Motherland or Fatherland

[GetBert]

Is you real life country male or female? Britain is always personified as female, as I believe France is, whereas Germany is a fatherland. Mother Russia versus Uncle Sam...where does this country gender come from and does it affect the character of the populace?

[Fiduses and Diuses]

Is you real life country male or female? Britain is always personified as female, as I believe France is, whereas Germany is a fatherland. Mother Russia versus Uncle Sam...where does this country gender come from and does it affect the character of the populace?

hmm, I swear I've seen a male UK figure. O yeah John Bull,
The statue of liberty/lady liberty works as a female version of the US.
Germani for female Germany.

Also heres a list of figures

Well you got one out of four right but most countries seem to have both a female and male figure though one maybe come less important over the ages.

[GetBert]

Who would have thought Canada was male

[Fiduses and Diuses]

Who would have thought Canada was male

Since mounties seem to be generally male in nearly all works, almost everyone?

[Shinkadomayaka]

Ah, but you are forgetting, a french man made and designed the statue of liberty for the US...

[SoWiBi]

Is you real life country male or female? Britain is always personified as female, as I believe France is, whereas Germany is a fatherland. Mother Russia versus Uncle Sam...where does this country gender come from and does it affect the character of the populace?

My language classifies every country as a "Vaterland", i.e. fatherland (but your native tongue is your Muttersprache, your mother tongue), and our state/government is a father figure as well ("Vater Staat"). However, when talking about a country, including our own, we use the neutral pronoun, and not a personified male or female one*.

*Except for Switzerland, which carries the female pronoun - sorry, had slipped my mind.

All in all, I'd not be able to pin a gender on my country - neither in the linguistic nor the "How one seems to feel about it here" sense.

[Pope Joan]

Edward Elric and I vote for Motherland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wofJL7qupqM

[Gauntleted Fist]

Homeland sounds best to me.

[Maduland]

Is you real life country male or female? Britain is always personified as female, as I believe France is, whereas Germany is a fatherland. Mother Russia versus Uncle Sam...where does this country gender come from and does it affect the character of the populace?

Uncle Sam represents the US government, not the country itself.

Someone from another country I knew offline asked me basically that question years ago and I really didn't know the answer. I'd never referred to it as anything other than by name, 'this country', 'my country' or 'here'... then some time later the Department of Homeland Security popped up and I think that provided the answer.

[KaIashnikov]

China is Genderqueer.

Transsexuals in KalashnIkov are referred as gender queers

[Maurepas]

Well, I think the US goes both ways,

On the one hand there is Uncle Sam, which would suggest Male, but there is Columbia and Lady Liberty which would suggest Female...

I do know that most southerners I know refer to their states as Female, Mississippi is always "she", and I think I generally prefer it as well...

[Cybach]

Is you real life country male or female? Britain is always personified as female, as I believe France is, whereas Germany is a fatherland. Mother Russia versus Uncle Sam...where does this country gender come from and does it affect the character of the populace?

My language classifies every country as a "Vaterland", i.e. fatherland (but your native tongue is your Muttersprache, your mother tongue), and our state/government is a father figure as well ("Vater Staat"). However, when talking about a country, including our own, we use the neutral pronoun, and not a personified male or female one.

All in all, I'd not be able to pin a gender on my country - neither in the linguistic nor the "How one seems to feel about it here" sense.

"Die" Heimat?

[The Alma Mater]

The Netherlands is usually portrayed as female nowadays:



Or, for the American talkshow host version:



However this is mostly to draw tourists.
Using the primary dictinary definitions, the fatherland (vaderland) is used to denote the home country, while motherland (moederland) is used in colonies to refer to the colonising country.
Native language is referred to as "moedertaal" (mothertongue) - "vadertaal" does not exist.

[Suvon]

It seems that the gender/country issue changes in terms of war. Sometimes the 'motherland' changes to 'fatherland' when a powerful image is needed in that nations war (with exceptions: eg. Russia WW2, etc.)
I've read works that refer to Germany as she during peace but go to he in war. But in the 19th century the official term for countries were 'she' in the same sense you'd call a ship 'she.' This stuck around into the early twentieth century and since then has fallen into disuse or confusion.

Australia hasn't had the chance to form a persona - we're all still 'immigrants' in one sense or another although when old Aussies referred to the 'Motherland' they were universally referring to Britain.

[Blouman Empire]

Australia is still a child and not a parent all of the populance either come from a fatherland or a motherland.

[Blouman Empire]

Well it appears that the Boxing Kangaroo is our personification which is true and as I say we don't have a gender.

[Gopferdammi]

Is you real life country male or female? Britain is always personified as female, as I believe France is, whereas Germany is a fatherland. Mother Russia versus Uncle Sam...where does this country gender come from and does it affect the character of the populace?

My language classifies every country as a "Vaterland", i.e. fatherland (but your native tongue is your Muttersprache, your mother tongue), and our state/government is a father figure as well ("Vater Staat"). However, when talking about a country, including our own, we use the neutral pronoun, and not a personified male or female one.

