Talk:Reich
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[edit] Connotation of the Word
“A number of words used by the Nazis which earlier were neutral have later taken on a negative connotation; the word "Reich" is one of them.”
The word “Reich” (unlike the word “Führer” or “Heil”) has little negative connotation in german. It just means empire. (Possibly there is some resentment with the concept rather than the word.) You would not use "Reich" in context of germany, because it's the wrong word and using it expresses some disputable nostalgia. There is no negative connotation with the names of other countries, e.g. Frankreich, Österreich.
(By the way, why do you say “Third Reich” instead of “Third German Empire”? Does the word “empire” have a positive connotation?)
-- de:Benutzer:Hokanomono 00:00, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- In my opinion Reich is not negative in German. I.e. you say "Himmelreich" (something like God's world in heaven) or you use the term in context of other political Empires (Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation etc.) It is just a translation of Empire (i.e. Britisches Weltreich) Of course, "Drittes Reich" is negative, but, because of the Nazis and not because of Reich. I never heard that some right-wing Neonazis use the term nowadaysas said in the text. Were is that information from? 82.82.125.13 23:56, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
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- No, I would say that "Reich" has a connotation of "German Imperialism" which is normally seen as negative. Words like "Frankreich" (France) or "Österreich" (Austria) are obviously free from such connotations (and the first syllable - not the "Reich"-part is stressed in pronounciation) whereas I wouldn't normally use "ReichsXXX". It is not as bad as "Führer" for example but I wouldn't use it create a new word like "Reichswikipedia". Zeitgeist 00:37, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
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- Thanks for the support. I've changed the article. -- Hokanomono 01:32, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Best English Translation
I just replaced "country" with "nation" in the translation of the slogan "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer". If they had meant "country" they would have used the German word "Land". "Nation" seems to be a better translation for "Reich". Although there exists the German word "Nation" as a direct German translation of "nation" (which was even part of the party name NSDPAP) it appears that they actually preferred the term "Reich" because of its German roots and its rich connotations. However, when I just turned to do the same change on Enabling Act I got second thoughts. In the English name of a law, "country" seems more appropriate than "nation". Sebastian 16:45, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)
Hmm, Tuomas changed it back without giving any reason. This is the beginning of an edit war, and I don't want to participate in it. However, I have changed the word for a reason, which I explained here. I think it is fair to ask to respect this.
For now, I will peruse Wikipedia talk:Edit war and see if I find any proposals how to solve this harmoniously. If not, then I'll simply revert this change.
PS: Maybe Tuomas just misunderstood my remark about the 2nd thoughts. They only refer to the law. In a slogan, "nation" clearly fits better since it is an essential part of both party name and ideology. Sebastian 07:56, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)
- I am not an expert, but, iirc the point about nationalism was the notion that a nation should have it's own state. Rather than "Reich" the word "Volk" might take the meaning of nation, which would lead to "One nation, one state, one leader". I cannot imagine a context when I would translate "Reich" with "nation". --Hokanomono 09:31, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)
No harm done, thanks for your clarification! Hokanomono, don't worry, most of us are no experts, or else we wouldn't do this for free! Your idea is interesting - you’re thinking outside of the box by proposing to change the other word!
So now we have to look at more than just the word "Reich". Maybe we should start a little table with all terms in question, listing each possible translation on a separate row. Not sure if this exists already, I hope I’m not reinventing the wheel here. Rows with a question mark in the example column are questionable. Please fill in the blanks in these cases. This table is sorted by the English column (roughly thematically from concrete to abstract, not alphabetically). German terms that occur more than once have been colored to easily identify the different translations.
As the table shows, there are already two more suitable English terms for German "Volk" in our context, which I think fit better than the translation "nation".
The term "Reich" and the modifier "Reichs-" were used from the Holy Roman Empire to the Third Reich for official purposes representing Germany or its national institutions. (Examples: Kaiserreich, Reichsadler, Reichstag, Reichskanzler, Reichswehr) It corresponds to the usage of "national" in the US, "royal" in the UK, "imperial" in old China and Russia and "people's" in socialist countries. I believe that of these, "nation" and "national" are the most neutral translations and should therefore be preferred. Sebastian 06:17, 2004 Oct 25 (UTC)
- The word "people" is ok for "Volk", I just wanted to demonstrate that "nation" is not a good translation for "Reich", because of ambiguity.
