Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!news.duke.edu!concert!sas!mozart.unx.sas.com!MVS.sas.com!EURMXK
From: EURMXK@MVS.sas.com
Subject: Re: What exactly was Saxon
Sender: MVS NNTP News Reader <NNMVS@MVS.sas.com>
Message-ID: <19941110045214EURMXK@MVS.sas.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 09:52:00 GMT
References: <holman.392.2EBE9C03@katk.helsinki.fi>
Nntp-Posting-Host: sdcmvs.mvs.sas.com
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Lines: 56

In article <holman.392.2EBE9C03@katk.helsinki.fi>,
holman@katk.helsinki.fi (HOLMAN EUGENE) writes:
 
>In article <holman.391.2EBE929A@katk.helsinki.fi> holman@katk.helsinki.fi (HOLMAN EUGENE) writes:
>>Path: news.helsinki.fi!PORSU-3.pc.Helsinki.FI!holman
>>From: holman@katk.helsinki.fi (HOLMAN EUGENE)
>
>
>
>
>>The speech of the part of the continuum bordering on the North Sea/English
>>Channel is often referred to as North Sea Germanic or Ingvaeonic.
>
>This terminology is used by Caesar in his *De bello gallico* as well as by
>Tacitus in *Germania*. One of the terms used by some of the speakers of
>these dialects to refer to themselves was *sahs-, a term which refers to
>their preferred type of handweapon. Interestingly, *Saksa*, the modern
>Finnish word for Germany, (a pars pro toto designation, since the first
>Germans one be likely to encounter sailing westward from Finland would be
>those along the Baltic shore) is a good reminder of the conditions that
>prevailed in the past.
>
>After the merger of the continental Saxons with the Franks the name came
>to be used to designate tribes living further south. Today if a German,
>characterizing someone's accent says 'Er sa"chselt" (= 'He speaks with a
>Saxon accent') he means that the person hails from the vicinity of Leipzig.
>
>
Yes, but this is because the name of the territory "migrated".
 
Originally 'Saxony' was indeed the the area around the mouths of the
Weser and Elbe in Germany, extending northward into the southern part of
Schleswig- Holstein.
 
In the early Middle Ages Saxony was one of the mighty territories of the
German Empire. The perhaps most prominent of its dukes was Henry the
Lion (Heinrich der Lo"we), the mighty opponent of emperor Frederic I.
("Barbarossa").
 
After the fall of Henry the Lion end of the 12th century Saxony was
divided, and the 'Askanier' who got the eastern part, transferred the
title of a 'Duke of Saxony' to their territories around Wittenberg
(northeast of Leipzig).  The Duchy of 'Saxony-Wittenberg' and the
electorship ('Kurwu"rde') passed on to the house of 'Wettin' after the
Askanier family bacame extinct end of the 15th century.  Later the
electorship and the title of a Duke of Saxony fell to the 'Albertinian'
line of the Wettins whose family fief was the Margraviate of Meissen
(near Dresden).
 
Therefore still today three separate German federal states:
Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), Sachsen-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt), and
Sachsens (the Free State of Saxony) have 'Saxony' as (part of) their
names.
 
Mit freundlichen Gru"ssen,
Manfred Kiefer
