PC: Separate Catholic and Protestant German ethnicities

Anyway Catholic and Protestant Germans could be consider their own ethnic groups similar to Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians
 
If they use different written standards with different bibles and such, discarding Luther's Bible. Protestant Germany is more northern and could have used a more Niederdeutsch language while the Catholics adopt some south German variety as standard form.
 
The problem are that it would make little sense, yes there's mire Protestants in the north and more Catholics in the south, but there's massive regions of both areas populated by people of the other religion. It doesn't lend itself to develop separate national identities.
 
The problem are that it would make little sense, yes there's mire Protestants in the north and more Catholics in the south, but there's massive regions of both areas populated by people of the other religion. It doesn't lend itself to develop separate national identities.
The Swiss and the Dutch did. We could have a PoD of the 1860s, where the North Germans have one state, and the South Germans have another state, and both try to make themselves as different from the other as possible.
 
The Swiss and the Dutch did. We could have a PoD of the 1860s, where the North Germans have one state, and the South Germans have another state, and both try to make themselves as different from the other as possible.

This is about what it would take; Germany would basically have to never unify, never have the Kulturkampf, and never industrialize to the extent it did. You probably have to butterfly away the Kingdom of Prussia, which could lead to a much more fractious 'Germany' by the turn of the 19th century. A few prominent duchies in the north (Hannover, Brandenburg, Saxony) and a few in the south (Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden) all subject to the Austrian Habsburgs. And eventually you could have enough dialectic, regional differences between north and south to have roughly separate 'ethnicities'.
 

althisfan

Banned
People are confusing nationalities with ethnicities. The Dutch and Swiss are not ethnicities, they are nationalities. The Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks are not ethnicities, they are nationalities; Serbo-Croatian is the ethno-linguistic common denomination. Religion doesn't determine ethnicity and has nothing to do with it.
 
People are confusing nationalities with ethnicities. The Dutch and Swiss are not ethnicities, they are nationalities. The Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks are not ethnicities, they are nationalities; Serbo-Croatian is the ethno-linguistic common denomination. Religion doesn't determine ethnicity and has nothing to do with it.
The Dutch are an ethnicity. Also, what is an ethnicity may depend on the particular context. Language also does not always determine ethnicity, Serbs and Croats consider themselves different ethnicities.
 

althisfan

Banned
The Dutch are an ethnicity. Also, what is an ethnicity may depend on the particular context. Language also does not always determine ethnicity, Serbs and Croats consider themselves different ethnicities.
No. That's not even close to the use of the word ethnicity in English. We seem to have a language barrier here. An ethnic group requires an ethnogenesis in part through a unique genetic background. The difference between a Serb and Croat is less than that of someone from Ireland and Northern Ireland. Nationality is the English term you are looking for.
 
People are confusing nationalities with ethnicities. The Dutch and Swiss are not ethnicities, they are nationalities. The Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks are not ethnicities, they are nationalities; Serbo-Croatian is the ethno-linguistic common denomination. Religion doesn't determine ethnicity and has nothing to do with it.

Try telling a Serb that there's no ethnic difference between him and a Bosniak lol
 
No. That's not even close to the use of the word ethnicity in English. We seem to have a language barrier here. An ethnic group requires an ethnogenesis in part through a unique genetic background.
That's what I am saying: ethnicity does not have a universal meaning, it is what a people who consider itself an ethnicity wants it to be.
The difference between a Serb and Croat is less than that of someone from Ireland and Northern Ireland. Nationality is the English term you are looking for.
How is that? I doubt that the genetic difference between people in Ireland and Northern Ireland is so much greater than between Serbs and Croats.

And on-topic: it's possible to have more 'German' ethnicities: Bavarians and Saxons at least could have gone 'the way of the Dutch' and became their own ethnicities on the basis of linguistic and religious divide.
 
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The Swiss and the Dutch did. We could have a PoD of the 1860s, where the North Germans have one state, and the South Germans have another state, and both try to make themselves as different from the other as possible.

The Swiss identity is a regional national identity, while the Dutch identity is a linguistic national identy push, both are pushed by states. Neither are based on religion. As for a 1860 POD, it would not be religious identities as 40% of the population in the 3 South German States would be Protestant and they would be in majority in one, also at that point German identity are far too strong.

If you want a separate limited North German identity, I would say Christian IV intervention in the 30YW would be the best POD, he had a far more limited objective than the Swedes (whose objective seem to have been to loot as much and murder as many people as possible[1]), he wanted status a protectors of Protestants in the two Saxon Imperial Circles

450px-Map_of_the_Imperial_Circles_%281560%29-en.svg.png


If he had won, he would likely have set the two circles up as a sub-kingdom in the HRE, this would likely in the long term have created a unified Saxon Kingdom, and while the Electorate of Saxony and the Thuringian states was home to proto-Standard German (Thuringian), we would likely have seen a move toward greater dominance of Low German (Saxon), which was spoken in the rest of the Saxon circles.

[1]this is not meant as a insult, but the Swedish intervention seemed pretty aimless after the death of Gustav, and seem more based on enriching individuals in the Swedish elite than winning.
 

althisfan

Banned
That's what I am saying: ethnicity does not have a universal meaning, it is what a people who consider itself an ethnicity wants it to be.

How is that? I doubt that the genetic difference between people in Ireland and Northern Ireland is so much greater than between Serbs and Croats.

And on-topic: it's possible to have more 'German' ethnicities: Bavarians and Saxons at least could have gone 'the way of the Dutch' and became their own ethnicities on the basis of linguistic and religious divide.
Again you're defining nationality, not ethnicity. You don't seem to understand the difference. I don't know if this is a linguistic problem and the English word ethnicity isn't being translated correctly, but nationality and ethnicity are not the same. Your idea of ethnicity is what is called nationality in English.
 
