the persians where sarmatians.
I do not know what strabo called the finns, I will look it up now

EDIT: at the time of pliny the coast from the vistula to modern petersburg was called Finningia.
Nec minor est opinione Finningia, Quidam hrec habitari ad vistulum usque fluvium garmatis, venedis
Ptolemy named them Phinni, Gythones and Venedae.
Procopius calls them Skrithiphini
nothing I can find by strabo for finns or letts

 

[MOESAN]

where did you see that?
can you give a link of Strabo? cause Herodotus describes them (Sauromates) as Finnic culture.

I'm not able to read grecian but it is the first time I hear about a possible common origin for Saromates and Finnic peoples - the only "new" theory I heard of was the turkic theory for Scythes and associated people, but all of them was described as steppes peoples or tribes not finnic people - I think the majority of scientists look always at Scythes, Sarmatians and Alans as iranic-Ind-Ean speaking people...

 

[Nugget]

Minor Bit of Clarification

I like this part. The correct name for Germans is used in English as the incorrect name for people from what we would call, Holland. And both Dutch and Holland are incorrect.

We use the word Dutch very often here in Pennsylvania, i.e. the state in which Philadelphia is located. We use the phrase Pennsylvania Dutch to refer to those Germans (& some Swiss & Bohemians) who arrived before the American Revolution. The most famous of the Pennsylvania Dutch are the Amish, but they are just one group in the large swath of counties around Philadelphia which were settled by the Pennsylvania Dutch and which still have a large population of them, especially in the rural areas.

Some people, other than the Amish, still speak the language called Pennsylvania Dutch as a second language throughout these counties. And Kutztown University is teaching the Pennsylvania Dutch language and culture. The Pennsylvania Dutch language is considered a dialect of German.

The phrase "Dutchey" is used to describe their unique mannerisms, especially with language when they use the German syntax with English and things like "Throw the horse over the fence some hay", come out.

The book that Sparkey recommended about English folkways in America, taught me that the Pennsylvania Quakers sought out German Pietists to immigrate to Pennsylvania because they shared the Quaker worldview. These are the people that we now call Pennsylvania Dutch.

These people are differentiated from those that we call Germans and who arrived in the USA after the Revolution of 1848 and beyond.

So to be on topic, we think that we use the wrong term to denote the Pennsylvania Dutch (thinking that Dutch means Holland), but we are using the correct term.
We think that we use the correct term when we refer to the later arrivals as Germans, but we are really using the incorrect one.

I agree with all of the above, but would like to add some information about PA Dutch. My ancestors were Swiss Anabaptist, in the US known as Mennonite. Amish are an orthodox spin-off of Mennonite. Both Spoke German or Schweizerdeutsch. My ancestors arrived in PA in the early 1600's. I have records from that time on. In modern documents, the word "Dutch" when referring to these groups is a bastardization of "Deutsch". Old family records use Deutsch instead of Dutch meaning the German speaking Pennsylvanians.

 

[MOESAN]

Persian ............... Sarmatian ( by strabo )

Finns ................ Suomalai

breton ................ Breizh


Where does the term Wend fit in? , clearly a 7th century made up word by germans who meant either slav and/or balts from the east, but never used by them (germans ) in the balkans

just a (long) detail
Breton is used for the people, not the country (Bretagne, Bretanje ...= Breizh) but at first sight it seams an endonyme, beings all these forms only shifts of the same root - there are some discussions among scholars about the shift
lat- 'britann-' (T-NN) an the word 'britton-' (TT-N), maybe a confusing between close pronounciation names -
we could suppose a possible confusion between Pretania (brittonic form or Cruithni-) and Brittonia where 'britt-' (>> Breizh, Brythoneg etc...) could come from *brikt (mixed coloured, tatooed, see Pictes) >> 'brith', 'brizh' (welsh, breton): "spottled", "freckled" etc... A. RAUDE thinks Brittia, a supposed region of N-Britannia gave Breizh, brezhon, distinct from Britannia, latin form or mispronouncing... welsh and breton have a word 'brych', 'brec'h' with a previous close meaning so? *'brik-t'???
amusing: welsh name for Bretagne is 'LLydaw' << 'Letavia' that someones linked to Latvia-Lettonia !!! a more accurate (seamingly) explanation should be *'-let-'/*'llet-' << 'plat-' = level, shallow (bret- 'led' = breadth, 'ledan' = wide, broad -
on the same mode, very often well educated (by school) people give very often second or third names to people of other countries, maybe to show their great knowledge:
in France we say very often 'les Helvètes' when speaking about Swiss people, that is very unexact or unprecise - 'Hollandais' for people of the Netherlands -
Scotland, according to its complicated history, has more than a name:
'Alban' in welsh, 'Calédonie' for the cultured selfsatisfied people
see 'Galles', 'Wales', 'Cymru' ("Cambrie")

to conclude, showing the imprecision of some reports and namings among popular culture (and even well educated one) I recall that Frisons was sometimes referred to as 'Saxons', and that 'Vikings' as 'Frisons' - stronger: in some french tongue tales of Brittany (Middel Ages), the same charactere was referred to as 'Normand' here and 'Sarrasin' there!!! (ridculous: or a mess caused by the presence of Normen in N-Africa???
('roumi' = 'roman' was the name given by arab speaking populations (in N-Africa) for all the European people%...

 

[sparkey]

Is there any indication of how old the word "Breizh" is? I know that certain regional names in Brittany are very old, indicating that they came from the old British region of Dumnonia and its subregion, Cornwall. Those are reflected in the old regional name Domnonea (the middle of northern Brittany), and the still-used regional name Kernev (most of western Brittany, compare to the Cornish for Cornwall, "Kernow").

As "Dumnonian" was certainly an old tribal name, and "Kernowyon" (or something similar) may have also been as well, I'm wondering if more ancient endonyms might be found in the regional names.

 

[Sennevini]

For the case of Dutch (Diets, Duits, etc.), the "Nederlanders" in previous times also called themselves "Nederduits". This means something like "Nether-Dutch", the people who live in the Low (=Nether) "Deutsch" countries, as opposition there was Hoogduits (High-Dutch), people who lived more upstream. The "Nederduits" people became known by the English as Dutch, and the rest of Deutsch people, (both High German as Low German) became known as German.

 

[MOESAN]

Is there any indication of how old the word "Breizh" is? I know that certain regional names in Brittany are very old, indicating that they came from the old British region of Dumnonia and its subregion, Corry different levelnwall. Those are reflected in the old regional name Domnonea (the middle of northern Brittany), and the still-used regional name Kernev (most of western Brittany, compare to the Cornish for Cornwall, "Kernow").

As "Dumnonian" was certainly an old tribal name, and "Kernowyon" (or something similar) may have also been as well, I'm wondering if more ancient endonyms might be found in the regional names.

As you have surely had the occasion to constate, my knowledges are of irregular levels according to the matter - (I was not able to answer a question about the first apparition of the word Vénète-Veneti concerning my proper region!) -
for today Brittany, the only things I know are:
as in France (from ~~ Gaul-Gallia ancient times), very often big towns were given their names on the model of the ancient tribe names:
RENNES, br- ROAZON comes from REDON-ES tribe
NANTES, br- NAONED << NAÑVNED comes from NAMNET-ES tribe
CORSEUL (by exception a little town), br- comes from the CORIOSOL-ITES tribes
see PARIS from PARISI, POITOU and POITIERS from PICTONES, BERRY and BOURGES from BITURIGES, LIMOUSIN/LIMOGES/LIMOUX etc... the difference of phonetic evolution between province and chef-lieu town seaming linked to a difference of tone accentuation place in the word between country and town yet from the late gaulish period: (nobles of a different stock of Celts? late Latenians?) - it could be debated in another place but I am not competent for now -
+
we have a 'bro' (country but too: region) named TREGER or BRO-DREGER (sonorising mutation after a feminine word) that seams coming from a little corner or central CORNWALL/KERNOW that was named I think TRECYR in ancient times (not sure of the right spelling)

I have sung my song

 

[Selwyn Greenfrith]

The book that Sparkey recommended about English folkways in America, taught me that the Pennsylvania Quakers sought out German Pietists to immigrate to Pennsylvania because they shared the Quaker worldview. These are the people that we now call Pennsylvania Dutch.

Goes to show how the so-called Godfearing of German and Dutch roots in the Americas and South Africa happen to be so much more conservative re blood and language alikened to their more inlightened, freedom-loving and foreward-thinking English religious alikemates.

English religious settlers to America like the Pilgrims, saw it, done it, and gotten the t-shirt many a yearhundreds ago. The ultra-conservative English Puritans never made it out of their primitivism unlike the Quakers (whom have been there since day one) and have reportedly always been cool and kindly.

Seems like the Godliness and Gospel of the Amish and Mennonites takes a heathenish back seat to 'tradition' - itself a figleaf for some kind of primitive 'blut und boden' cleanliness of blood.

English religious movements such as the Quakers have shown themselves to be more openminded and bolder - through a far stronger feeling of selfbelief and selfworth, than the cowardly German and Dutch movements. Quaker thinking and even materialism is inclusive - compare the openness of the Quaker meeting house rather than the exclusiveness of pusedo-religious uniformed Amish and Mennonites sitting on land, playing 16th century uniformed farmers/tribal units.

Mindwise and bodywise, the Quakers are way more religious than the sinful inbred Amish and Mennoites ethno-primitives. Sporting chin whiskers doth not maketh up for godliness.

 

[sparkey]

Goes to show how the so-called Godfearing of German and Dutch roots in the Americas and South Africa happen to be so much more conservative re blood and language alikened to their more inlightened, freedom-loving and foreward-thinking English religious alikemates.

I don't see this, really. The Quakers are difficult to compare to the Mennonites and Amish, for one, despite the fact that they settled in the same region of America. Quaker theology was always more tolerant of change and personal revelation, while Mennonites and Amish are traditionally Protestant in their theology, with some conclusions that are similar to the Quakers, but many that are much more similar to Calvinists and Baptists, or their own thing entirely. Perhaps most strikingly, while the Quakers theologically encourage change, the Amish specifically discourage it. The Mennonites tend to discourage it as well, but are less strict about it... and that has made the main Mennonite denominations in the US, like the Mennonite Church USA, quite mainstream.

Your point also doesn't extend to other denominations. The German counterpart to the Puritans were the German Reformed. Where are the German Reformed congregants in the US now? Why, in the United Church of Christ, which is the (now quite liberal) union of all the old Puritan and German Reformed congregations. So, obviously, the Puritans and German Reformed liberalized in a similar fashion. Liberalizing patterns have also been similar when comparing Episcopalians and Lutherans, and perhaps favor the Germans when comparing Baptists and Schwarzenau Brethren.

 

[Diviacus]

I am surprised by comments of forumers saying about ancient people that their name is an exonym (which obviously can be true). It often suggests that it's not their actual name.
But don't you think that most ancient people names are probably exonyms?

 

[RobertColumbia]

I don't see this, really. The Quakers are difficult to compare to the Mennonites and Amish, for one, despite the fact that they settled in the same region of America. Quaker theology was always more tolerant of change and personal revelation, while Mennonites and Amish are traditionally Protestant in their theology, with some conclusions that are similar to the Quakers, but many that are much more similar to Calvinists and Baptists, or their own thing entirely. Perhaps most strikingly, while the Quakers theologically encourage change, the Amish specifically discourage it. The Mennonites tend to discourage it as well, but are less strict about it... and that has made the main Mennonite denominations in the US, like the Mennonite Church USA, quite mainstream....

One of the main points of unity, however, is the strong belief in separation of church and state that became one of the founding principles of the USA. Amish and Mennonites may have strict, or somewhat strict, interpretations or rules, but anyone who wishes to leave and follow their own path is free to do so.

 

[sparkey]

Amish and Mennonites may have strict, or somewhat strict, interpretations or rules, but anyone who wishes to leave and follow their own path is free to do so.

Well, if you're going to leave the Amish, prepare to be shunned.

 

[RobertColumbia]

Well, if you're going to leave the Amish, prepare to be shunned.

True, but shunned people are not persecuted by an Inquisition, jailed, or burned at the stake for heresy.

 

[Denderplankenware]

At least being shunned is way better than being gang-stalked.