Talk:Names of Germany

Map

The map is wrong. Because Iran is not separated from the other countries it is marked with the Arab name "'Almanya". Though in Persian Germany is called "Alman".

Hawaiian name

Is it clear that "Kelemania" is related to "Alemanni", not to "Germania"? I would have naively guessed the other root. Kusma (討論) 04:14, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I second that. I think that language replaces R with L by default. Wikipeditor 18:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

A second second. It's from "Germania." - AjaxSmack 06:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

One language, multiple roots

What to do about languages with more than one root form for Germany? E.g.:

• Swahili: Udachi; Ujerumani
• Surmiran Romansh language: Tera Tudestga; Germania
• Sursilvan Romansh language: Tiaratudestga; Germania
• Sutsilvan Romansh language: Tearatudestga; Germagna
• Uzbek: Olmoniya / Олмония; Germaniya / Германия
• Pashto: جرمني ; آلمان

There are many other similar cases. Enter them twice on the list?

AjaxSmack 06:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Why not, if both forms are used? Wikipeditor 10:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Alemanni means the others??

I tought that was derived from the germanic word al meaning all and manni meaning men, so alamanni all men. This should be inserted also --Philx 13:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any proofs? Wikipedia doesn't like what you "think". --2.245.244.254 (talk) 18:33, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

transcription

i tried to transcribe as many names as i could. the transcriptions are naturally imprecise but i'm trying to match what english speakers would expect ('y' not 'j', 'ch' not 'cz', etc.). i also capitalized all transcriptions. i'm guessing the final alif-maqsuura in farsi is /a/, not /i/, anyone sure? (never mind) Benwing 07:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Italian name

I thought Italian name is Tedesco not Germania. Isn't it? --xRiffRaffx 18:38, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Tedesco means "German", doesn't it? it:Germania Saint|swithin 19:10, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Added note: as it:Germania only uses the word Tedesco/Tedesci as an adjective, and does not mention it as an alternative name for "Germany", I'm presuming it means "German". Perhaps someone who has time could add a paragraph on the fact that the adjectives in different languages are often different to the noun "Germany"? Saint|swithin 07:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

"Tedesci" doesn't exist! It's "tedeschi" in order to preserve the pronunciation. In most languages, the adjective is different from the noun. This is also true for other countries, not just Germany. What paragraph do you expect?--2.245.244.254 (talk) 18:36, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

dutch

Dutch being a mistranslation of Deutsch, which is German for German.

If you'd like to add this to the article, please go ahead, you're the editor. If you would like to ask someone else to add it, please explain how it is relevant. Saint|swithin 09:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

One problem: Dutch isn't a "mistranslation" of Deutsch(e) or Duits; this term historically referred to all Continental West Germanic speaking peoples, including those in the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland etc. The Dutch langage endonym was often Nederduytsch in the past... So strictly speaking the information you have isn't entirely correct, so adding it to the article would only MISLEAD READERS! This is quite an understandable misconception, but it shouldn't be added. Have a nice day! 20:33, 10 December 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C44:237F:ACCB:47E:9066:6B64:6A2E (talk)

Heremani

Seeing that Tahitian allegedly has no /l/, I wonder whether Heremani might have been derived from Allemagne rather than Germania. Is it in the wrong column? Wikipeditor 07:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

well if you switch G and H Heremani Geremani - that seam to be closer than Heremani Allemagne or with l/r Helemani - on the other hand tahiti was a french collony178.210.114.106 (talk) 11:55, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

and hey maybe it's based on the name Hermann?178.210.114.106 (talk) 11:59, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Serbic?

Hey, as far as I know (I'm not sure), in several countries of yugoslavia, use "svabo" for Germans as well as Austrians. I'd guess that it is related to the German "Schwaben" ((people of) Swabia). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 91.5.218.39 (talk) 15:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC).

See [1]. Perhaps it should be mentioned even if it is not an official name. By the way, I think "Serbic" is wrong. Wikipeditor 18:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I recently read the article and was about to make a similar comment. I'm from Australia and my Croatian speaking friends called Germans Svabo. I imagine they haven't learnt their language in school and so only know a regional or slang name for Germans. Ozdaren 00:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Here in Slovenia "švabsko" is also used for Germany(not for Austria though) and the word "švabi" is used almost as much as "nemci"(for the people). So I suggest adding švabsko. Nerby (talk) 11:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

