Talk:National identity

Merge National identity with National consciousness
These two article cover the same topics; the titles are synonyms. Merging them will create a better article, which can then be developed. There may also be benefit in creating a separate article called "Origin of National Identity" or similar, describing the scholarly debate there. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:29, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I added new category
With respect to other contributors here, I took a liberty to add some references. My opinion is that someone should create an Article on International juridical personality of a state (particularly (and also to some extent International Organizations, as such international orgs. created by a treaty are international legal persons, as well)) covering all legal elements of the juridical personality, including the legal ID of an international subject (covering for instance relationship of international ID of the state with with internal/Constitutional juridical personality, i.e. connecting international legal personality with domestic legal personality), etc.Academician.NYAS (talk) 13:19, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Reference to Nationalism Project website needs update/replacement
The definitions drawn from Paul Gilbert's work, The Philosophy of Nationalism, have footnotes referring to a website  (footnotes dated in 2016). As of November 30th, 2022, that website no longer exists. Luskwater (talk) 14:19, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 12 August 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: pages not moved to the proposed titles at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 09:18, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

– The subject “a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or one or more nations” (currently titled “national identity”) has the single most WP:COMMONNAME nationality. Most English dictionaries define the term with this subject as the primary sense. The proposed title best satisfies the WP:CRITERIA, especially recognizability, naturalness (searchers for “nationality” are unlikely to be looking for legal definitions), and concision (using the shorter name). It should be treated as the primary topic for this title. National identity should redirect here, as it overlaps in meaning, but has significantly less currency in use over a much shorter period.
 * National identity → Nationality
 * Nationality → Nationality (law)

The subject “a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state” (currently “nationality”) is an obscure and specialized legal subject on its own, or a domain-specific subsense of the above. It does not appear in most general dictionaries as a sense of the term nationality. It should be given a more-specific name: Nationality (law), Legal nationality, or civic nationality (the last is given on the disambiguation page). The more specific name improves consistency with the WP:CRITERIA of recognizability and precision for this less common sense of the term.

Incidentally, the content of Nationality (disambiguation) is currently inadequate and not conforming to the guidelines.

Survey of some dictionaries:


 * Oxford Dictionary of English
 * nationality 1. the status of belonging to a particular nation. 1a. archaic distinctive national or ethnic character. 2. an ethnic group forming a part of one or more political nations.
 * nation 1. a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory; 1a. a North American Indian people or confederation of peoples.
 * national identity 1. a sense of a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language.
 * American Heritage Dictionary
 * nationality 1. The status of belonging to a particular nation by origin, birth, or naturalization. 2. A people having common origins or traditions and often constituting a nation. 3. Existence as a politically autonomous entity; national independence. 4. National character. 5. Nationalism.
 * nation 1a. A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country. 1b. The territory occupied by such a group of people: All across the nation, people are voting their representatives out. 2. The government of a sovereign state. 3. A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality. 4.a. A federation or tribe, especially one composed of Native Americans. 4.b. The territory occupied by such a federation or tribe.
 * national identity [no entry]
 * Random House Unabridged Dictionary (Dictionary.com)
 * nationality 1. the status of belonging to a particular nation, whether by birth or naturalization: the nationality of an immigrant. 2. the relationship of property, holdings, etc., to a particular nation, or to one or more of its members.
 * nation 1. a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own. 2. the territory or country itself.
 * national identity [no entry]
 * Collins English Dictionary
 * nationality 1. the state or fact of being a citizen of a particular nation. 2. a body of people sharing common descent, history, language, etc; a nation. 3. a national group. 4. national character or quality 5. the state or fact of being a nation; national status
 * nation 1. an aggregation of people or peoples of one or more cultures, races, etc, organized into a single state. 2. a community of persons not constituting a state but bound by common descent, language, history, etc 3.a. a federation of tribes, esp of Native Americans. 3.b. the territory occupied by such a federation.
 * national identity [no entry in the main dictionary]

