From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Tue May 03 2005 - 16:08:31 CDT
On 03/05/2005 19:39, Jony Rosenne wrote:
>I believe that both Denmark and Danish are called after the name of the
>people. Denmark, or Danemark, means the mark (march, a border district) of
>the Danes.
>
>I think England too is a country named after the people, rather than the
>other way round.
>
>
>
Indeed. The original name of each of the people was Angle (famously
confused with Angel by Pope Gregory the Great), and the country was
originally Angle-land (cf French Angleterre), later abbreviated to England.
But then Scotland is also named after the Scots, i.e. the plural of
Scot. And I assume that the anglicised form Ireland is derived from some
version of the name of the Irish people, rather than vice versa - or
perhaps it is simply Éire + -land.
Ironically, the Angles came from Denmark and the Scots from Ireland.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.11.2 - Release Date: 02/05/2005
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