- Appearently the word "national" is often used in contexts not related to a "nation". (f.e. "national television"). The article Country explains the terms country, nation, state, and land. (Therefore there is a difference between "national Socialism" and "National Socialism".)
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- You're right about the ambiguity - this applies to all proposed alternatives, which is why I started the table below. Thank you for the reference to country - this article has a name for what we need: nation-state. If you're concerned about ambiguity, then that should be our translation of choice. Sebastian 00:27, 2004 Oct 27 (UTC)
- About the table: take care, taking "Bundesstaat" as an example for "Staat" is like taking "domestic science" as an example for "science". Also, a "state" in "United States of America" might not be a state in general context. But anyway, that's not our problem here. --Hokanomono 04:06, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
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- Quite in the contrary. If you take a look at the Bavarian Constitution you will see that it uses the terms "Freistaat", "Bundesstaat" and "Staat" interchangeably.
- Some of your changes in the table don't make sense to me:
- You entered "Frankreich, Österreich" as examples for words that are translated by "state" in English. The only way to translate these is "France, Austria".
- "country" is not just used colloquially. A google search on .gov pages alone yields about 6,060,000 results!
Sebastian 00:27, 2004 Oct 27 (UTC)
Just a short note on this very interesting (albeit rather old) discussion. Carl Linnaeus introduced the well-known systematic taxonomy of living organisms and coined the term "kingdom" of plants and animals. Of course, he did not do this in English, but in Latin, and so he used the term "regnum" (which means "kingdom" (derived from "rex", king). It is now interesting to be aware of the fact that Linnaeus himself was Swedish, and so perhaps he may have had in mind not the Latin word "regnum" (which brings with it the idea of a ruler, a king), but rather the Swedish "rike", which is the equivalent of German "Reich". The German translation of "regnum" in this sense is, of course, Reich der Tiere, or Tierreich (Tier = animal). So Swedish and German have the possibility of describing an entity with specific rules, which is not necessarily a state, and without having the connotation of a ruler. Similarly, it is possible in German to speak of a Reich der Zahlen ("kingdom" of numbers). Candidus 01:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
| German | English | Example | Comment/Context | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Staat | state | der Staat Deutschland | Commonly used in this sense in Europe | |
| Bundesstaat | (federal) state | Bundesstaat New York | Commonly used in this sense | |
| Staat | (federal) state | Staat New York | Often used for preceding, e.g. in Bavarian constitution. | |
| Bundesland | federal state | Commonly used | ||
| Land | federal state | Land Hessen | In this sense only used for federal states, as an abbreviation of preceding. In this specific meaning, it has become a loan word in other languages, such as French. Similar to the use of "land" for England, Scotland and Wales in the UK. | |
| Reich | state | ? | I am not aware of any case where "Reich" could best be translated by "state" or vice versa. | |
| Reich | country | Österreich, Frankreich | These words are remnants of a bygone time when these countries were monarchies. It would be absurd to use the word "Reich" in "we traveled to seven countries" or "my country, right or wrong". | |
| Land | country | This is the primary meaning of "Land", it means both the country and the rural area, as in English. | ||
| Reich | empire | Kaiserreich, Reichsadler | Unlike German, English has no generic term for kingdom/empire that is independent o its ruler. | |
| Reich | kingdom | Königreich | Unlike German, English has no generic term for kingdom/empire that is independent o its ruler. | |
| Reichs- | national | Reichsautobahn | "Reichsautobahn" is neither "country road" nor "state street", but "national highway"! | |
| Nation | nation | Nationalismus | This term was not commonly used during the Third Reich, presumably due to its obvious "ungerman" root. Whenever possible, the term "Reich" was used instead. | |
| Volk | nation | Völkerbund | To my knowledge, " Völkerbund" was coined for the nonce and is the only case where "Volk" corresponds to "nation". In reality its members were "Staaten" and not "Völker". | |
| Volk | people | Volkswagen, Volksrepublik | Common term during the Third Reich and the GDR; often used in propaganda. | |
| Volk | folk | Volksmusik | ||
| Reich | realm | Himmelreich | poetically, metaphorically | |
| reich | rich | (adjective) |
[edit] Rike redirected
I could not see the merit in having the Swedish equivalent of Reich, so I redirected it here. They are identical in origin as well as meaning, so I recommend discussing the Swedish aspects here instead.
Peter Isotalo 20:06, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Fixed Spelling
Prince —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.167.67.54 (talk) 07:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC).