—Michael Z. 20:20, 12 August 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 08:18, 19 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I think the current article at Nationality is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the term "nationality". And the current title for this article, even if it's not the most common (which I'm no convinced that it isn't), is still a good use of WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION. I've also added this article to the hatnote at the Nationality article to direct people here who are looking for this topic. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:08, 12 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Support - "Nationality" in fact refers to one's belonging to a particular 'nation', not necessarily a sovereign state, as is demonstrated by the sources provided by nom. However, I don't particularly care for Nationality (law) as a title for the present article. I think there's a reasonable chance of confusion with Nationality law. Perhaps Civic nationality, which is already a redirect, would be better. estar8806 (talk) ★ 18:35, 13 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose I believe these are two separate topics and that renaming this would increase confusion between people looking for one idea over the other. Nationality I believe is commonly known as "legal" nationality while national identity is a sense of belonging to a nation, even if you are not a citizen, and these are currently properly distinguished by the current titles. SportingFlyer  T · C  14:29, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * If that’s the primary topic for the name “nationality,” can you justify it with reference to sources, especially dictionaries? —Michael Z. 19:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Perfectly fine as it is. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per SportingFlyer and Rreagan007. The more basic sense of "nationality" that comes first in dictionaries needs no separate article from nation. What we have are two articles on more specific senses, one on the legal sense in an international context (which is what distinguishes it from citizenship) and another on the intersection of nation and identity. Srnec (talk) 02:49, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps; but then the title Nationality should redirect to its primary topic Nation, and the other should still move, no? —Michael Z. 19:26, 18 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Support; your proposition is the only that don't ignore majority of sources. Marcelus (talk) 04:16, 18 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose per SportingFlyer, Rreagan007, Necrothesp, and Srnec. Note also that Category:People by nationality is defined as This category is for articles on people according to their civic nationality (legal affiliation with a state). Redirects also say a lot:
 * Civic nationality redirects to nationality.
 * Root nationality redirects to ethnicity.
 * Ethnic nationality, Ethnic nationalities, Nationality (ethnic affiliation), Nationalities (ethnic affiliations) all redirect to Ethnicity.
 * National self-identification redirects to national identity.
 * Evidently, "nationality" on its own is about the legal (civic) affiliation of a person with a state, the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. As soon as you mix the word "nationality" with anything "ethnic", it means something else. National identity is also something else, which has more to do with culture, ethnicity and self-identification (e.g. Scottish national identity), unless you combine "national identity" with "card" or "document", in which case we are talking about nationality in its main, legal sense again (List of national identity card policies by country, National Identity Card (Nepal) etc.). Therefore, the current article titles are fine as they are, and should be kept as they are. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * But something’s out of joint there: the category definition needed to use the qualified term civic nationality to explain that it refers to a specific restricted meaning, yet the article that it points to does not use the term civic nationality even once.
 * And my understanding of what is civic nationality or nationhood is completely different. Sources refer to different types of national identity: imperial, ethnic, ethnocultural, civic, etcetera (that article uses the phrase civic nationalism).
 * Scanning over reliable sources might confirm my understanding. —Michael Z. 19:38, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * And as proved by @Mzajac nationality it means something different than civic nationality, it's not a synonymous, the article named nationality cannot focus solely on the civic nationality aspect of the notion and ignore others. Otherwise it would be WP:OR. Marcelus (talk) 19:23, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Can you expand on how I proved it? Having given it some thought, I think civic nationality means something else and is probably not appropriate after all (see immediately above). —Michael Z. 19:40, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Fair points. Then I guess the category description should say: This category is for articles on people according to their nationality (legal affiliation with a state). Just omit the word "civic" and directly link to the main article. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:32, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This category is for articles on people according to their nationality (legal affiliation with a state), that's wrong defintion of the notion of nationality, you are actively going against reliable sources. Marcelus (talk) 21:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Relisting comment: requesting more comments based on policy. Note: WikiProject Anthropology,  WikiProject Ethnic groups,  WikiProject History,  WikiProject Philosophy,  WikiProject Politics,  WikiProject Psychology,  WikiProject Sociology,  WikiProject International relations have been notified of this discussion. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 08:19, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Please avoid relisting before the discussion's initial week has finished; this can be interpreted as a sort of finger on the scale. Dekimasu よ! 09:18, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose Nationality as a legal concept is primary topic and national identity is a fine descriptor of the other concept. A move does not improve the situation in my opinion.★Trekker (talk) 08:54, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per StarTrekker and others. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 14:37, 19 August 2023 (UTC)