21-Jan-2017
GERMANY:
The German language
(Deutsch), is a West Germanic
language and one of the world's major languages. German is closely related to and classified alongside
English and Dutch. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 100 million
native speakers and also about 80 million non-native speakers, and
Standard German is widely taught in schools, universities, and
Goethe Institutes worldwide.
The German people (German:
Deutsche) are an ethic group, in the sense of sharing a common
German culture, decent, and
speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within
Germany,
Germans are defined by citizenship (Federal Germans, Bundesdeutsche), distinguished from people of German
ancestry (Deutschstämmige).
Historically, in the context of the German Empire (1871-1918), German citizens (Imperial
Germans, Reichsdeutsche) were distinguished from
ethic Germans (Volksdeutsche).
Out of approximately 100 million
native speakers of German in the world, about 75 million consider themselves
Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry (mainly in
the USA, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, France and Canada) who are not native speakers
of German.
Thus, the total number of Germans
worldwide lies between 75 and 160 million, depending on the criteria applied
(native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry,
etc.). In the
U.S.,
43 Million or 15.2% of citizens identify as German American according to the
United States Census of 2000.
Although the percentage has declined, it is still more than any other group.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey,
approximately 51 Million citizens identify themselves as having German ancestry.
HUNGARY:
Hungarian (magyar nyelv)
is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in
Europe. It is
spoken in Hungary
and by the Hungarian minorities in seven neighbouring countries. The Hungarian
name for the language is magyar.
Hungarian has long been of great
interest to linguist as one of the small number of modern European
languages
that do not belong to the Indo-European language family. Due to the Uralic heritage, Hungarian often
sounds completely foreign to speakers of Indo-European languages. It is commonly
considered to be one of the most difficult languages for speakers of English (or other Indo-European
languages) to learn well.
There are about 14.5 million native
speakers, of whom 9.5-10 million live in modern-day Hungary. A further two
million speakers live outside Hungary in areas that were part of the
Kingdom of Hungary before the
Treaty of Trianon. Of these, the largest group lives in
Romania,
where there are approximately 1.4 million Hungarians (see
Hungarian minority in Romania). Hungarian-speaking people are also to be
found in
Slovakia,
Serbia,
Ukraine,
Croatia,
Austria, and
Slovenia,
as well as about a million people scattered in other parts of the world (see
Geographic distribution). As with
many European languages, there are a few hundred thousand speakers of Hungarian
in the
United States as well.
The origin of the Hungarians is
partly disputed. The most widely-accepted
Finno-Ugric theory of origin from the late nineteenth century is based
primarily on linguistic and ethnographical arguments.
Contesting these, the theory is criticized as relying too much on
August Schleicher's Stammbaumtheorie of
historical linguistics, and some cite that Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples have
a wide range of cultural,
ethnic and
genetic variation.
It should also be noted that though old and modern-day Hungarians have a
predominantly European genetic makeup, one research states that about 13% of the
population have retained their Uralic genes, while another sees no genetic
continuity.
There are also other theories stating that the Magyars are descendants of
Scythians,
Huns and/or
Avars. These other theories tend to be based upon unsound critical
methodology, especially in regard to existing linguistic evidence, so most
scholars dismiss them as speculation.
Hungarians (Hungarian:
magyarok) or Magyars are an
ethnic
group primarily associated with
Hungary.
There are around 9.97 million Magyars in
Hungary (as
of 2001).
Magyars were the main inhabitants of the
Kingdom of Hungary that existed through most of the second millennium. After
the
Treaty of Trianon Magyars became minority inhabitants in the territory of
present-day
Romania (1,440,000; see:
Hungarian minority in Romania),
Slovakia
(520,500), Serbia
(293,000; largely in
Vojvodina),
Ukraine and
Russia (170,000),
Austria (40,583),
Croatia
(16,500), the
Czech Republic (14,600) and
Slovenia
(10,000). Significant groups of people with Magyar ancestry live in various
other parts of the world (e.g. 1,400,000 in the
United States), but unlike the Magyars living within the former Kingdom of
Hungary, only some of these largely preserve the Hungarian language and
traditions. The Hungarians can be classified in several sub-groups according to
local linguistic and cultural characteristics. Hungarian ethnic subgroups that
have a distinct identity are the
Székelys,
Csángós,
Jassic people and
Palócs.
POLAND:
Polish (język polski,
polszczyzna) is the
official language of
Poland. It is
the
West Slavic language having the greatest number of speakers. Polish is spoken in a uniform
manner through most of Poland, and has a regular orthography. The language
developed indigenously and retains many ancient Slavic features of pronunciation
and grammar. Although the Polish language was suppressed by occupying powers
during some historical periods, a rich literature has nonetheless developed over
the centuries, and many works by Polish authors are available in translations in
English and other languages.
The Polish people, or Poles,
(Polish:
Polacy
pɔˈlat͡sɨ ) are a
Western
Slavic
ethnic
group of
Central Europe, living predominantly in
Poland. Poles
are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of
Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly
Roman Catholic. The Poles can also be referred to as the inhabitants of the
Republic of Poland and Polish emigrants irrespective of their ethnicity. A
wide-ranging
Polish diaspora exists throughout Western and Eastern Europe, the Americas
and Australia.
There is no commonly accepted
definition of the Polish people. According to the
preamble of
the
Constitution of Poland, the Polish Nation consists of all
citizens
of Poland. However, like in most European countries, many people limit the group
to native speakers of the
Polish language, people that share certain traditions, or people who share a
common ethnic background originating from Poland. As to its origins, the name of
the nation comes from a
western
Slavic
ethnic
group of
Polans primarily associated with Poland and the Polish language. Poles
belong to the
Lechitic subgroup of these ethnic people. The
Polans of Giecz,
Gniezno, and
Poznań were
one of the most influential tribes of
Greater Poland and managed to unite many other West Slavic tribes in the
area under the rule of what became the
Piast
dynasty, thus giving birth to a new state. The Polish word for a Polish
person is Polak (male) and Polka (female), however, when this
common noun is used
verbatim in the English language (usually spelled as
Polack) it
is always offensive.
RUSSIA:
Russians, predecessors were the
medieval
East Slavic nation
Rus’,
who were also the predecessors of
Belarusians and
Ukrainians.
Most of the tribes that took part in
the formation of the Russian people were of
East Slavic
origin. Among those tribes were
Krivich,
Ilmen
Slavs,
Radimichs and
Severians.
A genetic study showed that even though most of the Russian blood is
Slavic, they also have some
Finno-Ugric blood in them.
That shows that some of the
Finno-Ugric peoples that lived among the
Slavs in
east Europe eventually assimilated in them. Among those peoples were
Merya
and Muromian
Very little is known about the
Russians and
East Slavs
in general prior to approximately 859 AD, the date from which the account in the
Primary Chronicle (a history of the Ancient Rus from around 850 to 1110
originally compiled in Kiev about 1113) starts.
By 600 AD, the
Slavs had split linguistically into southern, western, and eastern branches.
The East Slavs flooded
Eastern Europe in two streams. One group of tribes settled along the
Dnieper river in what is now
Ukraine; they
then spread northward to the northern
Volga valley, east of modern-day
Moscow and
westward to the basins of the northern
Dniester
and the
Southern Buh rivers in present-day
Moldova and
southern Ukraine.
Another group of East Slavs moved
from
Pomerania to the northeast, where they encountered the
Varangians
of the
Rus'
Khaganate and established an important regional centre of
Novgorod. The same Slavic population also settled the present-day
Tver
Oblast and the region of
Beloozero. Having reached the lands of the
Merya near
Rostov, they
linked up with the Dnieper group of Slavic migrants.
The Russian people (Russian:
Русские—Russkie ) are an
East Slavic
ethnic
group, primarily living in
Russia and
neighboring countries.
The
English term Russians is also used to refer to
citizens of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity (see
demographics of Russia for information on other ethnic groups inhabiting
Russia); in
Russian, this meaning is covered by term Rossiyanin (Россиянин,
plural Rossiyane). According to 2002
census, ethnic
Russians make up about 80% of the population of Russia.
