Talk:History of Germany/Archive 1
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(1) I think it should be Holy Roman Empire of German Nation (singular) (Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation), but i don´t know if this is correct in english.
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(2) Should we write ß and umlaute (ö instead of oe ...) in german words?
--Vulture
- As much as I believe that most foreign words should be written with a full set of diacritics uncertainty about how a system will interpret these makes me hesitant on a couple of fronts. Will the other guy's computer show the same character as mine? How will these special characters be alphabetized?
I've been merrily including umlauts aplenty: has anyone out there had trouble viewing them? (Here they are, just as examples: ä,ö,ü, which should look like a,o,u with two dots above each) User:David Parker
- OK, I've typically used alt+0228 for ä (the "&-uml" format seems terribly awkward), and I can be just as merry as you with that. Perhaps I was overreacting to the Wiki-rule that words should be in English, and I still have concerns. I don't know if the system is capable of distinguishing that Godel and Gödel are meant to be the same thing by different people. Many English speaking people have a horrible time knowing what to do with diacritics. This says nothing about how to handle languages with characters outside of ISO 8859-1. User:Eclecticology
2002-04-28 In my opinion, please use umlauts heavily. The Latin-1 character set (which this wiki defaults to) has support for all those characters, and I can see no problems arising with that. Godel and Gödel are two completely different things in German. Now, for those who -- unlike me -- have no German keyboard, the alt-keys work, or the following HTML circuventions:
- ä -> ä
- ö -> ö
- ü -> ü
- ß (sharp s) -> ß
- Ä -> Ä
- Ö -> Ö
- Ü -> Ü
As you can see, these are case sensitive; there is no capital sharp-s in German. -- djmutex
Update: Also see the Umlaut page for a detailed reference. Djmutex 15:30 20 May 2003 (UTC)
No historians believe that the Magna Germania recorded by Tacitus was a govermental confederation. No one.
Agreed. How does one ask Larry for a rollback? This is a mess.
Ok -- and let me make this PERFECTLY CLEAR. The Carolingians NEVER tried to unite the existing German tribes/peoples. They didn't care. They were Germanic rulers who kept their power by providing lands and plunder to their warriors. To do this, they had to expand their territory. Now, they may well have wanted to create a great Empire -- maybe -- but really, they were just reinforcing Carolingian clout and it had NOTHING to do with some romanticized idea of "us Germans against the world". Culturally, the Carolingians were much more interested in emulating Roman/Christian ideas of imperium. None of the Carolingians ever demonstrated that they thought the Carolingian kingdoms needed only one ruler. Who got to be Emperor was a fairly minor detail....stop the insanity at once!!! I will be back to clean up the Germanic tribes through the establishment of the HRE under Otto. So there! JHK
the new introduction is wonderful! We need much the same sort of thing for France (hint, hint!) --MichaelTinkler
I agree with M. Tinkler's note . I really like the introduction . H. Jonat
Referring to post-reunification Germany as "the new country" isn't really correct -- West Germany (but not East Germany) and post-reunification Germany are legally one and the same entity, and the former West Germany is dominant within Germany. East and West Germany didn't merge -- the West absorbed the East. -- SJK
The article as it sounds looks like a history of modern Germany to me: perhaps it should be called that? Why can't we reserve the history of Germany for, well...the history of Germany? You say the history of Germany is very complex and vague; well, why not say precisely that in the article? --Larry Sanger
This, as with most other articles outlining a country's history needs a chronological flow. I've been working on the Library of Congress Classification articles, and Class D in that system may give a basis for organizing some of this. For German history by period LC begins with a breakdown into three periods with the years 481 and 1519 as the dividing lines. Each period can then be logically broken down again at appropriate historical events. I'll consider reorganizing the text and inserting headings when I've finished with the LC outline.--User:Eclecticology
What the article really needs is filling out somewhat, notably the slight gap (yes, I noticed it too!) between 962 and 1806: but please note the references to other entries which should eventually carry part of the coverage - Holy Roman Empire and the various states: at the moment we certainly have a shortfall in that neither the Germany nor HRE article carries the history of the period, though some of the narrower states are coming along gradually. The Germany article certainly shouldn't end up containing everything that was going on in the area during this period - much of that belongs in the Empire, states or lesser regions.
What it definitely doesn't want is chopping into minute chronological subdivisions - I can think of nothing more guaranteed to disrupt the historical flow, especially in a country so diverse and constitutionally diffuse. If you want a chronology, then by all means start a chronology - I'll be happy to contribute (I like dates: I just cant't imagine anything worse than writing "1519-1618: In 1519 this happened. In 1525 that happened" and then calling it a history). What most of Wilkipedia's "history" articles need is to free themselves from the tyranny of dreary redundant narrative which makes so many lifted articles unreadable - that can all be included in the framework of a chronology proper.
And I wouldn't rely on the LoC as a leading authority in this matter: the importance of 481 to most of Germany is what, precisely? And what of the 10th century? Or the Black Death or the economic revival around 1470? All they've done with 1519 is to take the Imperial succession closest to 1517, so that the prehistory of the Reformation, the Peasant War etc. are cut off from the events themselves: that's not history, it's chronological subdivision - fine in a library history classification but worse than useless in writing history. User:David Parker
- In 481 Clovis I became the first Merovingian king. I agree with your views. I was really suggesting nothing more than a series of headings where people could fill in the details. Mediaeval period could then begin with a sub-heading "Merovingian kings". Showing these headings may encourage people to fill in the details, and discourage unnecessary sub-pages. As an analogy, pie-crusts alone are not very appealing to the taste until they have received a filling, but some cooks hesitate to make pies because they can't get the crust right; I'm merely suggesting to make a supply of pie crusts available for these cooks.--User:Eclecticology
- I accept that such headings may sometimes serve as an invitation to enter text, but I'm still concerned that they reinforce a particular approach. My point about 481 is that Childeric I's death was an event of very limited relevance to most Germans at the time (though the 5th century as a whole is obviously of great importance}. If we think in terms of long overlaps a broad periodisation need not be unhelpful, but I wouldn't have "Merovingians" as a section in Germany - it's already an article. I think it's such links that we ought to be making more use of, so that an article headed "History of Germany" can offer a broad outline of the development of the country as a whole. User:David Parker
- I think that the headings are unnecessary. In fact, there are very good reasons that they should not be included until more is written. Try looking at history of Poland which is terrible. It needs tons of editing. Anyhow, putting headings in first requires knowing what the headings should be -- and I'm not at all sure that the Merovingians should be included. in fact, I'm not sure that any of the history before Henry the Fowler should be included in a "history of Germany' except as an overview of what had happened before. THis is one of the major reasons I've not done any serious copyediting or writing on this particular article. As a medievalist who specializes in the Carolingian east, I would say that even under Ludwig der Deutsch, there is little to support an idea of a German nation. I vote with David on this. User:JHK
I removed this: