Folk

See also: Folk (disambiguation) and Volk (disambiguation)

"Volk" redirects here. For the 2006 Laibach album, see Volk (album). Laibach is a Slovenian avant-garde Music group strongly associated with industrial, martial, and neo-classical musical Volk is a Concept album by Slovenian industrial group Laibach.

Folk is one of the Germanic roots that mean "(of) the people" or "our people" (as opposed to different clans, tribes, or nations). The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. A clan is a group of People united by Kinship and descent, which is defined by perceived descent from a common ancestor A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally consists of a Social group existing before the development of or outside of States Many anthropologists use A nation is a Human Cultural and Social Community. In as much as most members never meet each other yet feel a common bond it may be considered The English word folk has cognates in most of the other Germanic languages. Folk may be a Germanic root that is unique to the Germanic languages, and not derived directly from Indo-European; though some non-Germanic cognates such as Latin vulgus, "the common people", have been suggested. The Germanic substrate hypothesis is an attempt to explain the distinctive nature of the Germanic languages within the context of the Indo-European language family ^[1]

1 Etymology
2 Cognates in other Germanic language
- 2.1 Folk in German
3 References
4 See also

Etymology

The Modern English word "folk", derives from Old English "folc" meaning "common people", "men", "tribe" or "multitude". Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550 The Old English noun itself came from Proto-Germanic "*fulka" which perhaps originally referred to a "host of warriors". Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor ( Proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English Compare Old Norse "folk" meaning "people" but more so "army" or "detachment", German "Gefolge" (host), and Lithuanian "pulkas" meaning "crowd". Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Lithuanian ( lietuvių kalba) is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognised as one of the official languages of the European Union. The latter is considered to be an early Lithuanian loanword from Germanic origin, cf. Belarusian "полк" - "połk" meaning regiment and German "Pulk" for a group of persons standing together. The Belarusian language, or Belorussian,(беларуская мова BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova, Scientific: belaruskaja mova A regiment is a Military unit, composed of a variable number of Battalions – commanded by a Colonel.

The word became colloquialized (usually in the plural "folks") in English in the sense "people", and was considered unelegant by the beginning of the 19th century. It re-entered academic English through the invention of the word folklore in 1846 by the antiquarian William J. Thoms (1803-85) as an Anglo-Saxonism. An antiquarian or antiquary is one concerned with Antiquities or things of the past William John Thoms (1803 &ndash 1885 was a British writer credited with coining the term " Folklore " in the 1840s This word revived folk in a modern sense of "of the common people, whose culture is handed down orally", and opened up a flood of compound formations, eg. folk art (1921), folk-hero (1899), folk-medicine (1898), folk-tale (1891), folk-song (1847), folk-dance (1912). Folk-music is from 1889; in reference to the branch of modern popular music (originally associated with Greenwich Village in New York City) it dates from 1958. Popular music is Music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and are disseminated by one or more Greenwich Village (ˌgrɛnɪtʃ ˈvɪlɪdʒ often simply called the Village, is a largely residential area on the west side of downtown (southern Manhattan The City of New York It is also regional music.

Cognates in other Germanic language

Folk has a cognate in almost every other Germanic language, all deriving from Proto-Germanic "*fulka", some are listed below:

Danish - folk
Dutch - volk
Swedish - folk
Frisian - folk
Norwegian - folk
Icelandic - fólk
Faroese - fólk
German - Volk
Afrikaans - volk
Scots - fowk

In all Germanic languages, the variant of "folk" means "people" or something related to the people. Cognates in Linguistics are words that have a common origin They may occur within a language such as shirt and skirt as two English words descended from The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor ( Proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the The Frisian languages are a closely related group of Germanic languages, spoken by about 500000 members of Frisian Ethnic groups who live on the southern Norwegian ( norsk) is a North Germanic Language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language Icelandic ( is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. Faroese ( føroyskt ˈføːɹɪst or) often also spelled Faeroese (cf The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, derived from 17th century Dutch and classified as Low Franconian Germanic, mainly spoken in Scots ( The Scots leid) refers to Anglic varieties derived from early northern Middle English spoken in parts of Scotland and Northern The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family.

Folk in German

For other uses, see Volk (disambiguation).

Background

In German the word Volk can have several different meanings, such as folk (simple people), people in the ethnic sense, and nation. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages.