RUSYN:
Rusyns (also
referred to as Русины, Ruthenians, Ruthenes, Rusins, Carpatho-Rusyns, and Rusnaks) are a
Slavic
ethnic
group that speaks the
Rusyn language and are descended from the minority of
Ruthenians
who did not adopt the ethnonym
Ukrainian
to describe their ethnic identity in the
nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Because many Ruthenians within Ukraine itself have
adopted a Ukrainian ethnic identity,
most contemporary Rusyns live outside Ukraine. Of the approximately 2 million
people claimed by Rusyn organizations as being Rusyns, only 55,000 declare
themselves as having this ethnicity. The ethnic identity of Rusyns is
controversial, with some researchers claiming a separate
East
Slavic ethnicity distinct from
Russians,
Ukrainians,
and
Belarusians, while others consider Rusyns to be a subgroup of the Ukrainian
people.
Prior to the middle of
the 19th century, Ukrainians were referred to and known as Rusyns. The ethnonym
Ukrainian came into widespread use only in modern times, replacing the
ethnonym Rusyn initially on the banks of the Dnieper and later in western
Ukraine, where it was still used into the 1930s. Today only a minority group
uses this ethnonym for self-identification, primarily people living in the
mountainous Transcarpathian region of western Ukraine and adjacent areas in
Slovakia. Having eschewed the ethnonym Ukrainian, Rusyns across the old
heartland of the Kyivan Rus state continue to use the ethnonym Rusyn, asserting
a local and separate Rusyn ethnic identity.
Rusyns are an ethnic group that never attained independent statehood, except
for the ephemeral
Lemko-Rusyn Republic and
Komancza Republic after
World War
I. The Republic of
Carpatho-Ukraine - which famously existed for only one day on March 15th,
1939 before it was occupied by Hungarian troops - is sometimes erroneously
understood to have been a briefly self-determining Rusyn State. But although it
was located in
Subcarpathian Ruthenia, the traditional Carpatho-Rusyn homeland, the
Republic was a project overseen by Ukrainian nationalists, assisted by the
Third Reich. The Republic's president,
Avhustyn Voloshyn, was an advocate of writing in the Rusyn vernacular but
was a Ukrainophile nevertheless.
The Rusyns' fate has always rested in the hands of larger neighbouring
powers, such as
Hungary,
Czechoslovakia,
Slovakia,
Poland, the
Soviet
Union,
Ukraine, and
Russia. In contrast to the modern
Ukrainian national movement that united Western Ukrainians with those from
the rest of Ukraine, the Rusyn national movement takes two forms: one considers
Rusyns as a separate
East Slavic nation, while the other is based on the concept of fraternal
unity with
Russians.
Rusyn (also referred to as the
Ruthenian language) is similar to the
Ukrainian language; Ukrainian scholars consider Rusyn a dialect of
Ukrainian, to the resentment of some Rusyns. In the extreme west of Carpathian
Ruthenia, the language is more similar to
Slovak.
RUTHENIAN:
The term Ruthenians (Ukrainian:
Русини, Rusyny) is a culturally
loaded term and has different meanings according to the context in which it is
used. Initially it was the ethnonym used for the
Ukrainian
people. With the emergence of
Ukrainian self-awareness in the mid 19th century, the term initially went
out of use first in eastern Ukraine, then central Ukraine and later in western
Ukraine. In western Ukraine and in Ukrainian ethnic territories outside of
Ukraine it is often still used.
Originally the term Rusyn
was a ethnonym applied to eastern Slavic-speaking ethnic groups, who
inhabit or inhabited the cultural and ethnic region of
Rus' (Русь) often written through its
Latin
variant
Ruthenia.
Then, the terms "Ruthenians" or "Ruthenes"
were the Latin terms referring to
Slavic
Orthodox people who lived in
Grand Duchy of Lithuania (inhabiting the area that is now
Belarus and
Ukraine.
They spoke the
Ruthenian language). It was also the ethnonym used by the
Ukrainian
kozaks to describe themselves.
After the area of
White
Russia (Belarus)
became part of the
Russian Empire, the people of the area were seen as a sub-group of
Russians,
and they were named White Russians as the name of the region of
White
Russia (Belorusians
in
Ruthenian and
Russian means White Russians). The
Belorusian language in the area evolved from the
Ruthenian language.
