-ien in German

[So Haleza Grise]

How is it that the names for Spain and Italy ended up as Spanien and Italien in German? Are these forms derived from accusatives?

[alice]

Different dialects? Compare also Ungarn and Arabien.

[Vijay]

And Indien?

[Gulliver]

My gut said no, not least because -am isn't -en and that's a bit of a stretch. I assumed it was to fit the pattern of place names ending in -n like Thüringen and Köln.

Grimm has a detailed account of the history of Spanien and it looks like I was right!

der im mhd. übliche nom. sing. wurde dann nhd. nach der analogie von Baiern, Thüringen u. s. w. (dat. plur. des bewohnernamens) umgebildet: von ungeschick fur ein raubschiff daher, das wolt von Algeri auff Spanien zu streyffen. Schumann nachtb. 127, 1;

Etymology is a very interesting field of linguistics and, generally speaking, it's important to remember that most humans don't care about etymology, especially across languages. Changing a word to make it fit in better is perfectly viable.

tldr: they changed it to make it sound more German.

[So Haleza Grise]

f place names ending in -n like Thüringen and Köln.

Funny considering that Köln is ultimately another import from Latin!

[Gulliver]

f place names ending in -n like Thüringen and Köln.

Funny considering that Köln is ultimately another import from Latin!

That was my guess before I looked it up. I've had a few glasses of wine and apparently German etymological dictionaries are how the cool dudes spend their Saturday nights.