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Comment by chadash | Hacker News Reader

This is pay-walled, but here's a summary:

The country we now call "Macedonia" (i.e. The Republic of Macedonia) was formed in 1991 after Yugoslavia broke up. Greece didn't like the name, because "Macedonia" was already the name of a large region in Northern Greece. This would be similar to a region of Quebec bordering the US breaking away from Canada and calling itself Maine. Some Greeks apparently felt that the Republic of Macedonia's name implied that it had territorial ambitions for parts of Northern Greece. As a compromise, the country will now be called North Macedonia.

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It doesn't only imply territorial claims over Greece's region, but also the history of the ancient Greek Macedonia, Alexander the great and so forth, which is clearly part of the Hellenic history. Besides publishing official maps that depicted the region of Thessaloniki as a region of their country that was occupied by Greece, they also bluntly used Greek symbols, texts and even antiquities to further their propaganda. This is a far more complicated problem than simply just a naming issue.

I have often wondered what Demosthenes would have thought of this. The Hellenes of the Philip's and Alexander's day were not fond of Macedonia, and (if I recall correctly) thought them more barbarian than not.

Instead of Maine, you can find a better analogy at the opposite end of the United States.

There’s a Mexican state named Baja California and a US state named simply California. Exact same thing as this Macedonia business.

I know this is always unpopular but, how about the name America?

I refer to the country south of me as "the US" or "the USA". To me as a Canadian I live in the Americas so I could be an American. Growing up nobody I knew called the US "America" you'd even hear "the Boston States", I have no clue how that originated.

But I've noticed over the past decade or two it's become more common for people in the US to refer to their country as America. I know it's a shortened form but still, to me, it's weird because:

Europe, Europeans Africa, Africans Asia, Asians Americas, ? (demonym for people of the entire region?)

I know some people counter with it's "North America dummy!" but wouldn't that mean the USA should be the USNA?

The terms America and Americans have been used for hundreds of years, not just the last decade or two. I've had this same conversation with Mexicans and people from South America. The U.S. was the first independent country in the Americas recognized by foreign countries and remained the only one for many years. The term American had been used by the British for years to refer to the colonies, and was adopted by the country itself.

In his farewell address, George Washington said this: "The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation."

More than that, this is just what citizens of the U.S. are called. New Zealanders are Kiwis and Brits are Brits and Canadians are Canadians. Every nationality has a name, this is ours. The continents shouldn't be called America anyways, as Amerigo Vespuci had little to do with its discovery or exploration, but that's the way it is.

In other words, this isn't some evil American power grab, and an insult to the rest of our Western Hemisphere neighbors, but a quirk of history that won't change any time soon.

It's irrelevant what Washington or anybody else said. The common name for the North and South American landmasses is America (note: not Americas). The land between Canada and Mexico has no more rights to that name than the rest of the continent (or continents, depending on what model you prefer).

Abroad, Hollywood has popularized the use of "American" to refer to citizens of the USA. Also, most languages don't have any other way to refer to US citizens because of its odd name. I'm only aware of Spanish "estadounidenses".

It's no different than if the most powerful European country were to call themselves Europeans alone.

The quote isn't irrelevant to the comment I was responding to, it was an example of its usage hundreds of years ago, loooong before Hollywood. Like I said above, it's a historical artifact, not some brazen attempt at linguistic hegemony.

(Sorry, but the Americas is what the continents are called normally - in English at least - did you just make up a new rule? There's even a Wikipedia entry: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas)

Regardless, the name for Americans isn't changing any time soon, so I wouldn't get worked up about it. Besides, we are Americans in the most pedantic use of the term - if the Canadians, Mexicans and anyone else in this hemisphere wants to call themselves Americans too, they can go right ahead. They'll just seem petty and silly though.

Its usage hundreds of years ago inside the US, yes. That's a pretty irrelevant argument for the rest of the remaining countries that are part of America, isn't it?

No, the continent(s) have traditionally been called America. A look at Google Ngram Viewer shows that Americas has hardly been used. It's a recent phenomenon, probably a result of the US hijacking "America". Even I feel sometimes compelled to call it "Americas" in Europe because it has become a given that US=America.

Not sure about the literature of the US, but in Latin American literature, writers have generally referred to the continent(s) as America, e.g http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/marti/America.htm

The original map by Waldseemüller has "America" written on it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Wa...

The western hemisphere is the Americas because it's composed of two continents, The North and South American Continents. IIRC from foreign language courses even in Latin American countries they are called 'The Americas'.

To me it's similar to the demonym 'New Yorker'. Is that someone from Buffalo, Schenectady, etc., New York or from the five boroughs or from the county of New York, ie, Manhattan?

What about Netherlander instead of Dutch since it's a corruption of Deutsch. We could go on about makes sense and what doesn't.

It may be irrelevant what anybody said, but it is not irrelevant what lots and lots of people said. For large chunks of the world, "Americans" meant "citizens or residents of the United States of America", long before Hollywood took its first reel of film.

> It's no different than if the most powerful European country were to call themselves Europeans alone.

Assuming always that it had established itself as the Federal Republic of Europe or some such before anybody else claimed the name.

The official name of the country is The United States Of America. But that's too long for day-to-day use, so we need a shorter name. What do you want us to use?

America? We get all these howls of protest, but what do you like better?

United States? To call us that has the same problem. It's kind of unfair to the United Mexican States, don't you think?

That leaves "The" and "Of". But we can't call ourselves those, because of The Dominion Of Canada.

The short name for The United States Of America is "America". It just is. And we don't particularly care whether you like it or not.

"The Boston states", if I understand correctly, does not refer to the entirety of the USA, but only to New England (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut - the states that center on Boston).

