Surely what I say will be an obviousness for Russians, but since this page is read by people from all over the world... Many years ago it was surprising to me the word "немецктй" applied to German people with no "apparent" connection with the previous and next words in the Dictionary, beeing, as they are the words "германец", "германский". This was the reason that was given to me by a russian philologist: As it is known Katherine the Great / die Grosse (sorry for the bad joke, I don't know if she was fat or slim) invited a certain number of German families to colonize some territories, so did the spanish king Charles III at the same time, but obviously in Spain. When the Russian addressed to these Germans, they simply didn't answer (they didn't know Russian) and keep silent, what is the meaning of "немецктй", "who becomes dumb". In the Middle Age various Caliphs of muslim kingdoms in Spain had a personal guard named "Los Mudos", "The Dumb", that was composed by persons not speaking arab nor spanish languages, so beeing not able to comunicate with the rest of citizens. Surely to avoid them taking part in the continuos plots that finally, maked the Muslims collapsed in Spain, more than the push of Northern christian kingdoms, only slightly more unified than the Muslims.