Talk:Imperial Germans
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I'm not sure that Imperial Germans is really an appropriate translation of Reichsdeutsche. The term may be used on occasion, but I have never seen it in historical writing; like Volksdeutsche, it really isn't normally translated in my experience. Imperial Germans also has the problem that, in English, it suggests "those Germans who are citizens of the Empire" — which could very well mean the Holy Roman Empire. In that sense, Austrians or South Tyrolians would be "Imperial", while Prussians would not.
Translation of the term Reich into English is in general problematic, which is why the Third Reich is never referred to as the "Third (German) Empire". One could not translate Königsreich as "king's empire"; going the other way, imperialism is Imperialismus in German, not *Reichismus or *Kaiserismus. —Tkinias 00:56, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- We had this discussion before in the Baltic context, which is how I hit on the current matter anyway. At least in this context, Imperial German actually is the used translation of reichsdeutsch in English-language scientific articles, at least to a large extent. So, appropriateness is not really the issue there, usage is - and as the text makes clear, the Empire here does not refer to the Alte Reich that existed until Napoleon. That the same words gets translated differently in different contexts and combinations is normal. The third reason to use Imperial German was that there is a number of people on wiki who apparently have a problem with any non-English word and even suggest articles for deletion because they have a non-English title, even if there is no English word for it; the entire subject matter is sensitive enough that I wanted to place the general discussion under an at least in this sense inoffensive heading. Clossius 06:47, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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- I'm curious where you have seen Imperial German used to translate reichsdeutsch. You mention "scientific" literature, which is not where I would expect to find discussion of German history — unless you are using "scientific" in a broader sense (wissenschaftlich?) than its customary English sense.
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- I don't think it is not customary to use "scientific" in this sense - I indeed mean "scientific" in the sense of wissenschaftlich, i.e. it could be substituted by "scholarly", and as a juxtaposition, say, to "popular" or "journalistic" or "political". In that sense, "scientific" is surely used in the US as well as in the UK to describe books and articles even in such areas as history or the social sciences.
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- Well, it is customary at US universities (and in popular usage) to distinguish the Arts (including literature and history) from the Sciences (biology, physics, etc.) Without qualification, "scientific" is normally understood to refer to the physical sciences. (Also, when one says "scientific history" one sounds very Marxist, which is not always a good thing!) I suppose Geisteswissenschaften is not considered the "opposite" of Wissenschanften in the way the the Arts and the Sciences are considered something of a binary here? (I would always use scholarly [or maybe academic] to contrast with popular.) —Tkinias 19:26, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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- More on that on your user page! Clossius 06:07, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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- Can you provide any citations? (Obviously imperial is a way to translate Reichs, so it is a possible, literal translation, but in English historical writing I have always seen it Reichsdeutsche, without translation.)
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- As I said, I am coming from the history, and history of science (Wissenschaft), of the Baltics, where you had a particularly strong clash of Imperial Germans and Baltic Germans at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu). Most of the recent English literature that topicalizes this theme now uses the word "Imperial German", such as that on Karl Bücher. If you want concrete article citations, no problem either, although I should say right away that I'm really not up for any fights on issues such as these on wiki; if "Imperial Germans" gets removed and the gist of the article placed under Reichsdeutsche, that's nothing I could manage to get particularly upset about. Clossius 09:38, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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- I'm not interested in fighting either! — I am just very curious. (I a working on my doctorate in modern European history at the moment, so this is an issue which is of professional interest as well. I am in particular interested in issues of ethnicity and citizenship.) I apologize if I sounded combative; I am not demanding proof of anything, just requesting that you educate me. —Tkinias 19:26, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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- Okay. :-) Clossius 06:07, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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- As far as any Anglophone bigotry that you may have encountered: that needs to be fought, not surrendered to, in my opinion. (And I say this as an American.) —Tkinias 08:33, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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- I'm not with wikipedia long enough to judge whether fights against people with such biases can really be won. Clossius 09:38, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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