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[Frumple]

No, no, the states are fine. We mostly killed everyone that could have a claim on the place. Probably kill anyone else that wants to significantly complain about it, too.

That might be a good heuristic, actually. They're a coherent nation if they're willing (and maybe able) to murder your arse for saying otherwise.

[scriver]

The "not a real country" debate could encompass a whole lot of countries. Germany only came together in 1871, Italy only settled on Rome as the capital the same year, and some territories didn't join with Italy until after WWI.

Why are those real countries and not Belgium and Switzerland ? The subjective criteria sounds like it's about having a "national language" that's not shared by other nations, since Belgium and Switzerland have a mix of languages in common with neighboring countries. But such a "rule" needs to be objectively applied. Austria speaks German, so they're fake too.

Also, what about the USA? They speak imported languages too. The language rule would exclude pretty much all colonial countries from being "real" as well - so by by "countries" in the Americas / New World. You're all fake ones.

You are jumping to conclusions. Owlbread hasn't said any of those are "real countries" either.

[Owlbread]

I hope I'm not being rude here, but how many of the countries that you consider to be "real" are real countries. It seems to me that you think if a  country didn't exist 100, 200, 300 years ago then it's not a real country and that if a country did exist back then and no longer does that we should break the country in it's place and recreate the real country. Again, not trying to be rude or start an argument, just an observation.

You're not being rude or starting an argument wobbly, don't worry. I enjoy debating this topic as challenges force me to address my arguments and come up with something better. I think that there are many "real" countries in the world. Perhaps even close to the majority, but I'd have to address that point with care. It just happens that within those "real countries" there are also other real countries, the example I gave earlier was the Netherlands which I think are one nation, but they contain one or two little nations or parts of nations within them, one of which would be Frisia. Ireland is an example of a real country without other countries within, though you could argue it is divided across two countries like Albania, Azerbaijan, Armenia and so on. Iceland is a "real country", you could say. So is Belarus. Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway are all pretty much real countries, although one can debate Skaneland. They do of course all collectively control a nation which is split between all of them - the nation of the Sami people, whose easternmost reaches are currently under Russian control (Murmansk is rightful Sami clay).

So you see, there are many "real" countries out there. It's just that a lot of them have smaller nations inside them. Many small nations are divided across several countries. I think the minority of states (apart from the colonial ones which are a real headache) are leftovers from the olden days of realms rather than nation states. An example in Europe would be Belgium while an example in central Asia would be Afghanistan.

The problem with the colonial states (United States, Australia etc) as Reelya has illustrated is that, in some cases, they literally killed everyone that was there before or put them all in Oklahoma or something so that means the natural order of things has been eschewed. Colonialism causes problems with this "real country" idea in Europe just as much as in the New World. I tend to avoid dealing with the New World for this reason, and when I am forced to deal with colonialism on the home front i.e. in Ukraine or in Northern Ireland where colonists have settled tracts of Irish or Ukrainian land and are trying to keep them united with their respective nations (Russia and the UK), this causes lots of problems and I end up tying myself in knots.

I will need to think carefully about these places. Of course that doesn't mean that, where the boundaries are a bit more clear, we can't make pronouncements, such as calling for the independence of obvious "nations" within a colonial state like Russia such as Buryatia, Tuva, the North Caucasian countries and so on. The boundary is perhaps clearest in Hawaii in the USA, hence my occasional calls for its independence. I mean, I at least know that Hawaii should be independent. The rest I'm still trying to work out.

Sheb and Slowpoke have accurately identified the greatest points about Switzerland. I actually love Switzerland and as Sheb has stated it is genuinely my dream country. I think the canton model of Swiss governance should be explored. It's what I was getting at when I talked about a Federation of England; each "county" is like a Swiss canton. I also really like Belgium; I'd love to visit the country and I've wanted to do so for a long time. None of this prevents me from quietly wanting to chop them up though. Perhaps you should take it as a complement if I express an interest in trying to chop up your country; it means I'm interested in your country and I probably like it. But yes, I would feel worse about chopping up Switzerland because, as Sheb says, it is a state unified through the will of its people rather than war and coercion (a truly admirable thing), it's just that I think within the "ethnic" nation state lines (which for me are more linguistic than ethnic, as Reelya identifies) we can apply those principles. I don't think you need to have Breton ancestry and speak Breton to be Breton; you can be an Algerian immigrant and still be Breton through the power of your will. If you learn Breton in the process that's fantastic; you don't have to though.

Austria is problematic for me because I don't understand its ethno-linguistic composition very well. If I was to take a stab at it, I would be tempted to put most of it in a sort of greater Bavaria, with the rest of it becoming a part of Alemannia, Swabia and so on. But yeah, Austria is pretty much one of those "realm-type" countries for me.

And yet... for all my talk of these "organic, linguistic nations", Scotland is a union of once Gaelic speaking Picto-Gaels and now Scots/English speaking Britons. Arguably, both of those groups were united under Gaelic for a few hundred years, apart from the far south east of the country. It does cause problems, however. Scotland is far, far less clear cut than Wales and Ireland. Could it be that Scotland is not a real country? Maybe it is, if you deem it to be a continuation of the ancient Pictish nation, just absorbed into a wider one that now includes all sorts of people. But what does this mean? Does this mean that other "real countries" are not real at all? Does it mean that Edinburgh and the Scottish borders should be independent from Scotland? I have no idea. Scotland is actually an example of that Old World/New World colonialism that I talked about earlier, where Gaels colonised the Picts and the Norse colonised the Gaels and the Anglo-Saxons colonised the Britons and then the Picto-Gaels colonised them all then the Anglo-Normans colonised them all, but became something else in the process. Much of the damage was done peacefully of course.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

I like the mindset of DNR and LNR  population... First they say that they feed Ukraine.... Then they support\do nothing to counter Russian intervention. Then they form their republics...

Now, Ukraine announces that we will not pay them pensions and salaries for state employee starting from December. And they are calling us fascists for that. Isn't that amusing?

[scriver]

Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway are all pretty much real countries, although one can debate Skaneland

Ehe. How come, of all the splinter groups and regional identities of Sweden, Scania was the one you chose?

[Owlbread]

Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway are all pretty much real countries, although one can debate Skaneland

Ehe. How come, of all the splinter groups and regional identities of Sweden, Scania was the one you chose?

I don't know. It was the one that seemed most separate to me. I need to do a lot more research obviously, but the other regional identities seemed similar to those in England between the counties. Scania is the most "country" like of all from what I can tell.

[scriver]

In what way? There's no bigger difference between them and Swedes than between Geats and Swedes, or Island-landers and Swedes. There's several regions in the northlands with a lot more distinguishable differences than that, not to mention several places where they speak a whole different language.

edit: I'm sorry if I come off as pressuring you on this, it just intrigued me what makes it appear so. For a moment before I had finished reading your post I even thought you had brought up Scania but not the Sami peoples though

[Sheb]

Can I ask you a question the other way Owlbread? What countries do you think should not be split. I'm seriously wondering what's your criteria for a country that should stay in one piece.

[Phmcw]

Owlbread, what you, and a lot of peoples alongside, are missing is that originally most peoples spoke a dialect that had a reach of a few villages tops. What they speak when they had to speak with peoples from farther away was a different language.  I know for a fact that walloon from Liege and from Charleroi didn't understand each other. There is no "natural linguistic boundaries".

[Owlbread]

Owlbread, what you, and a lot of peoples alongside, are missing is that originally most peoples spoke a dialect that had a reach of a few villages tops. What they speak when they had to speak with peoples from farther away was a different language.  I know for a fact that walloon from Liege and from Charleroi didn't understand each other. There is no "natural linguistic boundaries".

This is a common problem. I think if we look at the dialects scientifically we can group them under the "Walloon" label. There is rarely a clear boundary, but you can usually see a kind of faded outline of one if you look hard enough at the dialect continuums. Nowadays, just like with Scots in Scotland,  the Walloon language will have softened its differences to the point that mutual intelligibility is possible.

Can I ask you a question the other way Owlbread? What countries do you think should not be split. I'm seriously wondering what's your criteria for a country that should stay in one piece.

I think when you have reduced it to the equivalent of an atom i.e. where one language was natively spoken across the territory at some point. An example would be Wales. If other languages were spoken but they are long dead and irretrievable and its speakers assimilated I would not recommend separation.

In what way? There's no bigger difference between them and Swedes than between Geats and Swedes, or Island-landers and Swedes. There's several regions in the northlands with a lot more distinguishable differences than that, not to mention several places where they speak a whole different language.

edit: I'm sorry if I come off as pressuring you on this, it just intrigued me what makes it appear so. For a moment before I had finished reading your post I even thought you had brought up Scania but not the Sami peoples though

Well, I am afraid I have only looked at Sweden superficially but I read about tbe disputes between Sweden and Denmark over Scania and its long history of separateness from the rest of Sweden due to its Danish heritage. I also heard about its separatist movement (which sounded terrible) and thought it all seemed ambiguous enough to mention it.

