Theodiscus

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In Medieval Latin Theodiscus and Teutonicus were adjectives used to distinguish Germanic dialects and their speakers, which in practice mainly meant Continental West Germanic languages, or in other words the medieval relatives of modern Dutch and German, including Low German. Theodiscus was a word borrowed directly from West Germanic itself. Words such as Old High German diutisc, and Old Saxon thiudisk, represented variants of a Proto-Germanic word *þiudiskaz which meant "of the people", applied to, among other things, vernacular language or people who spoke such a language. It was this meaning which was picked up and used in Latin documents. Teutonicus was an alternative Latin term which gradually became more popular. It was ultimately derived from the name of a second century BC Germanic tribe the Teutones, who fought the Roman Republic. Their name was apparently perceived as reflecting an older classical form of the same Germanic term as theodiscus. In Medieval Western Europe Latin was the language of science, church and administration, hence Latin theodiscus and its Germanic counterparts were used as antonyms of Latin, to refer to the "native language spoken by the general populace". They were subsequently used in the Frankish Empire to denote the native Germanic vernaculars. As such, they were not always used as antonym of Latin, but of walhisk, which was a Germanic term for the Romance languages descended from Latin. In the sense of being a word for a type of language, Latin teutonicus much later became an early equivalent of the modern linguistic concept of Germanic languages, while theodiscus and its Germanic reflexes resulted in modern terms for specific types of West Germanic, or their speakers, such as the English term "Dutch", for the language of the Netherlands and its speakers, the German word Deutsch for their own language and nationality, the...