Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1000 – 2017-11-08, 23:19:26 Quote from: rjhowie on 2017-11-08, 10:52:06Scotland has ALWAYS been a country.It existed before the Garden of Eden! You tell them, RJ!
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1001 – 2017-11-08, 23:44:49 Quote from: Belfrager on 2017-11-08, 23:13:52Quote from: krake on 2017-11-08, 07:18:57Basque CountryThere's no such thing.@Iberian smartassPaís Vasco = Pays Basque = Basque Country = Baskenland
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1002 – 2017-11-09, 11:29:53 Quote from: krake on 2017-11-08, 23:44:49País Vasco = Pays Basque = Basque Country = BaskenlandThe question is whether a Spanish autonomous region qualifies as a country, not what word they stick on it. For example, how does it compare to Sint Maarten (a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands) or Greenland (a country within the Kingdom of Denmark)?
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1003 – 2017-11-09, 12:21:10 Quote from: Frenzie on 2017-11-09, 11:29:53Quote from: krake on 2017-11-08, 23:44:49País Vasco = Pays Basque = Basque Country = BaskenlandThe question is whether a Spanish autonomous region qualifies as a country, not what word they stick on it.It depends on what you mean by "qualifying".As an ethnic group with its specific cultural and historic identity they meet all the prerequisites as a nation for self-determination and such to have their own state if they wish so.If you mean by "qualifying" the acceptance of Spain or some other countries who are acting out of pure self-interest then they obviously don't 'qualify'.Self-determination turns out to be an empty phrase even for the most influential EU members. If it serves geopolitical and economic (self)interests it gets hailed, if it doesn't it gets nailed.
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1004 – 2017-11-09, 12:40:21 Quote from: krake on 2017-11-09, 12:21:10It depends on what you mean by "qualifying".Neither. I mean exactly what I asked without any hidden meanings. Is it currently a country by a reasonable definition of the word or does it just so happen to be called a country? In the latter case, there would be "no such thing" like @Belfrager said.The Netherlands is full of concrete examples. Holland, Gelderland, Friesland, Zeeland… all of them clearly have "land" in the name, and in German you would say that they indeed were historically Länder. By your earlier logic they would be Wood Country, Gelder Country, Frisia Country and Sea Country.[1] But there is no sensible definition of country in which they are currently anything other than provinces regardless of the historical name they still maintain.1 Wood Country and Sea Country… aren't we inspired in naming things.↵
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1005 – 2017-11-09, 13:59:34 This is a point where it would be sensible to have two separate words to denote two different things, the sovereign entity versus entities regardless of sovereignty. In Estonian there's the word "riik", borrowed from (Low) German (or Swedish, close enough) versus "maa" (=land; most names of our counties end in "maa"). Finnish and Latvian have the derived words "valtio" and "valsts" and, as much as I know other languages, this is where sensibility ends. Making sense of these important concepts seems to be a thing of small/conquered nations. The rulers/conquerors/occupiers are not interested in making sense of it. They may have many words for region or province or colony, but not any for the ruled domain as a whole, unless we count English words like "domain" and "realm" but they feel awkward precisely because there's resistance in the language to directly denote the concept in question. Such resistance is not there in Finnish or Estonian or Latvian. The closest term for it in English is "independent nation", but the connotations of "nation" open another can of worms.Estonia and Latvia used to be historically divided into the provinces of Estland, Liefland and Kurland. Those were ruled over by Deutschland first, Russland later and Sverige in between. So there's hardly a distinction between the ruling land and the ruled land in language, except that the world-aware people know of course whether they are living in a province or in the "Hauptstadt". I find it also telling the way in Swedish the (governing) state is called "stat" and the city is "stad", implying that the city must rule over the countryside, whereas Estonian word for the city ("linn") historically meant a fortification, where people seek shelter when the country is being ravaged. Anyway, "country" as in Basque Country should be fairly innocent, not necessarily implying any political ambitions, even though the people there of course have a unique identity deserving of proper recognition. 1 Likes
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1006 – 2017-11-09, 14:48:05 Quote from: ersi on 2017-11-09, 13:59:34In Estonian there's the word "riik", borrowed from (Low) German (or Swedish, close enough) versus "maa" (=land; most names of our counties end in "maa"). Finnish and Latvian have the derived words "valtio" and "valsts" and, as much as I know other languages, this is where sensibility ends.A koninkrijk (King's Reich) or keizerrijk (Emperor's Reich) encompasses various landen or heerlijkheden (Herrschaft).[1] But besides the requirement to supply soldiers for crusades and other such autocratic hobbies the autonomy of a country within the Royal German Empire was rather large. The self-proclaimed Third Reich, by contrast, employed puppet governments and military occupation.Quote from: ersi on 2017-11-09, 13:59:34I find it also telling the way in Swedish the (governing) state is called "stat" and the city is "stad"Both refer to standing. State developed from Latin status (social figurative standing), stat from regular Germanic standing (physically standing). The countryside also stands physically. For example, a luxury farm is called a hofstad or hofstede (English: stead). Not to be confused with the other hofstad, the court city. Amsterdam is the hoofdstad, the head city or capital,[2] while The Hague was once the hofstad, the court city, currently still the seat of government.Hof itself means court with pretty much the same connotations, from enclosed space to an environment with nobility to a place with judges. It's an enclosed space (hence hofstad in the sense of farm, a physically standing place — stad — with a court — hof — around it), which by extension means the court with nobility. Perhaps at some point in the past it referred to the actual physical court that just so happened to be slightly more important than other courts.1 Or better yet, landsheerlijkheden.↵2 In Antwerpish that would be a hootstad, much like in English.↵
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1007 – 2017-11-09, 17:38:49 Quote from: Frenzie on 2017-11-09, 12:40:21Quote from: krake on 2017-11-09, 12:21:10It depends on what you mean by "qualifying".Neither. I mean exactly what I asked without any hidden meanings. Is it currently a country by a reasonable definition of the word or does it just so happen to be called a country? In the latter case, there would be "no such thing" like @Belfrager said.A country by reasonable definition would be a sovereign state.If I speak about "País Vasco = Pays Basque = Basque Country = Baskenland" I don't mean a souvereign state and this should be obvious for everybody.No smartass can assert that "País Vasco" the term used even by Spain, simply doesn't exist.However one could argue that a more appropriate term for "País Vasco" would be "Basque territory/land annexed by Spain".
