Scientia potentia est A Sponti (Außerparlamentarische Opposition) version of the slogan is "Wissen ist Macht, nichts wissen, macht auch nichts", a pun about the previous motto along the line "Knowledge is power, but being ignorant doesn't bother anyway". Joschka Fischer and Daniel Cohn-Bendit belong to those Spontis that nevertheless held powerful positions, in Fischer's case with no more formal education than a taxi driver's licence. The German Bundeswehr Bataillon Elektronische Kampfführung 932, an electronic warfare unit based in Frankenberg (Eder), still uses the Latin version "Scientia potentia est" as its motto. Though its meaning varies from author to author, the phrase often implies
Latin influence in English tribes, who would later give rise to the English language (the Angles, Saxon and Jutes) traded and fought with the Latin speaking Roman Empire. Many words (some originally from Greek) for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people via Latin even before the tribes reached Britain (what is known as the Continental or Zero Period): "anchor", "butter", "camp", "cheese", "chest", "cook", "copper", "devil", "dish", "fork", "gem", "inch", "kitchen", "mile", "mill", "mint" (coin), "noon", "pillow", "pound" (unit of weight), "punt" (boat), "sack", "street", "wall", "wine". Cognates of virtually all of these English words exist in the other Germanic