German Volk is commonly used as the first, determing part (head) of compound nouns such as Volksentscheid (plebiscite, lit. In linguistics the head is the word that determines the syntactic type of the Phrase of which it is a member or analogously the stem that determines the In Linguistics, a compound is a Lexeme (less precisely a Word) that consists of more than one stem. A referendum (plural referendums or referenda) ballot question, or plebiscite (from Latin plebiscita "decision of/by the people") or Völkerbund (League of Nations), or the car manufacturer Volkswagen (literally, "people's car"). The League of Nations was an International organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920

19th century and early 20th century

A number of völkisch movements existed prior to World War I. The völkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement with a romantic focus on Folklore and the "organic" World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Combining interest in folklore, ecology, occultism and romanticism with ethnic nationalism, their ideologies were a strong influence on the Nazi party, which itself was inspired by Adolf Hitler's membership of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers' Party), even though Hitler in Mein Kampf himself denounced usage of the word völkisch as he considered it too vague as to carry any recognizable meaning due to former over-use. History The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of Romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological Ecology (from Greek grc οἶκος oikos, "house(hold" and grc -λογία -logia) is the scientific study of The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus (clandestine hidden secret referring to "knowledge of the hidden" Romanticism is a complex artistic literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Ethnic nationalism is a form of Nationalism wherein the " Nation " is defined in terms of Ethnicity. The, officially National Socialist German Workers' Party, ( abbreviated NSDAP) was a Political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945 Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! Please understand that this article is frequently vandalized and vandalism is reverted immediately The, officially National Socialist German Workers' Party, ( abbreviated NSDAP) was a Political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945 Mein Kampf ( English: My Struggle/My Battle) is a book by Adolf Hitler. Today, the term völkisch is largely restricted to historical contexts describing the closing 19th century and early 20th century up to Hitler's seize of power in 1933, especially during the years of the Weimar Republic. The term Weimar Republic ( ˈvaɪmarɐ repuˈbliːk is used by historians to signify the democratic and Republican period of Germany from 1919 to 1933

Nazi era

During the years of the Third Reich, the term Volk became heavily used in nationalistic political slogans, particularly in slogans such as Volk ohne Raum — "(a) people without space" or Völkischer Beobachter ("popular observer"), an NSDAP party newspaper. Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers ( German for " habitat " or literally "living space" served as a major motivation for Nazi Germany 's territorial aggression Also the political slogan Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer ("One people, one country/empire, one leader"). A slogan is a memorable Motto or Phrase used in a Political, commercial, Religious and other context as a repetitive expression of (ˈraɪk German ˈʁaɪç is a German Loanword cognate with the English Reign, Region, and Rich, but used most to designate

Even though Hitler in his book Mein Kampf often mixed up specific biological and zoological terms such as race, species, and others, the Nazi-era use of Volk could not, depending on context, be interpreted as "race", "Germanic", or "European. Mein Kampf ( English: My Struggle/My Battle) is a book by Adolf Hitler. " In Nazi propaganda, several peoples made up a race, so these two terms did not denote the same thing during the Nazi years. The German people was considered part of the Germanic race which latter officially included the Scandinavians, the English, and the Dutch as well (while Hitler himself also included the Celts), so Volk did not equal Germanic either. Nazi-era publications on pre-history only differed whether their Germanic race equalled the Indo-European race or the Germanic race itself was part of a family of Indo-European races, since indogermanisch is the common German term for Indo-European.

Today

Because Volk is the generic German word for "people" in the ethnic sense today as well as for "people entitled to vote" (Wahlvolk), its use does not necessarily denote any particular political views in post-1945 Germany. However, because of its past, the word is rarely used with Bevölkerung serving as a substitute.

References

Henning Eichberg (2004), The People of Democracy. Understanding Self-Determination on the Basis of Body and Movement. (= Movement Studies. 5) Århus: Klim (Theory of folk, people, and civil society with Scandinavian background)
Emerich K. Francis (1965) Ethnos und Demos. Soziologische Beiträge zur Volkstheorie. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot (classical German-American sociology of folk, ethnos and demos)
Emerich K. Francis (1976) Interethnic Relations. An Essay in Sociological Theory. New York u. a. : Elsevier.
Raphael Samuel (1981) (ed. ), People’s History and Socialist Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

^ Calvert Watkins (ed. ), The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, second edition (Houghton Mifflin, 2000) ISBN 0-618-08250-6

Dictionary

-adjective

Of or pertaining to the folk of a land, their culture, tradition or history.

-noun

(archaic) A grouping of smaller peoples or tribes as a nation.
The inhabitants of a region especially the native inhabitants.
(plural: folks) One’s relatives especially one’s parents.
(music) folk music
(plural) People in general.
(plural) A particular group of people.

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