Mythomoteur
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Mythomoteur
A ''mythomoteur'' ( compound of the French words for myth and engine) is the constitutive myth that gives an ethnic group its sense of purpose. The term was first used in this context by Ramon d’Abadal i de Vinyals, and was later taken up by John Armstrong in his book ''Nations before Nationalism''. It has subsequently become a common theme in Anthony D. Smith’s work on ethnicity and nationalism, particularly his book ''The Ethnic Origins of Nations''. Three types of mythomoteur have been identified, the communal-political, the communal-religious, and the dynastic. Examples * Serbs: '' Kosovo Myth'' * Romanians: '' Protochronism'' * Gikûyû: '' Ngai'' See also * National myth * National epic A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation—not necessarily a nation state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with as ... Notes ;Bibliography * {{My ...
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National Myth
A national myth is an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past. Such myths often serve as important national symbols and affirm a set of national values. A national myth may sometimes take the form of a national epic or be incorporated into a civil religion. A group of related myths about a nation may be referred to as the national mythos, from μῦθος, the original Greek word for "myth". A national myth is a legend or fictionalized narrative which has been elevated to a serious mythological, symbolic, and esteemed level so as to be true to the nation. It might simply over-dramatize true incidents, omit important historical details, or add details for which there is no evidence; or it might simply be a fictional story that no one takes to be true literally, but contains a symbolic meaning for the nation. The national folklore of many nations includes a founding myth, which may involve a struggle against colonialism or a war of independence or unification. In many ...
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Compound Word
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when two or more words or signs are joined to make a longer word or sign. A compound that uses a space rather than a hyphen or concatenation is called an open compound or a spaced compound; the alternative is a closed compound. The meaning of the compound may be similar to or different from the meaning of its components in isolation. The component stems of a compound may be of the same part of speech—as in the case of the English word ''footpath'', composed of the two nouns ''foot'' and ''path''—or they may belong to different parts of speech, as in the case of the English word ''blackbird'', composed of the adjective ''black'' and the noun ''bird''. With very few exceptions, English compound words are stressed on their first component st ...
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Kosovo Myth
The Kosovo Myth ( sr, Косовски мит / ''Kosovski mit''), also known as the Kosovo Cult and the Kosovo Legend, is a Serbian national myth based on legends about events related to the Battle of Kosovo (1389). It has been a subject in Serbian folklore and literary tradition and has been cultivated oral epic poetry and guslar poems. The final form of the legend was not created immediately after the battle but evolved from different originators into various versions. In its modern form it emerged in 19th-century Serbia and served as an important constitutive element of the national identity of modern Serbia and its politics. The Serbian ruler Lazar was challenged by the Ottoman Sultan Murad I to the battle at the Kosovo Polje. According to the Myth, Lazar chose to die as a martyr, with the aim of providing Serbs with a place in the Kingdom of Heaven, instead of the "earthly kingdom" and victory in the battle. In the myth, as opposed to what actually happened in reality, Vu ...
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National Epic
A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation—not necessarily a nation state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with aspirations to independence or autonomy. National epics frequently recount the origin of a nation, a part of its history, or a crucial event in the development of national identity such as other national symbols. History In medieval times Homer's ''Iliad'' was taken to be based on historical facts, and the Trojan War came to be considered as seminal in the genealogies of European monarchies. Virgil's ''Aeneid'' was taken to be the Roman equivalent of the ''Iliad'', starting from the Fall of Troy and leading up to the birth of the young Roman nation. According to the then prevailing conception of history, empires were born and died in organic succession and correspondences existed between the past and the present. Geoffrey of Monmouth ...
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Ngai
Ngai (also called Múrungu or Enkai) is the monolithic Supreme God in the spirituality of the Kikuyu (or Gikuyu) and the closely related Embu, Meru and Kamba groups of Kenya, and the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania. Ngai is creator of the universe and all in it. Regarded as the omnipotent God,Middleton, John; Kershaw, Greet ; ''The Kikuyu and Kamba of Kenya: East Central Africa, Part 5,'' Routledge (reprint, 2017), p. 128,(Retrieved 5 April 2019) the Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, Kamba and the Maasai of Kenya worshiped Ngai facing the Mt. Kirinyaga (Mount Kenya) while prayers and goat sacrificial rituals were performed under the sacred Mugumo tree (a fig tree species). Occasions which may warrant sacrifice or libation include times of drought; epidemics; during planting and harvesting; and human life stages such as birth, marriage and death. Ngai in Kikuyu, Embu, Meru and Kamba Worship Ngai was often referred to as "Mwene Nyaga", meaning "Owner of the Dazzling Light". Kenyan anthropologist, ...
