Quote:
Originally Posted by Catfish
There were (are ? lol) other tribes like Suebes, the Chattes a.s.o. but all merged with the later Franconian or Alemanni as Skybird wrote.
There were some germanic tribes in the northern parts of what is Germany today (but was'nt then), … some say that english is closer to the original "germanic" tongue of those tribes, than in today's Germany
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I am from the area where the Chatti lived (a tribe which did not moved during the migration period), scientists says the word Hesse is based on the word Chatti. The area of the Chatti became the heart of the original Hesse (which today is the northern region of hesse)
Some old people in northern germany who still speak some weird old dialect sometimes understand english. The grandmum of a friend was able to understand a friend of him from the UK. She never learned english.
When Hochdeutsch (standard german / high german) was introduced the southern dialects were much closer to it than the northern, as a result today's northern dialects are newer and much closer to correct Hochdeutsch than the southern ones who usually speak a "worse" Hochdeutsch which is harder to understand.
The word "deutsch" is based on the word "theodiscus" (diutisc, tiutsch, etc. deutsch) it means "of the people" (it is has nothing to do with "german" / Germanen etc.) - the idea of "being deutsch" was always the idea of a common language, heritage and of culture, not of a nation (the idea of nations itself is still pretty new anyway). East franconians spoke theodisce (which became todays german) and west franconians spoke a so called primitive "Bauernlatein" (farmer's latin) which later evolved to the most beautiful language of the world: french.
The well known first verse of our national anthem "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles" (which is not in use anymore since 1945) is usually completely misinterpreted, it is a call to unity. It was written in 1841, 35 years after the end of the first reich.
Like Skybird already said you could say the end of the pre-germany era starts with the battle of the Lechfeld, after that the real history of germany began. Sometimes more and sometimes less united with a more or less powerful Kaiser, I guess our history is the reason why we still are a federation.