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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: The name of the German nation
Message-ID: <1995Jan18.150432.27596@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Organization: University of Chicago
References: <3fcc8h$h5c@gordon.enea.se> <1995Jan16.055318.4113@midway.uchicago.edu> <D2KF6p.3v66@austin.ibm.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 15:04:32 GMT
Lines: 36

In article <D2KF6p.3v66@austin.ibm.com> olivier@glasnost.austin.ibm.com writes:
>
>In article <1995Jan16.055318.4113@midway.uchicago.edu>, deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) writes:

>> I've never heard it called that before.  The common English name is
>> the "Holy Roman Empire" (although everyone knows is was "neither holy,
>> nor Roman, nor and empire") and the German is "das Heilige Roemisches
>> Reich."
>
>Are you sure ? It was "Le Saint Empire Romain Germanique" in French.
>Surprising it would be named otherwise in English.

Absolutely.  Because German is not my native language, I confirmed that
form in _The Oxford Duden German Dictionary_, 1990 ed.  I don't know
why it should be so surprising that the English and German names differ.

>> [deutsche] Reich."  In any case, it was *never* a nation state, having
>> ceased to exist by the time the concept was invented.  When that occurred,
>> though, most other Western European countries, which had been "proto-nation
>> states" (in the sense of being relatively politically and culturally
>> unitary states) throughout the Middle Ages wasted no time in becoming
>> them.  Germany is a conspicuous exception in this context.
>
>Are you sure ? Besides France which invented the concept and England to which
>it geographically suited, most other European countries became nation-states
>over the 1850-1918 period which ended with the great Nation War. And Germany
>was certainly leading the pack.

_Prussia_ was leading the pack.  Austria was hampered by its cultural
diversity.  "Germany" didn't even have the basic unity of the Zollverein
("customs union") until early in the 19th

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
