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I'd like to open discussion on the term diaspora. When I first saw this article I felt quite uneasy about the terms applied to people of Slovak heritage. It's a very diverse group, and the term emigrant, migrant or even Slovak abroad might not correctly reflect their individual situation and shouldn't be applied collectively and broadly to everyone.
I believe that the term Slovak abroad is bound to be POVish, since it implies that the person has some form of active relationship with the present-day Slovak Republic or has declared himself or herself to be Slovak, which might not include the descendants of people born in Slovakia or other individuals of Slovak heritage, sometimes several generations removed from the country of their ancestors.
If you look up the term diaspora, you'll find that it has been used successfully for the Jewish community living outside of their historical homeland. There are other Misplaced Pages articles (Irish Diaspora), which use this term as well. Please note that diaspora does not imply that this group of people has to reside in the US or that they are Jewish.
However, since it's an English term and hence its present usage was quite likely coined in the US due to its predominance in the last few decades, it might seem unfamiliar to e.g. the Slovak disapora in GermanyJbetak 01:24, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
- Short answer: diaspora is an emotionally "stigmatized" term that is not used for all nations, but above all it refers only to those more or less FORCED to go abroad, which does not hold for all Slovaks living abroad. As a result, the sentence could be misunderstood as referring only to this special group Slovaks (plus bearing the unnessary "taint" of "oh, the poor Slovaks far from their beloved homeland"). And "Slovaks abroad" is fully neutral, and it requires a lot of speculation to come to the interpretation you are presenting above....I am not insisting on "Slovaks abroad", but I am insisting that the term "diaspora" not be used.Juro 03:45, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
- Have replaced the 'two version' tempalte with a smaller, less drastic one above the diaspora section. This dispute is not about the whole article but the phrasing of one section.
- By the way, it was my understanding that diaspora is a neutral term for a nation's foreign population. However, the wikipedia diaspora page clearly states that the population had to be forced aborad. For the sake of consistency then, diaspora should only be used if that is the case. Robdurbar 12:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
- That was my understanding as well. Especially after reading some outside sources. Although I'm sure we can find satisfactory wording for it, please have a look at
If you look into English monolingual dictionaries, the term never means just "the people outside the borders of the homeland", but the meaning is always somehow restricted, e.g. "far from their homeland", "similar to the Jewish diaspora" etc. So, since the term is not unambiguous, I see no reason to use it for a section with numbers. I am sure you have other proposals...like "outside the borders of Slovakia", for example...Juro 17:18, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
difficulty understanding
The "2 016 000" number is highly outdated. All other people-pages have 2005 statistics. The 2005 estimate dropped to about 1.1-1.4 million Slovaks abroad (probably due to assimilations within other ethnic groups and/or return to Slovakia). Why do we keep reverting the numbers?
We keep the old numbers because they refer to true figures - i.e. to censuses (the next one will be in 5 years). Any other figure is a "double estimate" (of the census results and of the "true" number of Slovak with respect to that number). In addition, the figures are only 1 year old or so (not outdated), your figure is not consistent with them, and I do not believe that the estimates have changed so much over 4 years...So, just tell me your source and we will write: According to XY, the estimate for 2005 is ZW. That's all. Juro 03:35, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
P.S> There has been not mass return to Slovakia (rather the opposite).Juro 03:47, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
Can you consider changing the diaspora estimate? 2 mil is way off from the real number. According to a recent census here 800,000 slovaks live in US with about 200,000 living in Canada. (I'm sure the rest of the world is no more than 100,000.)
That's not my estimate, but the best currently available estimate of Slovak demographers. In this sense, the "accuracy" is out of question. Personal impressions are just personal impressions.Juro 03:14, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Yea, unless the personal impressions aren't personal impressions There are so many nationalists on wikipedia.
797,000 + 120,000 + 100,000 (Latin America) + 50,000 (Serbia) + 100,000 (rest of East Europe) = 1,200,000 + 4,600,000 = 5,800,000
That's a big difference.
Look, I see you have absolutely, but really absolutely no idea what you are doing. You just take any number you see on the internet, but you do not know how they define the nationality, who is the author, whether it is reliable etc. You just know nothing. I have a complete table for all countries with both official numbers and official estimates based on the same principle. You have nothing. There are by no means 100,000 Slovaks in Latin America for example not even by coincidence, that's ridiculous. Also, the number of Slovaks is higher then you think because officially there were as much 1800000 Slovaks in 1991 and 1000000 Slovaks could not have left the country in 14 years, because there is no place they could be etc. etc. So, just go play elsewhere...Juro 23:46, 18 September 2005 (UTC)