Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft
Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft is a compound word that serves as an example of the virtually unlimited compounding of nouns that is possible in many Germanic languages. According to the 1996 "Guinness Book of World Records", it is the longest word published in the German language.
Names of Germany
The OED2 records theories about the Celtic roots of the Latin word "Germania": one is "gair", neighbour (a theory of Johann Zeuss, a German historian and Celtic philologist) – in Old Irish "gair" is "neighbour". Another theory is "gairm", battle-cry (put forward by Johann Wachter and Jacob Grimm, who was a philologist as well as collector and editor of fairy tales). Yet another theory is that the word comes from "ger", "spear"; however, Eric Partridge suggests "*gar" / "gavin", to shout (as Old Irish "garim"), describing the Germanic tribesmen as noisy. He describes the "ger" theory as "obsolete".