[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Germs vs Germans

[Earl.Schultz]

I thought I'd share this expanation for the roots of the words "germ" and
"german".  No idea if there is any truth to this.
Earl Schultz

The Word Detective
By Evan Morris
Copyright C 2006 by Evan Morris
For Release:  Wednesday, October 25, 2006


Dear Word Detective:  I am an exchange student, living in the US right
now.  I'm from Germany, and when I felt sick today, my host brother and
I wondered whether there is a connection between "German" and "germs."
I know that the name "Germany" and all its other forms are very old and
go back to Latin "Germania" or something.  But does "germ" come from
there?  Are all German people "germian"? -- Katharina Holst.


If by "germian" you mean "germy" in the sense of "carrying germs" or
"infested with dangerous microbial organisms," good heavens, no.  You
must be thinking of spinach.  From what I've heard, Germany is one of
the cleanest countries on earth, and most of the people of German
descent I've known have been fastidiously neat and clean.  Then again,
I'm not sure that the current American craze for turning our homes (and
hands) into germ-free zones with antimicrobial agents is such a good
idea.  The germs that eventually evolve to survive that stuff are going
to be very hardy and in a very bad mood.  I'd rather have the sniffles
right now than face billions of tiny little ticked-off Rottweilers in a
few years.

The root of "German" and "Germany" is the Latin "Germanus," which was
first (as far as we know) used in print by Julius Caesar for the peoples
of central and northern Europe in his accounts of his conquests in the
area.  The root of "Germanus" is unknown, but it does not appear to have
come from any Germanic language.  One theory suggests that the word
"German" was actually derived from a word in one of the languages of the
neighboring Gauls, perhaps related to either the Old Irish "gair"
("neighbor") or "gairim" ("to shout").

The root of "germ," on the other hand, is a different Latin word,
"germen," meaning the sprout or bud of a plant, which also gave us
"germinate."  "Germ" first appeared in English in the 17th century with
the sense of "sprout" or "seed."  A related Latin root, "germanus"
("akin" or "genuine") gave us the modern English "germane," in which the
sense of "closely connected" was developed into its current meaning of
"relevant."  Interestingly, the original form of "germane" in English
was "german" (small "g") which survives only in the fairly obscure forms
"brother-german" and "sister-german," meaning "full sibling."

In any case, "germs" were good and positive things in English (a sense
still found in "a germ of an idea" and "wheat germ") until the 19th
century, when the "germ theory of disease" took hold, leading to
germicides, antibiotics and, recently, mass fear of shopping-cart handles.