To be fair, the USA is the only country with America in it's name. And what would you call people who live in the United States other than Americans? Hop, skip and a jump to calling the place Americans live America.

In French, some people say étasunien (or États-Unien, Étatsunien) to avoid saying américain. États-Unis d’Amérique meaning USA.

https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%89tasunien

As an Australian, we'd call them Yanks :P

I see more and more write USAnians. All from people that dislikes everything US but I like it!

How do you say that out loud?

Estadounidenses

What about for people who speak English?

There’s also a state north of Mexico called New Mexico.

That state was named in the 1500s by Spanish explorers. If it was a political name at all, it was probably in reference to Aztlan and Mexican politics.

There's a province of Indonesia named Papua, on the island of New Guinea, bordering the country Papua New Guinea.

I have no idea what the inhabitants think about this or if anyone even cares, but it sounds quite confusing.

Except the "Baja" in this case (or its lack in the USA) is like the compromise, "North" Macedonia.

The situations would be more analogous if the Mexican state were called simply "California" or the US state were called "Baja California."

In both cases, the bigger and more powerful side got to keep the plain name and the other side had to settle for a geographic prefix.

As I understand it, both sides had prefixes: Baja and Alta. After the US took Alta California, they dropped that prefix. Mexico was never forced to add one.

They dropped the prefix because Mexico wasn't in a position to object. I wouldn't be surprised if many expected at the time that the newly founded US state would annex Baja eventually.

We had that opportunity -- the guy negotiating the treaty decided San Diego was far enough.

counterpoint: the Indian state of West Bengal and the country of Bangladesh (lit. Land of the Bengali).

The Baja peninsula includes two separate Mexican states: Baja California and Baja California Sur.

Not really correct. The peninsula consists of two Mexican states: Baja California Sur, and Baja California Norte. The United States dropped the "Alta" from Alta California after the process of defeating Mexico. I consider us all Californians, though, despite the political boundaries.

Maybe the previously-Alta California should follow the Mexican example and split into separate north and south states? That would fix issues with federal political representation, at least.

As soon as anyone explains how water would be apportioned in the new system, I might consider it.

Given its population, California (U.S.) could and arguably should split into several states. An even division into 5 states would still leave them around the size of Washington.

  Baja California Norte

No, just Baja California, or officially, the "Free and Sovereign State of Baja California" (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), according to its Wikipedia entry.

I think this analogy shows that names don't really matter: military superiority does.

"Might makes right" is not a new concept.

Not the greatest analogy, considering both the greek region and the republic were both part of ancient kingdom of Macedonia, and neither modern instance has (much of) any continuity link to ancient Macedonia.

I was there last year. It's a great country to visit as a tourist. There are much political issues still at large there. With Greece, there's that dispute over who has 'the right' to Macedonia. IMO, neither. There was no Greece and there was no (republic) Macedonia back then. There's an argument about language I've heard, that is that Macedonians spoke Greek. Could be, but things change. It's not like local populace disappeared when Slavs rode in. History is complex, yo and it's in no ones interest to bicker over it.

Greece didn't exist as a united country, but for Alexander the Great, who spent his school years in Athens, and tried to unite all Greek states into one Hellenic country, yes, the history belongs to the Greeks and not a Slavic tribe that found itself in the region 900 years later. Not to mention that they were given a written language by the Greeks of the Byzantine empire.

What I'm saying is that I'm not convinced modern greeks are the same as those 2500 years ago. Lots of things happened, people moved, shuffled, ottoman empire was there for 500+ years, etc. In same way, I'm not convinced Macedonia vas vacated, completely void of people, and settled by slavs ezclusively.

I don’t know about Greece specifically, but the modern population of Italy are descendants of Italians from Roman times. There has been no population turnover to speak of. I would expect the situation in Greece to be similar; I’m not aware of any historical instances of wholesale genocide and migration there...

Then you should go look at a modern Turk standing next to a modern Greek. They were considered the same people before WWI, and have little diverged since.

> and have little diverged since

You clearly know nothing about the differences between the two people. Turks are very different from Greeks on even the level of "looks," let alone culture.

Sorry, I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

Just the name evoked fears of territorial ambitions or is there history of "North Macedonia" and "Greek Macedonia" being unified?

And did Greece suggest "North Macedonia"? If I was worried about territorial ambitions, I don't think "North" would allay my fears.

If a Canadian state decided to rename itself Maine, pretty sure Americans would have zero f*s to give about it. To quote Peter Griffin, "Who cares?!!".

Or as attributed to Al Capone: "I don't even know what street Canada is on."

I don't think your example does the region justice. A short tussle over some border land isn't what happened here.

The region of "Macedonia" has been fought over for millennia and more recently carved up into Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria by the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest and then re-initialised in 1991 when Yugoslavia dissolved with Greece and Bulgaria still holding land acquired in 1913.

The Republic of Macedonia really had no more claim to the name than Greece and they've both been being dicks about the whole thing for the last century. But that's Balkan politics. Pain, strife and abject suffering over stupid shit that shouldn't be a problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(region)

(Peoples) Republic of Macedonia was formed on August 2, 1944, as federal unit in Yugoslavia, hence the provisional name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In 1991 independence was declared, but the only real change was loss of economic integration and military protection.

There was (is) a substantial ethnic (Slavic) minority in the Greek park of Macedonia that identified themselves as Macedonians, which was treated pretty terribly by the right wing Greek authorities after the Balkan Wars: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/greece-apos-macedonian-slavic-heri... (My father was not allowed to visit his birthplace in the Greek part of Macedonia because his Yugoslav passport had the slavic name of the town).

It is this issue that is the real reason for the dispute, not Ancient Macedonia. The serious Macedonian academic institutions (and almost all of the people that I know) don't claim that we have any cultural relation with them.

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