All in all, I'd not be able to pin a gender on my country - neither in the linguistic nor the "How one seems to feel about it here" sense.

"Die" Heimat?

Which isn't necessarily simply your country of origin, no?
Otherwise you'd have to argue that every country is female to those who consider it to be their Heimat, in German at least.
Incidentally, I don't recall ever seeing the combination of pronoun+name of country with the exception of Switzerland.
Could it be because it's officially a confederacy or something like that?

[Suvon]

Well it appears that the Boxing Kangaroo is our personification which is true and as I say we don't have a gender.

Ah, but is the kangaroo female or male?

[Cybach]

Is you real life country male or female? Britain is always personified as female, as I believe France is, whereas Germany is a fatherland. Mother Russia versus Uncle Sam...where does this country gender come from and does it affect the character of the populace?

My language classifies every country as a "Vaterland", i.e. fatherland (but your native tongue is your Muttersprache, your mother tongue), and our state/government is a father figure as well ("Vater Staat"). However, when talking about a country, including our own, we use the neutral pronoun, and not a personified male or female one.

All in all, I'd not be able to pin a gender on my country - neither in the linguistic nor the "How one seems to feel about it here" sense.

"Die" Heimat?

Which isn't necessarily simply your country of origin, no?
Otherwise you'd have to argue that every country is female to those who consider it to be their Heimat, in German at least.
Incidentally, I don't recall ever seeing the combination of pronoun+name of country with the exception of Switzerland.
Could it be because it's officially a confederacy or something like that?

Well to be fair. It is a tough thing with Germany. Simply because one has to understand our history. We Germans are not a unified culture and people. We are merely a loose federation composed of various people that share the same language (Even that can be stressed at times with the various dialects).

The Prussians were very strongly orientated towards the concept of "Fatherland." Whereas much of the Rhineland which was under centuries of French influence had more of a "Motherland" type cultural upbringing. It's why stuff gets fairly confusing. Our national symbol on one hand is a woman called Germania;

Germania: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_% ... ication%29

But on the otherhand we call our nation "The Fatherland." Also our laws are based on patriarchal lineage. For example if a German man goes to Africa and impregnates an African woman, the child is automatically recognized by the German government as being German for having a German father. Whereas if it would be a female German going to Africa and ending up with a child, the German government automatically assumes it is the nationality of the African father (UNLESS the parents specifically designate the child as a German to the embassy, etc..). Since in Germany lineage goes through the father, and not the mother.

The same thing used to be with our Emperors. Our Kaiser had to be a male of the male line of Hohenzollern. Meaning if a Kaiser had only daughters, even if one of the daughters gave him a grandson. This grandson was not allowed to become Kaiser, since lineage was strictly through the father and male. Instead the throne went to the brother or a nephew (of a brother). Since it's was passed down strictly male lines.

It was Prussian cultural dominance however that set in stone the concept of this nation being a "Fatherland." Since as I put. Germany is a bit of an oddstate, since unlike France or England being nations composed of French or Englishmen. Germany is even called "Deutschland" or "Land of the Germans," and is a confederation composed out of Prussians, Saxons, Rhineländer, Saarländer, Thüringer, Bavarians, Westerwalder, Franconians, Friesen, Silesians, etc.. who pretty much only united as a nation to present a strong front against any invaders. The desire for a powerful united nation of all ethnic German groups pretty much was born after the "30 years war (in which 1/3rd of the German population was massacred while almost all armies of Europe trampled over German soil to solve their differences)." And finally cemented itself as a necessary nationalistic concept after Napoleon and his tyranny in the Rhineland. This is why Germany is such a young nation (1870), and if it weren't for those events/wars modern Germany would probably still have consisted of a good two dozen independent nations today since the desire for a united nation would not have had enough drive to actually be brought about.

[Pope Joan]

So, Cybach, which figure would you find more unifying for a bunch of competing states/duchys?

A father surrounded by his sons, or a hen gathering her chicks together?

[Allbeama]

Ah, but you are forgetting, a french man made and designed the statue of liberty for the US...

Consider also that America has a Latin feminine ending.
And there is in art from the early days a personification of our country as a woman called Columbia.

[Pope Joan]

yes, they sometimes played "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean" during wartime cartoons.

[Sioji]

Hmm, I never really thought about it before, but my genealogy makes sense now when I think of German and Russia as the Mother/Fatherland. Not sure how Ireland fits in there though, maybe as the Drunkenland?

[The Alma Mater]

Ah, but you are forgetting, a french man made and designed the statue of liberty for the US...

Consider also that America has a Latin feminine ending.
And there is in art from the early days a personification of our country as a woman called Columbia.

And that the French actually OWNED much of the USA, back when it was Louisiana.

[Gottes Volk]

I've always thought of the US as genderless. Obviously Germany is the Fatherland and Russia, the Motherland, but those are the only two countries that have gender to me.