Keltové a Germáni i keltové a germáni. O psaní velkých písmen v názvech etnik a umělých myšlenkových konstruktů

• Authors: Vladimír Salač

Title variants

EN

Celts and Germans, as well as celts and germans. On the capitalization of the names of ethnic groups and artificial mental constructs

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

Demonyms (words expressing affiliation to an ethnic group, nation, state, city, etc.) need to be capitalized in the Czech language. However, research in various disciplines in recent decades has shown that some names that have been clearly understood as designations of the affiliation to a nation or an ethnic group do not correspond to the current understanding of these terms. Such designations include the words Keltové (Celts) and Germáni (ancient Germans), which in fact represent constructs artificially created by ancient Greek and Roman authors to denote large groups of barbarians regardless of what these barbarians called themselves, how they identified themselves, what languages they spoke, etc. If we regard the Celts or the ancient Germans as artificial constructs rather than ethnic groups, however, they need to be written with small initial letters according to the rules of the Czech orthography – keltové and germáni.

Keywords

CS

etnicita; Germáni; Keltové; psaní velkých písmen; sociální konstrukt

EN

ancient Germans; capitalization; Celts; ethnicity; social construct

• Publisher: Institute of the Czech Language, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Naše řeč (Our Speech)
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 106
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 185-191
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Vladimír Salač

• Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v. v. i., Letenská 123/4, 118 51 Praha 1, Czech Republic