Comment on Learning Japanese
agavaa@lemmy.world 2 weeks agoCause they can’t!1!
But for real, for those who are curious: the border between Germany and Poland is effectively the border between western and eastern Europe. So to Slav people Germans lived right over there, and yet spoke something incomprehensible; so we called them “mute” (in Poland at least). If I can’t understand you you are mute to me, basically. And the word for “Germans” is the same as for “Germany”, so we call the country itself mutes 😅
Literally it’s more like “non-speakers”, though, isn’t it? Nie + mowić = Not + to speak.
So, maybe in contemporary Polish the word has been polished to mean “mute”, but could be that they were “those damn non-speakers [of our Polish] across that river-thing!”
Well, the “mówić” part is not present, the root of the word is more similar to “niemy”, meaning “mute”; the Polish word comes from “non-speaker”, as in “not speaking at all”. but that’s just speculation on my part, I’m no linguist or etymologist 🤷♀️
At least Wiktionary completely agrees with you!
Demdaru@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For fun with words: