Reply #5: the word homeland is not really "fatherland" [View All]

[tocqueville]

"the land of one's birth, residence, or citizenship" according to Merriam-Webster

so you don't have to be born somewhere with ancestors in several generations to have a "homeland"

I French we use the the word "patrie" (an equivalent of "fatherland" but even mère-patrie ("motherland"). It has given words like patriot, patriotic in English, the same words are found in French. But even if there is an etymological "fatherland" in patrie, it means today "homeland" (c'est ta nouvelle patrie - it's your new homeland, can be said to an immigrant).

The word is is absolutively positive and emotional in French. One of the most famous appeals of the French Revolution when threatened by monarchies (the Valmy Battle where French "ragheads" armed with pitchforks stopped professional armies) was conducted under "la Patrie en Danger" (the homeland is in danger).

If planes had hit France instead of America in september 2001, people had been rallying here under the same appeals (The Republic in Danger is another one) and absolutely not under "God save France"...

so there is nothing wrong with the word in itself, it's only wrong with the forces that corrupt it. The same with "freedom".

Pétain was using "la patrie" a lot. He remains a traitor. The word has survived him.

It's possible that the word homeland sounds "different" now in the US, but it's only because Bush pronounces it.