Any linguists out there?

Something I would like to understand because we are using terms all the time which might be put in question.


The name of the USSR for instance:

Why is it translated, and used as Union of socialist soviet republics.

There is a translation available for ‘soviet’. It is ‘council’, simple as that.

In German it means Rat. Soviet republic could be translated as republic of councils, or Räterepublik. The latter term was actually used in German until the mid 1930s.

How about English? Has it always been ‘soviet republic?

Was the foreign wording chosen with a purpose to hide the meaning of the word? Was it fashionable to say soviet instead of council?

No German would call the USA Vereinigte States von Amerika, or the UK Vereingtes Kingdom von Grossbritannien, but the USSR became Sovjetrussland. Strange, isn’t it?

Olaf

There are several competing political realities in this world. As some Japanese soldiers were still fighting WW2 in the mid 1970s, there is also no 100% agreement about the fact that the Vietnam war, let alone the Cold War, is over. This is an example:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/world/asia/25tong.html?hp&ex=1164517200&en=ba12ba31b271f74c&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Sakchai Lalit/Associated Press
Former Pilot Fights On Against Vietnam
“All the Communist countries — Vietnam, China, North Korea — must collapse. We have to push them to make them surrender,” said Ly Tong, who commandeered a plane to drop leaflets calling for a revolt.

Winning hearts and minds 1946

Klessmann, Christoph (1986), Die doppelte Staatsgründung (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht), pg. 93

The original percentage agreement is a piece of scrap paper, Churchill’s writing and Stalin’s tick.

From Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace, pg 6