Anyone has an idea, why that is like that? I guess there are historical/political reasons?
I speak the language of the speechless (dumb) people.
Just to make sure you've got it, Dan. Andrei meant 'dumb' as in 'deaf and dumb' (taub-stumm) or a "dumb waiter" (stummer Diener), not in the sense of 'stupid' (dumm). So, you'd be more be saying "Ich spreche die Sprache der Menschen, mit dem man mit Händen und Füßen reden muss (weil sie sonst rein gar nix verstehen, da sie unsere Sprache nicht sprechen)"
In around 6-7 century there was massive invasion of Slavs into Roman lands. In the West they reached Carinthia, in the south - Balkans. I dont' know for sure, but may be in some land at some point in time the most common kind of slaves to meet were Slavs, just because they fought wars with Slavs.
In Classical Latin "slave" was denoted with a different word. "Servus" I think?
We have "slovo" (a word) and "slava" (fame) in Russian.
At Indo-European level both are related likely (also слыть 'to be known', слух 'hearing (sense), gossip', слышать 'to hear').
Both can be (or not) the source for "Slav".
"Word" is tempting due to its parallel with 'nemets'...
But not entirely convincing for lingustic (morphology) reasons (and also I'm not sure if in any Slavic langauge it was ever used for 'speaking'. It can mean a 'word', 'message', 'text').
"Fame" looks like a folk etymology, but why not.
To add insult to injury, one of proposed explanations for "Slav" is a Gothic word that meant.... "Mute":))))))))
But likely it is not the case.
I understand the name Germany comes from Latin, meaning a brotherly people, an offshoot (to germinate). French call them Allemagne, meaning 'all people' (Alle- all, manner with an umlaut, men. ). There was a tribe called the Allemanni, perhaps a bit like Americans, being composed of 'all men', all ethnicities of men.
My teachers told me the Russian word, meaning dumb, and the Slavs are the people who speak the same word, слово.
The English and all the Germanic people called foreigners, Welsh/walsh, etc. The same as Galatians/Celt/Gual. It is the French spelling, as in Warrany/Guarantee, war and guerre.
The ancient Greeks called us and everyone else 'Barbarians', so we continue the tradition of 'us' and 'them' names.
The language Deutsch is akin to the ancient tribe the Tueti/Tutons who invaded Roman territory. It means 'people' in the old Germanic and IndoEuropean language.