That's derogatory sometimes though. Some people use Shvabo as a general term, others (old people) use it as a synonym for "Nazi". *sigh* but then again so is Nemci which is the older word of the two (Shvabo is borrowed from German) and means "Mutes" or "Idiots". 99.236.221.124 (talk) 01:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Shvabo comes from Schwaben (German for Swabia and Swabians) named after the ancient Suebi-tribe who's name mean something like "our people" 178.210.114.106 (talk) 11:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move. JPG-GR (talk) 00:44, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Names for Germany → Names of Germany — The prepositions "for" and "to" have the same meaning in this context. "Names of Germany" is more in line with other "Names of country" articles, such as Names of Japan, Names of Iceland, and Names of India. — Neelix (talk) 13:25, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Oppose Someone is confusing their for's and of's. For a country would mean that Germany could also be called something else. Of a country would mean common names found in Germany. Names of Japan is actually an article about the "Name of Japan", within the article "Names of Iceland" we find "names for Iceland" (hint, hint), Names of India is more about the names of the regions of India. 199.125.109.18 (talk) 03:46, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support as nominator - The Iceland article's use of "for" and "of" interchangeably in this context demonstrates the fact that have the same meaning in this case. The India article is not about the names of the regions of India at all; it is about names which refer to the country. The article is therefore directly analagous to this article. Other examples include Names of the Czech Republic, Names of Sri Lanka, Names of Korea, Names of China, and Names of Burma. Names for Germany is the only article which deviates from this naming convention, and it does so without reason. Neelix (talk) 19:48, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support. There's not a huge difference between the two but standardisation is not always bad. User:199.125.109.18's logic-based argument about "of" vs. "for" doesn't match actual linguistic usage. Furthermore he or she says, "For a country would mean that Germany could also be called something else" It is. It's called Niemcy, Deutschland, Saksa, and a whole lot of other names. If those are not enough, feel free to add more to the article. — AjaxSmack 03:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Uh, that's why I said it is rightly called Names for Germany. 199.125.109.134 (talk) 23:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Outcome of requested move

I made the move from the History of Germany article to here.Rjensen (talk) 14:03, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Names of Germany in Latvia and Lithuania

Welcome! My English skills are not particularly good, so I don't edit this page, but hope that someone will do it. I try to translate text from article in Latvian wikipedia (lv:Vācijas nosaukumi) and hope somebody will correct mistakes and add this to article.

Unlike the others, the Baltic peoples (Latvians and Lithuanians) this country called Vācija and Vokietija. That word did not originate entirely clear, but probably the oldest name was vāca or vākiā, which West Baltic tribes were given a designation of the Viking. Lithuanian linguist Kazimieras Būga that word associated with 6th century chronicler Jordans reference to the Swedish tribe vagoth. But according to another linguist Konstantīns Karulis view, the word may be based on the Indo-European word uek ( "speak"), of the Prussian language the word occurred wackis ( "war cry"), the Latvian word vēkšķis. Similar names could be used initially incomprehensible speaking western neighboring tribes from Baltic peoples. --Treisijs (talk) 12:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

done, please let me know if you have any comments. Philippe Magnabosco (talk) 16:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be no consensus about the origin of these names, and I was not able to find any source for the folk theory. Visually, German Volk seems to fit well to Lithuanian Vokietija, but it makes me suspicious that the V in German Volk is (and has always been) pronounced as an F, like in English or Danish folk. It should be noticed that the corresponding article in the Latvian Wikipedia (partly translated above) does not contain this explanation on the basis of folk. It would be helpful to find the source of this information, or to find out if scientific works on this question mention this theory at all - in order to decide if it possibly is a false etymology. --Eselohr (talk) 19:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Cimmeria

A Chinese scholar (朱學淵) claimed that the name of German(y) came from the name "Cimmerian" (Crimea has the same etymology from this name) which was a tribe at the north of Black Sea. (This tribe was unrelated to Indo-European; only the placename was adapted) He further claimed that that placename was from the tribe that came from Ussuri River at northeastern China. See Nivkhs, which was known as Gilyemi in China. The current article mentioned the name Tungri, which may be come from Tengri which means sky or heaven in Mongolian languages. It is also a Mongolian surname which is still in use nowadays. --✉ Hello World! 17:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Nahautl

Isn't Teutōtitlan more related to Teutonic than to Deutschland? Or does the word Teutonic have the same origin as the word Deutschland? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.95.125 (talk) 20:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

See the explanation under Names of Germany#Names from diutisc Lars T. (talk) 20:22, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, is Teutōtitlan correct? Nahuatl Wikipedia has Teutontlālpan for Germany; searching Teutōtitlan there finds nothing, and almost all the google hits for it are duplicates of this page. --Pit-trout (talk) 21:51, 21 November 2010 (UTC).

idk but nahautl looks strangely very very aztech. I wonder if theres a link ? Isnt that the name of their langauge? -J — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18D:8B80:BBF:9D94:772:66DC:3435 (talk) 02:34, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Why one name over another?

This article discusses the etymologies of a few of these terms pretty well, but lacks any real discussion of why one name was chosen over another (i.e., why do the Spanish and French words for Germany come from the Alemanni instead of Germania?). It'd be a welcome addition, and what I was actually expecting when I came to this article. RobertM525 (talk) 08:21, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

well the allamanic part of the German speaking lands is at the german-french border, so the french called them allamand and others took that name over (from Spain, Germany is behind France)178.210.114.106 (talk) 11:45, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Possible etymology of word 'German'

The explanation given by my college English tutor (who was a keen etymologist) was that the word 'German' stemmed from a corruption of 'Deutschemann'. The '-schemann' part of the word being used. Not syaing he was correct, but it is presented for your scrutiny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.58.187 (talk) 22:25, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Nice joke! --87.161.243.192 (talk) 15:12, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

chinese section

needs to be edited:

The character 德 by itself means "moral" and is thus consistent with the Chinese pattern names of choosing characters which are not only phonetically comparable with national names, But this is just a beautiful coincidence that sounds similar to the result. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.162.138.165 (talk) 20:15, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Japanese doitsu

looks as being derived directly from "deutsch", not from netherlands "duits", because of the pronounciation of the vowels. That the "tsch" was reduced to "ts" is probably because the Japanese language does not know such a consonant. --87.161.243.192 (talk) 15:11, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

It'd be ドイチュ (doichu) in that case, though. It's not particularly difficult to render the "tsch" part into katakana Japanese. Besides, the Dutch were almost the sole provider of information on the Western world to the Japanese for a fairly long time, so borrowing from Dutch makes sense. (On that topic, you can see rangaku). 164.71.1.221 (talk) 07:14, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

No, Japanese doesn't have t͡ʃ! It's t͡ɕ and many Japanese pronounce it as t͡s. Doesn't matter.--2.245.244.254 (talk) 18:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Then please explain why the other Japanese word for Germany (borrowed from German) is ドイチュラント. t͡ʃ and t͡ɕ are close enough that only linguistics scholars or people who speak a language that has both phonemes can tell the difference. Meanwhile, Japanese actually has a t͡s phoneme distinct from either, so I find your suggestion that the two are merging for any large segment of the population highly improbable. The vowel objection is also dubious, because modern "duits" was formerly pronounced with a vowel sound that, to Japanese ears, would sound very much like an /ui/. It is written /doi/ rather than /dui/ because Japanese has no /d/ + /u/. This is also why ド /do/ is used in many foreign words for just the sound /d/. And finally, unless it is a very recent (post-1868) borrowing, it simply cannot have been borrowed from German.--Wlerin (talk) 21:56, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I don't understand the difference between t͡ʃ and t͡ɕ, but according to the wp article Japanese 'ch', as in 'chi' (ち), 'cha' (ちゃ), 'chu' (ちゅ) and 'cho' (ちょ) is t͡ɕ. This is not the same as 'ts' in 'tsu' (つ). So I do not think there is anything relevant that "many Japanese" pronounce differently. And the first comment in this thread is not correct.　Imaginatorium (talk) 05:38, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Merge completion request

As a consensus has been reached that the article Terminology related to Germany be merged with this article I would request an admin to kindly complete this merge so as to delist the article from the merge list. Thanks and regards Wikishagnik (talk) 15:55, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Purged a bit of Chinese nationalism from the article

Namely, this part in the "In Asian names" part: " Noticeably, the characters with which the Chinese name is written have a flattering connotation while the Japanese characters are degrading. This is consistent with naming patterns of the two countries during the nineteenth century." and this bit in the next paragraph: "The character 德 by itself means "moral" and is thus consistent with the Chinese pattern names of choosing characters which are not only phonetically comparable with national names.[clarification needed]" and "The usual senses carried by those characters are 独: 'solitary' and 逸: 'flee'[7]"

The reason for this should be obvious, but just to add a bit of explanation, there was no such "practice" as giving degrading names to countries (it'd be bad for diplomacy, if nothing else), countries were simply given names using phonetic approximations. Oh, and the coup de grace is just throwing a completely unrelated character in there (逸) and insist that it has anything to do with the name.

