> For one thing, languages are inherently inconsistent, so perhaps the better question is, why not? Exactly. My point was simply that we call them "Tedeschi"

> For one thing, languages are inherently inconsistent, so perhaps the better question is, why not? Exactly. My point was simply that we call them "Tedeschi" in Italy because it come from an ancient latin word that means "people" or "peasant" and it came to latin from a German word that meant "shepard" (or sth like that) But the land has always been called Germany. We use different names for different things and that's OK. The name "Italian" was referred to a small area in the south of Italy millennia ago and then became synonim for the entire peninsula. Names often have no real meaning, but how they came to be can sometimes be interesting.