Just Call me Dennis

 

My surname . . .

As it turns out my family were never from Deutschland. And the word pronounced “jer mun” is not in the Deutsche language.

So, where did this come from?

German

Gjerremann

Et al

Danish

gjere mun = do mouth

Norwegian

gjere mun = do mouth

gjere mund = make mouth

swedish

gjere mund = open mouth

 

It probably referred to the location of the family; most likely the edge of a lake where a river flowed into it, perhaps?

 

The proper pronunciation is how any native Deutsche speaker would pronounce it:

ˈ gyehr·muhn

Sounds something like: “air done”

The “g” is followed by a slight “y” sound, like the “j” in fjord.

The nation in north central Europe is Deutschland and the people there are Deutsche who speak Deutsche. There is no place called germany; there is no people called germans and there is no language called german.

Listen to their national anthem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2IaFaJrmno

The word “german” does not appear anywhere.

 

Got it?

Now go straighten out the world for all the Deutschlanders . . . what’s that song again?

“Deutschland Uber Alles”

According to my DNA, I am about 2/3 Norwegian. The rest is from the British Isles, Holland (now known as The Netherlands) and Belgium.

But why do we call them GERMANS?

Some Roman emperor decided to call the people who lived north and east of the Rhein “germania”, because there were quite a warlike people. And the ‘g’ was not pronounced like a ‘J’.

 

Incidentally, my son has lived in Bavaria for the last 5 years and the locals always pronounce his name correctly; ˈ gyehr·muhn.

 

According to my DNA, I am about 2/3 Norwegian.

The rest is from the British Isles, The Baltics, Holland (now known as The Netherlands) and Belgium.

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