Later "Ruthenians" or "Ruthenes" were
used as a generic term for
Greek Catholic inhabitants of
Galicia and adjoining territories up until the early 20th century who spoke
Western dialects of the
Ukrainian language and called themselves "Русины" (Rusyny). The other
English name for the same ethnic group was "Little Russians" (see
Little Russia).
The language these "Ruthenians" or "Ruthenes"
spoke was also called the "Ruthenian
language", the name "Ukrajins’ka mova" (Ukrainian
language) became accepted by much of the Ukrainian literary class only in
the early twentieth century in
Austro-Hungarian Galicia. After the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918
the term "Ukrainian"
was usually applied to all Ukrainian-speaking inhabitants of Galicia.
However, descendants of emigrants
from Galicia residing in the
United States, and minorities in western Ukraine,
Poland, and
Slovakia,
still call themselves "Русины". These are treated under the Wikipedia article on
Rusyns.
SLOVAKIA:
The Slovak language (slovenčina,
slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with
slovenščina), sometimes referred to as "Slovakian", is an
Indo-European language belonging to the
West Slavic languages (together with
Czech,
Polish,
Silesian,
Kashubian and
Sorbian). Slovak is
mutually intelligible with Czech.
Kingdom of Hungary:
Slovakia came under Hungarian rule
gradually from 907 to the early 14th century (major part by 1100) and remained a
part of the
Kingdom of Hungary (see also
Upper
Hungary or
Uhorsko) until the formation of
Czechoslovakia in 1918. Politically, Slovakia formed (again) the separate
entity called
Nitra Frontier Duchy, this time within the Kingdom of Hungary. This duchy
was abolished in 1107. The territory inhabited by the Slovaks in present-day
Hungary was gradually reduced, but in the 14th century, there were still many
Slovak settlements in northern eastern present-day
Hungary.
When present-day Hungary was
conquered by the
Ottoman Empire in 1541, Slovakia became the core of the "reduced" kingdom,
officially called
Royal
Hungary. Many Magyars (Hungarians) fleeing from present-day Hungary to the
north settled in large parts of present-day southern Slovakia, thereby creating
the considerable Magyar minority in southern Slovakia today. Some
Croats settled
around and in present-day
Bratislava
for similar reasons. Also, many
Germans
settled in Slovakia, especially in the towns, as work-seeking colonists and
mining experts from the 13th to the 15th century. German settlers outnumbered
the native populace in almost all towns in the Kingdom of Hungary, but their
numbers began to stagnate in the 16th century and to decrease later. Jews and
Gypsies also formed significant populations within the territory.
After the Ottoman Empire was forced
to retreat from present-day Hungary around 1700, thousands of Slovaks were
gradually settled in depopulated parts of the restored Kingdom of Hungary
(present-day
Hungary,
Romania, Serbia,
and Croatia)
under
Maria Theresia, and that is how present-day Slovak enclaves (like
Slovaks in Vojvodina) in these countries arose.
Slovakia was the most advanced part
of the Kingdom of Hungary for centuries (the most urbanized part, intense mining
of gold and silver), but in the 19th century, when
Buda/Pest
became the new capital of the kingdom, the importance of Slovakia as well as
other parts within the Kingdom fell, and many Slovaks were relegated to the
indigence. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Slovaks emigrated to
North
America, especially in the late 19th century and early 20th century (between
cca. 1880–1910), and a total of at least 1.5 million (~2/3 of them were part of
some minority).
Slovakia exhibits a very rich folk
culture. A part of Slovak customs and social convention are common with those of
other nations of the former
Habsburg monarchy (the Kingdom of Hungary was in
personal union with the Habsburg monarchy from 1526 to 1918).
CZECHOSLOVAKIA:
People of Slovakia spent most part of
the 20th century within the framework of
Czechoslovakia, a new state formed after
World War
I. Significant reforms and post-World
War II
industrialization took place during this time. The Slovak language has been
strongly influenced by the
Czech language during this
period.
ENGLISH
EQUIVALENTS OF FOREIGN GIVEN NAMES
By: Paul M.
Kankula:
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~scoconee/names.html