Again you're defining nationality, not ethnicity. You don't seem to understand the difference. I don't know if this is a linguistic problem and the English word ethnicity isn't being translated correctly, but nationality and ethnicity are not the same. Your idea of ethnicity is what is called nationality in English.

I am native English speaker and I agree with Vortex's definitiom of ethnicity more than yours. I think you're identifying a problem within the English language of a fuzzy definition of the word "ethnicity" and attributing it to a translation error. From my point of view, the problem is a problem within English not a problem of translation into English.
 
Again you're defining nationality, not ethnicity. You don't seem to understand the difference. I don't know if this is a linguistic problem and the English word ethnicity isn't being translated correctly, but nationality and ethnicity are not the same. Your idea of ethnicity is what is called nationality in English.

As to the difference between Nationality and Ethnicity: Bosniak is an ethnicity. Bosnian is a nationality. Bosnian Serbs are Bosnian by nationality but Serbian by ethnicity. The ethnic difference between Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs (within the same nationality) is not somehow erased by your stipulation of a greater Serbo-Croatian ethnicity.

I think the best way to think of ethnicity is as a classification system. Two related ethnicities can be grouped together into super-ethnicity (e.g. Dutch and German are both "Germanic") and sub-ethnicities can be found within a given ethnicity. But that doesn't mean that there's only one level of this classification system that can be called "ethnicity". Whether two groups of people are the same or different ethnicities depends on the level of analysis you are using.
 

althisfan

Banned
As to the difference between Nationality and Ethnicity: Bosniak is an ethnicity. Bosnian is a nationality. Bosnian Serbs are Bosnian by nationality but Serbian by ethnicity. The ethnic difference between Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs (within the same nationality) is not somehow erased by your stipulation of a greater Serbo-Croatian ethnicity.

I think the best way to think of ethnicity is as a classification system. Two related ethnicities can be grouped together into super-ethnicity (e.g. Dutch and German are both "Germanic") and sub-ethnicities can be found within a given ethnicity. But that doesn't mean that there's only one level of this classification system that can be called "ethnicity". Whether two groups of people are the same or different ethnicities depends on the level of analysis you are using.
You're using an equivalence of the "languages are dialects with armies to back it up". That is fine for nationalities, but not for ethnicities. Austria having an army does back up their claim to a nationality, but it does nothing to change that they are German by ethnicity, whether the people themselves see themselves that way or not. There is not, and never can be, an American ethnicity, or Canadian. There is no defining ethnogenesis by way of isolation from a larger ethno-racial group or a mixing of two or more established ethnic populations resulting in a future population with unique genetic markers that can be traced back showing descent from that group. If a hypothetical blood or genetic test can't find unique markers to set your group apart then it's not an ethnic group.
 
You're using an equivalence of the "languages are dialects with armies to back it up". That is fine for nationalities, but not for ethnicities. Austria having an army does back up their claim to a nationality, but it does nothing to change that they are German by ethnicity, whether the people themselves see themselves that way or not. There is not, and never can be, an American ethnicity, or Canadian. There is no defining ethnogenesis by way of isolation from a larger ethno-racial group or a mixing of two or more established ethnic populations resulting in a future population with unique genetic markers that can be traced back showing descent from that group. If a hypothetical blood or genetic test can't find unique markers to set your group apart then it's not an ethnic group.
You are assuming people use "ethnicity" to mean only genetical differences, only a minority of people does that.
 
You misspelled majority.
No I didn't, in any case no point in arguing semantic, you have to accept that this is how people are using the word, maybe it's not used by the majority of people(although frankly not sure how you have that impression) but in the context of this thread ethnicity is not used to mean racial groups.
 

althisfan

Banned
No I didn't, in any case no point in arguing semantic, you have to accept that this is how people are using the word, maybe it's not used by the majority of people(although frankly not sure how you have that impression) but in the context of this thread ethnicity is not used to mean racial groups.
Now your conflating it with racial groups. Ethnicity by the correct definition which I gave has nothing to do with racial groups, which is why Hispanic (an ethnic group) has nothing to do with whether someone is white, black, or American Indian or a mixture of the two; it also has nothing to do with nationality. One can be be born in Argentina, and be a citizen of Argentina, and still be ethnically not Hispanic if both parents are ethnically not Hispanic (replace Argentina with any Hispanic nation still true) because nationality does not equal ethnicity.
 
Now your conflating it with racial groups. Ethnicity by the correct definition which I gave has nothing to do with racial groups, which is why Hispanic (an ethnic group) has nothing to do with whether someone is white, black, or American Indian or a mixture of the two; it also has nothing to do with nationality. One can be be born in Argentina, and be a citizen of Argentina, and still be ethnically not Hispanic if both parents are ethnically not Hispanic (replace Argentina with any Hispanic nation still true) because nationality does not equal ethnicity.
Dude you literally said:

There is no defining ethnogenesis by way of isolation from a larger ethno-racial group or a mixing of two or more established ethnic populations resulting in a future population with unique genetic markers that can be traced back showing descent from that group. If a hypothetical blood or genetic test can't find unique markers to set your group apart then it's not an ethnic group.

You are using a racial based definition of the term.

What does it mean to be Hispanic considering what you said before? Because according to you, "if you can't find unique markers to set your group apart, you are not an ethnic group", so you either belong to any of the original parent groups or you belong to any of the mixed group, makign the Hispanic category wrong using that definition.
 
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