Assuming I don't die too early, Portugal will have existed continuously for 900 years during my lifetime (founded in 1143). It was administered by a governor appointed by a spanish king for 60 years at one point, but never stopped being a distinct country.
This isn't true. The majority of countries are much younger than this. The thousand year old ones are the exceptions.
Many countries have an 'origin story' which implies that they are the same thing as random countries or regions which had similar names/languages/locations but in the vast majority cases these are something between a loose approximation and a myth.
I think the above commenter's point is that "countries" doesn't just mean the formal nation state, but the cultural group. The nation of China was created on 1949. China is much older than 75 years. Likewise, Germanic tribes existed as far back as the Ancient World.
But the only real connection between 'Germanic tribes' and the modern state of Germany is that people from the latter believe the former to be their forefathers. They are not genetically closer to them than other Europeans, nor do they speak the same language or call themselves the same word or have the same lifestyle or inhabit the same places.
During the Yugoslav period, there was a minority group of Bulgarian migrants in one region of Yugoslavia. Like most linguistic groups they adopted the national language and believed themselves to be Yugoslav. However their group was sometimes referred to as 'Macedonian' because the corner of Yugoslavia near Bulgaria is also near Macedonia in Greece. They now have their own country (and language - whose only differences from Serbo-Croat are those which were intentionally introduced), and many believe themselves to be the descendants and cultural and spiritual heirs of Alexander the Great (even though Alexander reigned over and left an influence over a region bigger than Europe).
All countries have things like this in their history. It's just that generally they are a few hundred years further away.
No, there are continuities in language. It's changed over time, but it's still descended from those older cultures. French has it's roots in Frankish people that settled there in the migration period, with Latin and other influence. It's not just people arbitrarily claiming lineage. There are also specifics in culture and tradition, e.g. Christmas trees date back to pagan Germanic festivals.
Incorrect, English does indeed have German influence but it also has more Celtic influence. One is closer to Old German than the other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_High_German
Germanic tribes in the ancient world did not speak Old High German. The status of Old High German as the origin language of modern German is part of the construction of German history in exactly the manner I have described.
There is very little Celtic in Old English. It's very close to a synthesis of Anglish and French. There's much more Danish in English than there is Celtic.
> Germanic tribes in the ancient world did not speak Old High German.
As per the link, it was spoken around 500 AD. Which is at the tail end of the Ancient World but it's still far older than Germany as a country.
> The status of Old High German as the origin language of modern German is part of the construction of German history in exactly the manner I have described
Are you just rejecting the entire field of linguistics? Languages absolutely do have descendants, and while there is admixture and external influences there is broad continuity between old German and contemporary German.
I don't think you've established any factual challenge to either of my statements:
> But the only real connection between 'Germanic tribes' and the modern state of Germany is that people from the latter believe the former to be their forefathers. They are not genetically closer to them than other Europeans, nor do they speak the same language or call themselves the same word or have the same lifestyle or inhabit the same places.
> Modern German is no closer to the language of a randomly chosen 'Germanic Tribe' than English, Prussian, Danish, Yiddish, Swedish, Czech, etc
The fact that there is some connection between modern German and Old High German and some connection between Old High German and the languages of the Germanic tribes does not contradict either.
You stated that old Germany wasn't spoken in the ancient world, when the link I posted explicitly said it was. You also wrote that "the only real connection between 'Germanic tribes' and the modern state of Germany is that people from the latter believe the former to be their forefathers", which is also not true. The languages are indeed linguistically descended from old Germany.
English is also less closely related to old German on account of the Norman french influence.
The Czech language is Slavic [1], it's substantially different than German. It's more similar to Polish or Russian.
Swedish and Danish are both North Germanic [2] rather than West Germanic [3] languages. Related to, but distinct from the West Germanic that would evolve into contemporary German.
Yes, there is a lot factually wrong with your posts.
>During the Yugoslav period, there was a minority group of Bulgarian migrants in one region of Yugoslavia. Like most linguistic groups they adopted the national language and believed themselves to be Yugoslav. However their group was sometimes referred to as 'Macedonian' because the corner of Yugoslavia near Bulgaria is also near Macedonia in Greece.
Wow, this is... biased. Sincerely, a Macedonian.
People living in Macedonia (or, to avoid confusion, sigh... North Macedonia), have at one point (and even today, by some), yes, been called Bulgarians, but we've also been called Serbs and Greeks (in northern Greece, since Greece claims that everyone in Greece is Greek, lol). So, you claiming that we have only been Bulgarians, who, judging by the tone of your comment, got brainwashed into thinking we're Yugoslavs and after that Macedonians is absurd, to say the least.
Serbs tried to make us Serbs before Bulgarians tried to make us Bulgarian, and they too failed. You can't make up an entire nation in a top-down manner, the people living in those lands first have to show signs that they consider themselves as a separate nation from the rest in any given region, which the Macedonians have, time and again.
Now, to be fair to Serbs, there's a lot of Serbian cultural influence here, and a lot of people here do understand Serbian more than Bulgarian (even though Bulgarian and Macedonian are, on paper, more similar than Serbian and Macedonian), but still, they failed in trying to convince us to be Serbian rather than what we are now, a separate nation, Macedonian.
Also, the modern idea of a separate, sovereign Macedonian state for the Macedonian nation has existed since at least 1880*
> (and language - whose only differences from Serbo-Croat are those which were intentionally introduced)
1. And this is how I know you're not a Bulgarian because a true Bulgarian nationalist would claim that Macedonian is not its own language, but that it's only a dialect of Bulgarian.
2. There are a lot of differences on paper from Serbo-Croatian. It's closer to Bulgarian. Still, you don't create a language in a top-down manner. Read "Za makedonckite raboti" by Krste Petkov Misirkov.
> and many believe themselves to be the descendants and cultural and spiritual heirs of Alexander the Great (even though Alexander reigned over and left an influence over a region bigger than Europe).
Not sure how true this is. There are some definitely, but I feel they're more of a very loud minority, or at least not the majority by a long shot. Anybody who is seriously claiming they're direct descendants of some guy who lived over 2 thousand years ago, and completely forgetting about everyone that has walked and mixed in that region between then and now (think of all the Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Jews, Ottomans, and everybody else I'm not mentioning) is to have his mental faculties questioned. This goes not only for my fellow denizens, but for anybody claiming such a historical connection to a long-lost civilization, and especially so for those who are geographically not related (I could name names, but that would further diverge this conversation.) But at the same time to claim that people living in present-day Macedonia (the entire region, not just the state) have no connection whatsoever, is, as well, stupid.
I read the whole thing. It's literally a showcase of all the mental tics and obfuscations involved in the construction of artificial national histories as I described in my earlier comment.
Accusations of bias, the suggestion that 'only nationality X would question this aspect of our proud Y history', turning minor linguistic coincidences into meaningful history, the admission that 'everyone is from all over the place, but nonetheless we are all definitely from Z because [no evidence]'.
Self-definition based on 'we are W because we're not U and definitely not V.' The denial that it's possible to force the construction of a cultural, linguistic or ethnic group, despite numerous examples of exactly this happening. Appeal to biased histories written by true believers. Appeal to linguistic treatises only available in the language in question. Appeal to the time-honored authority of ... the 1880s, a (not very distant) era when every single group of people in Europe was trying to become a nation.
Alexander the Great did not live in Skopje. He did not speak Macedonian, 'a language closer to Bulgarian than to Serbian'. There are at least 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe which have closer cultural, political or ethnic connections with Alexander the Great than Macedonia does.
> It's literally a showcase of all the mental tics and obfuscations involved in the construction of artificial national histories as I described in my earlier comment.
I agree, all nations are artificial creations. I'd recommend Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson. And never did I claim that a unified Macedonian nation has existed for longer than 144 years (since 1880), so not sure what the "artificial national histories" part is alluding to(?)
>Self-definition based on 'we are W because we're not U and definitely not V.'
What's wrong with this? Americans are American because they defied the British Empire. What are you going to claim next - that Americans don't exist? If so, good luck!
And isn't that how all nations are? The French are French because they're neither German, nor English, nor Spanish, nor Italian. Nations are essentially just in-group vs out-group behaviors and dynamics manifested in relatively large landscapes.
Serbs are Serbs because they're not Croats or Bulgarians or Macedonians or Albanians. Macedonians are Macedonians because they're not Serbs or Greeks or Bulgarians or Albanians.
All nations (groups) have traits that are different enough from another nation (group), which is why they become a group (nation) in the first place.
>The denial that it's possible to force the construction of a cultural, linguistic or ethnic group, despite numerous examples of exactly this happening.
I suppose I worded that part terribly, so it's my fault. I tried to say that all (yes, all) top-down nation-building projects don't work. I know you're going to provide examples of something like the middle eastern arab states, but that would be a terrible example, as no one, and I mean no one, from, say, as an example, from Saudi Arabia views himself as Saudi Arabian first, instead they view themselves as Arabs; same goes for people from other projects like Qatar, QAE, Bahrain and the other "nation"-states in that region. The people living in those "nation"-states didn't organically decide to create their state based on their nation, instead their "nation"-state borders were created by some interventionists in a faraway land, unsuccessfully because nobody there thinks that his "nation"-state is much different from his neighboring "nation"-state.
Macedonia, conversely, is not a top-down nation created by bureaucrats - people here, like people all over the world who belong to bottom-up nations, came to their own conclusion that they're different from those around them, hence they became a separate group (nation). And yes, if we got back far enough, at one point people here did consider them Bulgarians, and at another time Serbs, and at a third time, much further back, Greeks (I am not arguing against this fact, if you think I am then we are arguing bout different topics), but if we go back far enough, most people in Europe alone came from one group, which does not invalidate their national affiliations today.
>Appeal to biased histories written by true believers.
Where did I mention this? True believers?
>Appeal to linguistic treatises only available in the language in question.
And btw, it's available in Bulgarian too, it was published in Sofia in 1903 after all; and most copies were confiscated or destroyed by the Bulgarian police, wonder why that happened?
I also wonder why Bulgaria occupied Macedonia in WWII - it wouldn't make sense to occupy one's own people, no? Unless... :)
>Appeal to the time-honored authority of ... the 1880s, a (not very distant) era when every single group of people in Europe was trying to become a nation.
And when did I say that the Macedonian nation has existed since time immemorial? Starting to look like you didn't read my comment. And what's wrong with the 1880s specifically? Would it have been better if it happened in the 1980s? What about the 1780s? Does America not exist because the revolution happened to be in 1776 - a random year as any?
>Alexander the Great did not live in Skopje.
Never said he did. He probably never stepped foot in what was Skopje at the time. Still, Macedonia is not Skopje, contrary to what most foreigners think (along with our politicians, unfortunately.)
>He did not speak Macedonian
Of course not, and I never said he did. The modern Macedonian language is a Slavic language, it would be absurd if he spoke a Slavic language some ~1000 years before the Slavs came to the Balkan with their language.
There is a chance that he spoke some version of Aincent Macedonian, likely a dialect of Greek, which is very likely not related to the modern Slavic language which bears the same name, along with Greek, the prestige language of the time.
> 'a language closer to Bulgarian than to Serbian'.
Yes, what's wrong with that? It's in the South Slavic branch of languages, in the eastern group with Bulgarian and Old Church Slavonic. All languages in the South Slavic group form a dialectic continuum, meaning that we can all more or less understand each other (except, I would add, Slovene). Does that mean that no nation whatsoever exists in the Balkan? Or that we are all just one nation, even though we don't think we are, which is what nations are based around in the first place - thinking we belong to one group and not the other?
>There are at least 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe which have closer cultural, political or ethnic connections with Alexander the Great than Macedonia does.
And when did I say otherwise?
Seems to me that more than half the time here you're just arguing with yourself. And a couple of lines of yours read like they've been copy-pasted from some ready-made document full of zingers
> I mean... most European countries (modulo some exceptions like Germany) existed (non-continuously) for at least a thousand years.
This is interesting to me. What does it mean for a country to exist non-continuously? I can understand making the case under some sort of continuity despite dramatic changes in e.g. control of land or type of government. Sort of like a nation-state Ship of Theseus.
But I don't understand how this works under the non-continuous case. If the temporal connection is broken how is it the same entity?
I don't think anyone claims it's /exactly/ the same entity (except in a legal sense after a government-in-exile is restored home, such as after World War II). But there's a general sense that a country can in some way be a continuation of a previous one, particularly if it shares the same language and a similar territory.
Compare the borders of something like the Duchy of Bohemia and the modern-day Czech Republic. That's two states over a thousand years apart, separated by centuries of highs and lows, including uncountable foreign invasions and Austrian rule for four centuries. And yet there's something obviously parallel to them - states ruled from Prague, inhabited largely by Czech speakers, extending to virtually the same territory.
Europe's natural and linguistic borders are relatively stable, so the emergence of similar states over similar territories in time is not unexpected.
> a country can in some sense be a continuation of a previous one, particularly if it shares the same language and a similar territory.
This is the sort of thing that’s true, but only if you don’t think about it deeply. People in England definitely spoke English, but that doesn’t mean that we would be able to understand them. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote one of the first major works of literature in English, but 99.9% of Englishmen alive today wouldn’t be able to understand a word of it because of how much English has changed.
> In Gernade at the sege eek hadde he be Of Algezir, and riden in Belmarye. At Lyeys was he, and at Satalye, Whan they were wonne; and in the Grete See At many a noble aryve hadde he be.
This book needs to be translated into English for us to understand it, despite it being written in an older form of English.
And obviously, English isn’t a special case. Every language has evolved over time, to the point where it’s nearly impossible to understand a few hundred years later. So sure, we think the people who lived in this city a few hundred years ago are our countrymen, but realistically we wouldn’t be able to speak a word to each other.
> This is the sort of thing that’s true, but only if you don’t think about it deeply.
I have a linguistics degree and a passion for historical linguistics that will result in me talking your ear off about Indo-European ablaut, so this is probably the first time in my life I've ever been accused of failing to think deeply about language variation / change!
But I do agree with tsunamifury's comment - what you say is interesting, but rather beside the point. What's relevant is a sense of continuity, not whether the modern speakers would understand the original language or not. (I'm unsure why the latter would be relevant at all?) As Benedict Anderson has argued, a nation is above all an imagined community, so what's relevant is that Czech speakers picture a sense of continuity with the speakers of Slavic dialects in 1000 AD, and not with - say - the speakers of Celtic or Germanic dialects spoken at the same time.
(It's worth noting that your example is fairly unrepresentative, by the by. English is a language with an unusually high rate of change (though I'm surprised you went with Chaucer, which many educated English speakers can largely follow, and not something like Beowulf, which no English speaker could understand without training). It's also worth noting that the Slavic languages are languages with an unusually low rate of change, so a text as old as Chaucer would be relatively much easier for Czech speakers to read.)
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you thought so. I meant it is a widely held belief among most people. They would feel a stronger affinity for their ancestors from a thousand years ago than for their neighbour, if their neighbour looked different to them.
I meant to say that this idea that the people 1000 years ago being “my people” doesn’t hold up to close inspection. There is no continuity in a meaningful sense if you can’t communicate with them, wouldn’t agree with them on anything even if we could, and couldn’t even find a common activity to do together. They’d be about as alien as a green man from Mars. But it doesn’t matter, because you’re not going to convince people to stop idealising ancestors.
This is true of some languages which have a high rate of change, such as English, but much less true of others. As a native Persian speaker for example, I can read the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) of Ferdowsi, which was written around 980 (very much contemporary of Beowulf), and understand about 95% of it. Nearly every literate Iranian would be able to read it without an issue, and at most modern prints have footnotes to explain the words which have fallen out of use.
Not every language changes at the rate English does.
> I meant to say that this idea that the people 1000 years ago being “my people” doesn’t hold up to close inspection.
I think what you're saying is absolutely true, and a better example would be culture in general. There's a certain continuity in the cultural practices of a people in a certain region, with religion being one of the most resilient... but also other things like food, music and, of course, language.
However, all of those change over time. It's funny for me that the Americans of today would almost certainly consider the Americans of the 1950's a bunch of racists and homophobes. A culture can change over time so much as to be more different in 75 years than when actually compared with that of other countries. The continuity exists but change can be very fast. Look at the culture of any European "country" and you'll see just how much change happens. An extreme example, perhaps: the Swedes of the year 1000 compared with the Swedes of 2000. The people inhabiting what we call Sweden today were Vikings back then. I don't believe they had a concept of Sweden yet, as a country, though the regions around Stockholm (which didn't exist yet) and Uppsala (a small region which later grew far North and South to form Sweden proper) seem to have already had a sort of cultural identity (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians). These people were raiders and conquerors - they may have founded the Kievan Rus state and served as elite guards in the Byzantine Empire, which shows just how much of a bad ass warriors they were. How does present-day liberal, tolerant and egalitarian Swedes relate to their ancestors? If they could meet today, the modern fella would lose their head in no time, literally.
England is also a funny example because one of their defining traits is the cultural continuity of the monarchy. Which, as I understand it, is the main justification for why the monarchy still exists today. A person from Chaucer's time transported to London today would have no trouble figuring out who's the king.
> Geoffrey Chaucer wrote one of the first major works of literature in English, but 99.9% of Englishmen alive today wouldn’t be able to understand a word of it because of how much English has changed.
That is true for Beowulf, but not for Chaucer. If you just read the words in Chaucer, pronouncing them exactly as you would if your were sounding them out, you will be able to understand pretty much the entire thing after at most a few hours practice.
We did this in my freshman English class and it was a lot of fun.
Haha my interface shows the reverse. So I think we are both being played here. Although you flagged me
Likely so it shows you that to make you feel better.
But again you don’t know how these larger meta systems work so I’m guessing … well you get it.
Your account descriptions says "This account is no longer active in protest of Hacker News censorship."
Funny, I've never had a problem with the way this place is moderated. One of us must be getting flagged ("censored") a lot more than the other ... well you get it.
> states ruled from Prague, inhabited largely by Czech speakers, extending to virtually the same territory.
More like two polities which share a capital city, but barely have either a language or a geography in common. The idea that Bohemia is essentially Czechia has no more reliable historical basis than belief that it belongs to Greater Germany, or to Czechoslovakia.
Before the european revolutions in the 19th century, the notion of a national state didn't really exist.
It was more about who controls what. Doesn't mean the actual population of the controlled areas changed much.
To give an example from my country's history, Romania has been divided into 3 provinces until very recent (historically speaking) times.
The first unification happened in 1600 when Michael the Brave, the king of the southernmost province, managed to take control of all 3 for about a year. He didn't proclaim himself king of Romania, he called himself king of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania.
100-150 years earlier, Stephen the Great, the king of Moldavia hit Wallachia militarily several times during his reign... not to conquer it and unify but to place a king friendly to him on the throne.
Pretty sure you can find examples like this in any country's history. Germany and Italy for sure, since they've been divided politically into smaller provinces for a thousand years.
Poland was occupied by Germany during WWII. The people still considered themselves Poles during this time, and the only reason there wasn't a 'Poland' was because of military strength, so it seems silly to say that early 1939 Poland and late 1944 Poland are different countries because of lack of continuity. Certainly, almost all Poles will tell you the country 'began' (it kind of had a soft start) in 966, and not in 1944.
(Note: there was technically the government-in-exile in London, which you could argue maintained continuity, but I don't think it's necessary so I'm leaving that out of this.)
This (and most other examples here) could just as easily be explained by nationalism. specifically nationalist projects to claim a much older heritage for the current nation state, to legitimize the current nation, and to give it a glorious and hard fought past so people will be proud of their country.
Personally I think a lot of the idea of countries having existed 'for a long time' is the result of these nationalist projects that all occured in the 1800 hundreds
I can speak of Poland which had a discontinuity of 123 years. For most practical purposes Poland 1918 was not Poland 1795. It had none of the military alliances nor administrative obligations, just a new country out of nothing.
The only continuity was in the collective mind of people who identified as Polish and grabbed the opportunity to fight and (re-)establish their own country.
Now if you look at the continuity of ideas, it gets pretty philosophical so we could leave it to philosophers... if it wasn't for the fact that people use the ideas to justify wars. I don't have a confident answer for continuity between "being Polish in 1795" and "being Polish in 1918".
Was Iceland a country when it was founded? Or later, with the start of the Icelandic Commonwealth? Did it end being a country after the pledge of fealty to the Norwegian king in 1262?
If it was always a country, then go west. When Eric the Red founded Greenland, was it a European country? Did it become a country? After the Norse died, the Danish-Norwegians still claimed sovereignty, and reestablished a colony. The place is now a constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Some examples were given as answers, occupations etc. But even when nothing like that happens, in the "continuous" case - a country is still undergoing changes. Laws, language, culture, people, etc are not the same 100s of years later. So even that is kind of a Ship of Theseus type of challenge...
I think non-continuous succession of the same entity comes down to using or grandfathering the law, claiming the same assets, but also honoring liabilities of the predecessor. It's the same as with companies.
Mostly through people still living in the same place remembering the glory days of old. If you look at Poland and Lithuania, which became Poland-Lithuania, which roughly split so that Poland went into Prussia and Lithuania into Russia; where Prussia lasted for 100 years and ended with WW1 where Poland re-emerged and had their common sense of identity enhanced by Hitler almost immediately re-invading, and Lithuania existing as part of the USSR for some additional 100 years before breaking out and doing their own thing.
There's still a cultural identity in these places. The people living in them weren't replaced or relocated, primarily the flag and regent.
And around 50BC with Vercingétorix surrendering to the Romans at Alésia the tide turns and it gets administratively split up largely to ensure they don't come together as a force against the Roman Empire again. Then as the Roman Empire starts showing cracks, various local powers emerge again:
Then "France" itself starts to exist since Clovis I united Franks in 481 and around 511 looks somewhat the same as today again if you squint hard enough:
Middle one's fate is to dwindle, west one will become France, right one will become Germany.
France's shape will then vary a lot through time, alliances, weddings, and battles, sometimes eaten at on the east, west, north, south, but more or less gravitating around the center part.
But then here comes Prussia in 1870, then WW1, then WW2, culminating in the partial occupation then administration of northern and western France between 1940-42 and a literal fork of France leadership and government: France de Vichy led by Pétain in the south east, France Libre led by De Gaulle exiled in London. In theory the Vichy government was also leading occupied the north of France but in practice it was ruled by Germany.
1942 comes and Germany resolves the conundrum by forcefully merging south with north, France de Vichy becomes devoid of any power (not that it had much before, being a satellite state of Germany), France is de facto a part of Germany, essentially leaving only France Libre as an actual French government, which is not even in any part of the territory!
So again, what does "country" means? State? Geography? Leadership? Ancestry? People? There's definitely some ship of Theseus going on along these 2k years, as well as forks, takeovers, infighting, and whatnot. This abridged version only highlights so much as there's much more intricacy to it, reality is incredibly messy, yet somehow "France" going all the way back to Gaul over 2k years carries some sense.