If anyone is curious, the first time this whole thing found its way into the article was in July 2010: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Names_of_Germany&diff=372748593&oldid=372478148 164.71.1.222 (talk) 07:54, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

独 and 逸 are the Japanese Kanji associated with ドイツ, though in practice they are almost never used. The second one doesn't seem to mean flee though, so much as lazy/leisurely. In this specific case, it seems like this bit of Chinese nationalism has truth to it, but one would need far more evidence than this to prove the point, and it doesn't belong in the article. Also a bit sceptical of "19th century" here. ドイツ is from Dutch, but by the time Germany became a world power, Dutch had been replaced by French (and German!) as the language of choice to borrow from. This suggests the term is older than the German Empire, and thus perhaps older than the 19th century. Either way it would have entered the country during a time when most knowledge of European affairs came through the Dutch.--74.100.177.164 (talk) 21:20, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

should this be mentioned?

The Arabic name for Austria is an-Nimsā (النمسا). This is a borrowing (via Ottoman Turkish or Persian "نمچه" – "Nemçe") from the Slavic name for "Germans", němьci, whence Croatian Njemačka, Serbian Nemačka (Немачка), Slovene Nemčija, Czech has Německo, Slovak Nemecko, etc., all meaning "mute".178.210.114.106 (talk) 11:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Why should the Arabic name for Austria be mentioned here at all? Deleting it. --jae (talk) 03:55, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Map

The map doesn't make any sense! It literally claims that every country is Germany. A table is enough, the map though, could offend people. --2.245.244.254 (talk) 18:42, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Of course it claims nothing of the sort. It indicates something (the etymological origin of the word for Germany) for every country. Imaginatorium (talk) 10:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

weird map - why does the Germanic blue overlap into Italy but not France?

why does the map show Germanic blue overlapping into Italy/South Tyrol but yet somehow no overlapping of Germanic blue into France/Alsace-Lorraine?

Because Sud-tirol/Alto Adige is now majority(?) German speaking, whereas Alsace-Lorraine is (now) majority French-speaking. (What the map really needs is a layer of thin stripes over countries where the adjectival form is from a different root, like Italian Germania/Tedesco.) Imaginatorium (talk) 10:22, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

thanks for reply but South Tyrol is NOT majority(?) German speaking. So again, why does the map show Germanic blue overlapping into Italy/South Tyrol but yet somehow no overlapping of Germanic blue into France/Elsass Lothringen? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.254.109 (talk) 22:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC) South Tyrol is majority German speaking! (Alsace not any more) 14:24, 17 June 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.172.99.44 (talk) The linguistic breakdown according to ASTAT 2014 (based on the census of 2011): 14:26, 17 June 2015 (UTC)~~

References

Because of Germany's geographic position in the centre of Europe

I don't really see how this has resulted in all the different names for Germany. --2.245.194.8 (talk) 00:06, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Several of the names for German/Germany are based on fringe tribes, e.g. the Saxons and the Alemanni. If Germany had been located in, say, Spain or France instead, the rest of Europe would have been closest to the same tribe, and those names would all be the same. Might still have the Slavic and Deutisc alternatives though. That's the simple explanation. It's also possible that Germany's central location is one of the reasons it remained divided for so long. --74.100.177.164 (talk) 20:43, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion: 2 columns (or one!) instead of 3

I have not read all of this "Talk:" page, so I apologize if this has been discussed before (and perhaps I missed it).

FWIW, in my opinion the "References" section would look better with 2 columns (or one!) instead of 3 columns.

That is, with {{Reflist|2}} instead of {{Reflist|3}}

Just my 0.02. YMMV. --Mike Schwartz (talk) 01:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Moving maps

The large number of maps as right-floated images under the Diutisc section made problems -- here's my question to WP:VPT:

In Names of Germany there is an image of Gaius Cornelius Tacitus at the beginning of the section Names from Germania (where it belongs; at least in the source), but a string of images on the right from the preceding section is pushing this down. I can't see why. Worse, if you adjust the browser width so that the image is just at the top of the Names from Alemanni section, instead of the title Names from Alemanni flowing around it, it is superimposed on the image.

So I followed the suggestion to put them in a gallery at the bottom. But really speaking it might be better to put them in the historical sections above their present position. Any suggestions, comments, etc. ? Imaginatorium (talk) 14:21, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Tacitus' mention of the Treveri and the Nervii

A passage translated from Germania, chapter 28, about these two tribes was tagged for improvement. The previous phrase said that they 'affectionate their German origin,' which doesn't sound like real English. I made this change in hope that it is better. For reference, the Latin original is Treveri et Nervii circa affectationem Germanicae originis ultro ambitiosi sunt, tanquam per hanc gloriam sanguinis a similitudine et inertia Gallorum separentur. I replaced "affectionate their German origin" with "take pride in their German origin". EdJohnston (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Removing Pagan-Slavic parts

Mostly in the section for Nemets there was revisionist content slandering Germanic tribes to be cannibalistic invaders displacing advanced and Aryan Slavs in Bavaria and Eastern Germany. In fact Bavaria had been Celtic, and while Germanization of some western Slavic land did occur, it was more of colonization than invasion and genocide. Most of them have no connection with etymologies, so it should be good to delete them. 42.98.110.184 (talk) 14:43, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

In fact wiki rules say you need to cite reliable sources to support your claims. Rjensen (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

This is a page about names of Germany, not a platform to express personal speculation on German history. Besides, look at the past version if my reason of deleting the part is unclear. That is obvious vandalism done by a Slavist vandal. 42.98.110.184 (talk) 14:53, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Tedeschi

In the introduction, this is said "(although the German people are called tedeschi)." But this word is never mentioned again in the article. Under the Germania section, it says Romans called them Germani. So? What's "tedeschi??"

63.155.48.177 (talk) 22:11, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Names_of_Germany#Names from Diutisc--Kgfleischmann (talk) 07:36, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Citation needed

There is an inaccurate entry for old english on this list. I put a "" tag by it, with the following explanation:

date=December 2020|reason=I know this is the form used on the Old English Wikipedia, but there it was coined as a neologism and not without controversy. The term "Þēodiscland" follows the pattern of most Modern Germanic languages, but it has no historical attestation and thus should be excluded from "Old English" here, except in a context as a revived language, if that could even apply. I recommend removing that item of the list, but would like to explain before the deletion.

If someone could either find a reliable source contradicting my misgivings by providing an actual historical attestation, they are welcome to do so, as long as it is properly cited. Once that is the case the {{|citation needed|}} tag can be removed. Otherwise, I would like someone to remove the item from the list or likewise. Thanks for the help and/or discussion! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6c44:237f:accb:47e:9066:6b64:6a2e (talk • contribs) 20:33, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Dutchland in English

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dutchland

I'm pretty sure that should be transcluded here in this article from Wiktionary. As a native English speaker, Dutchland makes sense because we say Dutch and not Deutsche, whereas there's no confusion with the Netherlands that we call Holland. Whatever the results from overlapping terminology, Holland i.e. the Netherlands used to belong to Dutchland i.e. Deutschland and both were Dutch i.e. Teutonic, only the former was a republic and the latter was a kingdom, until in the last couple hundred years when they flipped governments. If you can see that, then picture Amsterdam and Rotterdam as North Sea marts of Germany, because they were. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.77.235.7 (talk) 13:38, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Whilst Almain is described in the main body of text, it's not in the list, whereas Saksland or Saxland is also missing, despite Saxony being a shorthand for Germany by those in the Anglo-Scandinavian North Sea, in Old English and Old Norse before the Normans (being based in France) introduced Almain to Middle English. 107.77.235.7 (talk) 13:47, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Nordic languages: Tyskland

Tyskland isn’t covered in the article. 80.229.146.237 (talk) 07:10, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Tyskland

( continuing) languages covered would be Icelandic, Faroese, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. My unqualified guess is, it may be related to Gothic 𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌹𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌻𐌰𐌽𐌳. I would love to see a knowledgeable entry here, because it doesn’t seem related to any of the other common forms “nem”, “allema”, “duits”, “germ”, etc.

80.229.146.237 (talk) 07:37, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Belarus

Im pretty sure Belarusian is also From the origin of Germania, they use both names (germania and the Slavic one) 109.186.112.245 (talk) 16:23, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Sign languages

I added the section about the names in sign languages, but it is markedly incomplete:

1. I pointed out that ASL has two signs for Germany, one based on its German counterpart and another that’s unrelated. The source I cited said the latter is preferred, The Canadian Dictionary of American Sign Language only the latter same as Spread the Sign, but The American Sign Language Handshape Dictionary, 2nd ed. mentions both and says the German SL one is preferred. Which is it? Does it vary by dialect? Has this changed over time?
2. Spread the Sign includes various additional unrelated signs in some other languages—where do those come from? Is there any literature explaining it?

שונרא (talk) 14:20, 6 October 2023 (UTC)