[Sergarr]

Owlbread, what you, and a lot of peoples alongside, are missing is that originally most peoples spoke a dialect that had a reach of a few villages tops. What they speak when they had to speak with peoples from farther away was a different language.  I know for a fact that walloon from Liege and from Charleroi didn't understand each other. There is no "natural linguistic boundaries".

This is a common problem. I think if we look at the dialects scientifically we can group them under the "Walloon" label. There is rarely a clear boundary, but you can usually see a kind of faded outline of one if you look hard enough at the dialect continuums. Nowadays, just like with Scots in Scotland,  the Walloon language will have softened its differences to the point that mutual intelligibility is possible.

Can I ask you a question the other way Owlbread? What countries do you think should not be split. I'm seriously wondering what's your criteria for a country that should stay in one piece.

I think when you have reduced it to the equivalent of an atom i.e. where one language was natively spoken across the territory at some point. An example would be Wales. If other languages were spoken but they are long dead and irretrievable and its speakers assimilated I would not recommend separation.

In what way? There's no bigger difference between them and Swedes than between Geats and Swedes, or Island-landers and Swedes. There's several regions in the northlands with a lot more distinguishable differences than that, not to mention several places where they speak a whole different language.

edit: I'm sorry if I come off as pressuring you on this, it just intrigued me what makes it appear so. For a moment before I had finished reading your post I even thought you had brought up Scania but not the Sami peoples though

Well, I am afraid I have only looked at Sweden superficially but I read about tbe disputes between Sweden and Denmark over Scania and its long history of separateness from the rest of Sweden due to its Danish heritage. I also heard about its separatist movement (which sounded terrible) and thought it all seemed ambiguous enough to mention it.

If we look at the the "faded boundaries" hard enough then we can form a gigantic Indo-European state composed of all nations whose language belong to the Indo-European language group only on that basis.

I'm pretty sure you don't want that. So you have to clarify how much of a difference makes a difference.


Also, the idea of an "Atom" of language is so ridiculous I'm not even sure where to start with it. Do you know about etymology, for starters?

[MonkeyHead]

The example of Wales is not a good one, Owlbread. There is enough difference between the Welsh spoken in north Wales (far more "slang welsh") and in the south (formal mixed with English derived neologisms) so much that a conversation between a speaker of each is nigh on impossible.

[Owlbread]

The example of Wales is not a good one, Owlbread. There is enough difference between the Welsh spoken in north Wales (far more "slang welsh") and in the south (formal mixed with English derived neologisms) so much that a conversation between a speaker of each is nigh on impossible.

I know this, but I see Wales as an example of a country that had very little political unity in the past and had strong dialectal differences - yet none of this stops me from regarding it as one nation. Indeed, nor did it stop the Welsh from regarding themselves as one people back then. I wouldn't split Wales in twain. I'd recommend local autonomy, certainly,  but I wouldn't split it up into several countries.

You're right Sergarr, we could form such a superstate, but I wouldn't. If you see languages as tiered structures of families, you could choose to unify all Slavic peoples for instance according to their family. I would go down several levels to a level that roughly corresponds with nations e.g. Polish, Czech, Kashubian etc.

The atom idea is silly, but it's all I could come up with. I was thinking of the old idea of an atom where the philosopher (whose name escapes me) talked about cutting a piece of cheese. When you get to the point that you can't cut it anymore that's an atom. The funny thing is that I've discovered if you divide countries up into "nations" you will discover most of them are blocks of about 5 million people or thereabouts, or the equivalent if that in proportion to a very big country. It's a pattern.

[Helgoland]

But then you get different atoms if you cut different ways - well-defined that ain't.
Maybe you should stop and think about what you are doing: You have a goal that you want to achieve, a position you want to promote, and now you're thinking up linguistic arguments to attain legitimacy, justification for your ideas.
I'd suggest you start with the arguments and see where they take you instead. It'll lead to fewer contradictions - and you'll like the results you'll get better than the nebulous notions you espouse right now.

[TD1]

If a country says it's a country, is reasonably big enough, has control over its land/assets and functions as a political power, I'd say it's a separate country in its own right. If there are separate countries within that, then its individual ambitions are overruled by the majority...the majority being the country.