German orthography
Compound words, including nouns, are written together, e.g. "Haustür" (Haus+Tür; house door), "Tischlampe" (Tisch+Lampe; table lamp), "Kaltwasserhahn" (Kalt+Wasser+Hahn; cold water tap/faucet). This can lead to long words: the longest word in regular use, "Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften" ("legal protection insurance companies"), consists of 39 letters; while the longest German word ever published ("Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft", "Association for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services") has 79 letters.
Names of Germany
The Slavic exonym "nemets", "nemtsy" derives from Proto-Slavic "němьcь", pl. "němьci", 'the mutes', 'not able (to speak)' (from adjective "němъ" 'mute' and suffix -"ьcь"). It literally means "a mute" and can be also associated with similar sounding "not able", "without power", but came to signify "those who can't speak (like us); foreigners". The Slavic autonym (Proto-Slavic "*Slověninъ") likely derives from "slovo", meaning "word". According to a theory, early Slavs would call themselves the "speaking people" or the "keepers of the words", as opposed to their Germanic neighbors, the "mutes" (a similar idea lies behind Greek "barbaros", barbarian and Arab عجم (ajam), "mute)". At first, "němьci" may have been used for any non-Slav foreigners, later narrowed to just Germans. The plural form is used for the Germans instead of any specific country name, e.g. "Niemcy" in Polish and "Ńymcy" in Silesian dialect. In other languages, the country's name derives from the adjective "němьcьska (zemja)" meaning 'German (land)' (f.i. Czech "Německo"). Belarusian ("Nyamyecchyna"), Bulgarian ("Nemtsiya") and Ukrainian ("Nimecchyna") are also from "němьcь" but with the addition of the suffix -"ina".