Re: Demographics in fantasy kingdoms

John Schilling <schillin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Well, if there's a prince winning the hand of a princess, it probably
*shouldn't* be a kingdom, but a principality. Technically speaking.
Maybe.

Hmm, I'm not sure how that technicality actually translates between
German and English, over time. When and where the Grimms were writing,
was "prince/prinz" primarily interpreted as "sovereign[1] ruler of a
principality" or "son of a king"? The modern English interpretations
lean towards the latter, of course.

German has different words for these. Sovereign ruler of a
principality is "Fürst", son of a king/emperor (or a prince in the
preceding sense) is "Prinz". If you look at the recent succession
in Monaco, "Prinz Albert" became "Fürst Albert".

That French and English conflate those two meanings in a single
word is a source of potential translation errors.

And yes, "Fürst" is etymologically related with English "first".

[1] as opposed to titular ruler of a non-soverign principality given
out as a birthday present to the king's son, e.g. Wales.

The German Wikipedia article on "Prince of Wales" points out that
the correct translation is "Fürst von Wales", but "Prinz von Wales"
is common.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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