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1009 – 2017-11-09, 17:45:48 Quote from: Frenzie on 2017-11-09, 14:48:05Quote from: ersi on 2017-11-09, 13:59:34A koninkrijk (King's Reich) or keizerrijk (Emperor's Reich) encompasses various landen or heerlijkheden (Herrschaft).But rijk in Dutch does not seem to be an independent word, because koninkrijk and keizerrijk refer to aristocracy. When you need to turn to a republican regime, you say vrijstaat for some reason. Surely staat has more currency as independent word than rijk, right?German Reich has more potential as independent word, but is thoroughly discredited due to Third Reich. In Estonian there is no such unfortunate connotation, it's a normal everyday word.
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1011 – 2017-11-09, 18:00:46 We do? That's news to me.[1] I'd say that in Modern Dutch a rijk refers to something rather large and except for America mostly outdated (het Britse Rijk, het Duitse rijk, het koloniale rijk, het handelsrijk). In other words, it simply means empire. A state feels less size-bound.1 Freestate has an eighteenth or nineteenth century colonial independence ring to my ears. But there are also a couple in Germany.↵
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1013 – 2017-11-09, 20:14:01 Yes, and Oostenrijk. Although that's kind of two older uses simultaneously. I think it's originally from a time when rijk was generally still a lot more generic, and at the same time it obviously used to be a real empire with all the good and bad.The regular rijk still lives on as well, for example in our rijkswegen (national expressways, like Interstates in the US). There are also provincial expressways. Het rijk is not the empire but simply the national government. There's also het Rijk van Nijmegen, which is more like a district or a county. Except that Nijmegen is a vrije rijksstad, a free area city, as in free from any sort of lower aristocracy under direct rule of the Holy Roman Emperor only.So yeah, it's definitely not as simple as rijk is empire. Context is important. There's no weirdness whatsoever about this headline: "Stad, Provincie en het Rijk geven klap op compleet plan zuidelijke Ringweg Groningen" (city, province and national government agree to complete plan regarding southern ringroad for Groningen — maybe something for that other topic around here).
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1014 – 2017-11-09, 20:52:46 During the Czarist era, the central government began to be referred to as "the Crown" in many contexts. In Soviet times it persisted. Now some people call the EU rule "the Crown".Just a fun fact. Totally fun. 1 Likes
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1015 – 2017-11-09, 23:11:05 Quote from: krake on 2017-11-09, 17:38:49No smartass can assert that "País Vasco" the term used even by Spain, simply doesn't exist.However one could argue that a more appropriate term for "País Vasco" would be "Basque territory/land annexed by Spain".Such imbecility, a German pretending to have a clue about Iberian Nations.No clue about Iberians, no clue about Nations, no clue about Países, no clue about anything at all.Simply making a foolish image while talking about leftist folklore.
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1016 – 2017-11-20, 10:37:24 New thread, The comings and goings of the European Union
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1017 – 2017-11-26, 14:57:55 Languages in Europe as seen in the news. For the convenience of you-all, I have set the video to start at the most important language of them all.[video]https://youtu.be/dGK40ykalTw?t=454[/video]Some of the languages are represented weirdly. For example the Albanian bit (at 12:00) shows news from Voice of America with such a thick American accent that you don't get the right idea about how the language really sounds.
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1018 – 2017-11-26, 16:15:49 - Different language families -It starts with Portugal which is part of a language family. In that language family one and the same language appears twice.My question: Which language appears twice?
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1019 – 2017-11-26, 16:50:24 I think that was Romanian that had a cut of plane at the middle of the new's take.Don't remember Italian...
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1020 – 2017-11-26, 16:54:00 Congratulation It was indeed Romanian but it has nothing to do with "cut of plane at the middle of the new's take".Assuming that you don't speak that language, can you tell us why it was Romanian?Now it should be very easy, for an European at least.
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1021 – 2017-11-26, 17:10:23 I don't speak Romanian but I can understand half of what they say since it's a Latin language with many similar words.It seems I paid attention to the wrong half...
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1022 – 2017-11-26, 18:10:39 Romanian because it's spread out across two countries: Romania and Moldova. But this is a trivial factoid.
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1023 – 2017-11-26, 18:37:03 Apparently not quite so trivial factoid, at least not for those who included the same language twice in the same language family.After all it was about laguage families on TV. Wasn't it?
Re: What's Going on in Europe Reply #1024 – 2017-11-26, 19:20:42 Quote from: krake on 2017-11-26, 18:37:03After all it was about laguage families on TV. Wasn't it? Specifically TV news, and the problem there is that each country has its TV, even though two countries may have the same language, and then there are languages that maybe don't have a TV or barely have it (Basque, Saami, etc.). The maker of this video would have shown himself more knowledgeable, if Moldova and Romania had followed each other immediately, but as it is it it is good enough compared to some other completely disorganised videos that I saw.
Topic: What's Going on in Europe (Read 257340 times)
