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 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".