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The Anglo-Saxons, who are one of the ancestors and forefathers of modern English people, were a Germanic people who came from northern Germany during the Migration Period and gave name to the modern German state of Lower Saxony and the Anglian peninsula, which is the region from where they came from, making the English people a Germanic people and the English language a Germanic language.
It was recorded as a colloquial term for Germans by the mid-19th century. During World War I, Kraut came to be used in English as an ethnic slur for a German. However, during World War I, it was mainly used by British Soldiers; during World War II, it became used mainly by American soldiers and less so by British soldiers, who preferred the terms Jerry or Fritz.
Jerry was a nickname given to Germans mostly during the Second World War by soldiers and civilians of the Allied nations, in particular by the British. The nickname was originally created during World War I. [17] The term is the basis for the name of the jerrycan. The name may simply be an alteration of the word German. [18]
The English term Germans is derived from the ethnonym Germani, which was used for Germanic peoples in ancient times. [7] [8] Since the early modern period, it has been the most common name for the Germans in English, being applied to any citizens, natives or inhabitants of Germany, regardless of whether they are considered to have German ethnicity.
In modern times, the term "Anglo-Saxons" is used by scholars to refer collectively to the Old English speaking groups in Britain. As a compound term, it has the advantage of covering the various English-speaking groups on the one hand, and to avoid possible misunderstandings from using the terms "Saxons" or "Angles" (English), both of which terms could be used either as collectives referring ...
The etymology of the Latin word Germani, from which Latin Germania and English Germanic are derived, is unknown, although several proposals have been put forward. Even the language from which it derives is a subject of dispute, with proposals of Germanic, Celtic, and Latin, and Illyrian origins. [10]
The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common ancestry, history, and culture. [7] The English identity began with the Anglo-Saxons, when they were known as the Angelcynn, meaning race or tribe of the Angles.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives 1771 as the date of the earliest written use of the word in English. The Gaelic name for England is Sasann (older spelling: Sasunn , genitive : Sasainn ), and Sasannach (formed with a common adjective suffix -ach [ 71 ] ) means 'English' in reference to people and things, though not when naming the ...