The word nation comes from the Latin word nation, meaning begotten. This provides racial or ethnic significance to the phrase.
Etymologically speaking, a nation is a nation that comes from a common stock. A nation, when used in this context, is a person who has blood relations with one another in a civilization.
In the racial sense, Burgess and Leacock describe a country, however, the former does not seem to regard common descent as an important aspect. To him, the nation is "an ethnic unit population living a geographically united region."
Explanation:
Through ethnic unity, it is a people that has the same language and literature, the same heritage and history, common practice, and a common sense of rights and wrongs. Calvo emphasizes in his work, International Law, that the idea of nationality is linked to the origin of the birth, the race, the language community, etc.
The term 'nation is clearly defined as having a 'racial' or 'ethnographic' meaning, albeit sometimes loosely employed." It is a group of persons who have common roots and a common language.
Race and nationality, however, are two completely different terms. There's no pure race on earth, as I explained before. The myth of the pure race of those who believe it represents a pure and superior race is nothing but praise and prejudice.
Sidgwick rightly noted that "certainly mixed-race" are some of the top modem nations. As such, the nation has no racial importance. What makes a collection of people a nation is a common feeling of mass consciousness and similarity not necessarily a community of race, language, or religion.
Language and religion are vital aspects in the connection of affinity and communion amongst the people, yet it seems obvious that religion and language communities and communities of national sentiment are not always interrelated.
Take the people of Switzerland. They neither speak a common language nor profess a common religion, but they are as patriotic, as conscious as any other people about their shared membership of a nation.
The Basque people, both Spain and France, speak a common language and don't speak anywhere else on the planet, yet the Basques are not a nation. Nor do Welsh and Breton Celts, but the racial and linguistic narrative is popular.
There is no doubt that a common religious conviction has been a strong nation-making factor that is also potent in disintegrating states. These are two unusual occurrences, however. In general, this stage appears to have been almost over in the history of civilization.
They have established two types of mental sympathy by living together long enough. The first of these was the common capital of thoughts and feelings, which were taken up and transmitted in the course of common histories: a common capital of tradition, which comprises, as a rule, a common language, a common religion (which, however, may take on a number of different forms).
The latter was the joint decision to live together for the future freely and independently and to exercise their right to political self-determination, thereby sharing common ideas, feelings, and goals.
The "territorial country," as Barker defines it, becomes a national community when the mark for the State is imprinted 011 and the state thus forms a national State. General social cohesion needs to be a cementing substance before the State seal can effectively be imposed on a populace.
If the state seal is imprinted with a population that is not linked by the cementing links of a common tradition and sense, the Austria- Hungary and the Eastern Wing of Pakistan, now Bangladesh, will most likely be "cracking and separating."
However, it doesn't mean that the State necessarily has to have a single coherent civilization. A number of diverse countries still exist. But the bedrock for a peaceful and functional state is a single coherent society.
The links between the people in order to make them a country are both psychological and spiritual. They are the common feelings of an ardent desire to live together and to serve or suffer for their Motherland or Fatherland, strengthened by memories of a common history. They are a remembrance of the suffering and the triumphs gained together and the dearest names of these great personalities who have raised them above themselves and embodied the nation's character and ideals.
These feelings make them a community of patriotic feelings and convey their shared legacy to post-homeland so that they stay loyal guardians of the honor and integrity of the nation, with the lights and the jest of patriotism in the deep recesses of their hearts.
A nation is therefore a reflection of the people's awareness of togetherness and, once this awareness is pervaded, becomes a nation. A nation is created and funned in the minds of the people.
