Theodiscus
Theodiscus (in Medieval Latin, corresponding to Old English þēodisc, Old High German diutisc and other early Germanic reflexes of Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz, meaning "popular" or "of the people") was a term used in the early Middle Ages to refer to the West Germanic languages. The Latin term was borrowed from the Germanic adjective meaning "of the people" but, unlike it, was used only to refer to languages. In Medieval Western Europe non-native Latin was the language of science, church and administration, hence Latin theodiscus and its Germanic counterparts were used as antonyms of Latin, to refer to the "native language spoken by the general populace". They were subsequently used in the Frankish Empire to denote the native Germanic vernaculars. As such, they were no longer used as antonym of Latin, but of walhisk, a language descendant from Latin, but nevertheless the speech of the general populace as well.[1] In doing so Latin theodiscus and the Germanic reflexes of *þiudiskaz effectively obtained the meaning of "Germanic", or more specifically one of its local varieties – resulting in the English exonym "Dutch", the German endonym Deutsch, the modern Dutch word for "German", Duits, and older Dutch words for Dutch and German and their dialects Diets, and Duuts. In Romance languages the same word yielded the Italian word for "German", tedesco, and the old French word used for Dutch or, depending on the locality, German speakers, tiois.
Etymology[]
Theodiscus is derived from West Germanic *þiudisk,[2] from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz. The stem of this word, *þeudō, meant "people" in Proto-Germanic, and *-iskaz was an adjective-forming suffix, of which -ish is the Modern English cognate with the same meaning. The Proto-Indo-European word *tewtéh₂ ("tribe", "people"), which is commonly reconstructed as the basis of the word, is related to Lithuanian tautà ("nation"), Old Irish túath ("tribe", "people") and Oscan touto ("community").[3]
The word existed in Old English as þēodisc ("speech", "public", 'native"), came into Middle English as thede ("nation", "people") and was extinct in Early Modern English, although surviving in the English place name Thetford, "public ford". It survives as the Icelandic word þjóð for "people, nation", the Norwegian word tjod for "people", "nation", and the word "German" in many languages including German Deutsch, Dutch Duits, Yiddish דײַטש, Danish tysk, Norwegian tysk, Swedish tyska and Italian tedesco.
The word theodism, a neologism for a branch of Germanic neopaganism, is based on the Gothic form of the word, where WIKI