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Gĩkũyũ
The Kikuyu (also ''Agĩkũyũ/Gĩkũyũ'') are a Bantu ethnic group native to Central Kenya. At a population of 8,148,668 as of 2019, they account for 17.13% of the total population of Kenya, making them Kenya's largest ethnic group. The term ''Kikuyu'' is derived from the Swahili form of the word Gĩkũyũ. is derived from the word mũkũyũ which means sycamore fig (''mũkũyũ'') tree". Hence ''Agĩkũyũ'' in the Kikuyu language translates to "Children Of The Big Sycamore". The alternative name ''Nyũmba ya Mũmbi'', which encompasses ''Embu'', ''Gikuyu'', and ''Meru'', translates to "House of the Potter" (or "Creator"). History Origin The Kikuyu belong to the Northeastern Bantu branch. Their language is most closely related to that of the Embu and Mbeere. Geographically, they are concentrated in the vicinity of Mount Kenya. The exact place that the Northeast Bantu speakers migrated from after the initial Bantu expansion is uncertain. Some authorities suggest t ...
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Protochronism
Dacianism is a Romanian term describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretation, an idealized past to the country as a whole. While particularly prevalent during the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, its origin in Romanian scholarship dates back more than a century. The term refers to perceived aggrandizing of Dacian and earlier roots of today's Romanians. This phenomenon is also pejoratively labelled "Dacomania" or "Dacopathy" or sometimes "Thracomania", while its proponents prefer "Dacology". The term Protochronism (anglicized from the ro, Protocronism, from the Ancient Greek terms for "first in time"), originally coined to refer to the supposed pioneering character of the Romanian culture, is sometimes used as a synonym. Overview In this context, the term makes reference to the trend (noticed in several versions of Romanian nationalism) to ascribe a unique quality to the Dacians and their civilization. Dacianists attempt to pr ...
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Romanians
The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym ''Vlachs'') are a Romance languages, Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Culture of Romania, Romanian culture and Cultural heritage, ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they live primarily in Romania and Moldova. The Demographic history of Romania#20 October 2011 census, 2011 Romanian census found that just under 89% of Romania's citizens identified themselves as ethnic Romanians. In one interpretation of the 1989 census results in Moldova, the majority of Moldovans were counted as ethnic Romanians.''Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready Reference Handbook By'' David Levinson (author), David Levinson, Published 1998 – Greenwood Publishing Group.At the time of the 1989 census, Moldova's total population was 4,335,400. The largest nationality in the republic, ethnic Romanians, numbered 2,795,000 persons, accounting for 64.5 percent of the population. Source U.S. Library of Congress "however it is one interpreta ...
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Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language. The majority of Serbs live in their nation state of Serbia, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. They also form significant minorities in North Macedonia and Slovenia. There is a large Serb diaspora in Western Europe, and outside Europe and there are significant communities in North America and Australia. The Serbs share many cultural traits with the rest of the peoples of Southeast Europe. They are predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christians by religion. The Serbian language (a standardized version of Serbo-Croatian) is official in Serbia, co-official in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is spoken by the plurality in Montenegro. Ethnology The identity of Serbs is rooted in Eastern Orthodoxy and traditions. In the 19th century, the Serbia ...
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French Language
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien) largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents, most of which are members of the ''Organisation internationale de la Francophonie'' ...
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Nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of people),Anthony D. Smith, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History''. Polity (publisher), Polity, 2010. pp. 9, 25–30; especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation's sovereignty (self-governance) over its homeland to create a nation-state. Nationalism holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power. It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on a combination of shared social characteristics such as culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics (or the government), religion, traditions and belief ...
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Ethnicity
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area. The term ethnicity is often times used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism, and is separate from the related concept of races. Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or as a societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language, or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance. Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with many groups having mixed genetic ancestry. Ethni ...
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