# people



## Nino83

*Mod note: The thread has been branched from here.*

Arigatō gozaimasu, DaylightDelight, 810senior, frequency! 


810senior said:


> 日本*人*はアメリカ人が日本の領地で軍事基地を持つことを許可する。(lit. The Japanese *allows* ~ into Japanese territory)


A little question.
According to your literal translation ("allows", third singular), it seems that in Japanese 日本人 is considered singular (Japanese person).
Now I've found that the acronym SPQR (*S*enatus *P*opulus*q*ue *R*omanus) is translated 元老院とローマの*人民*.
If I want to say "the Japanese" in the sense of "the Japanese citizens", "the Japanese people", should I say 日本*人民*はアメリカ*人民*が日本の領地で軍事基地を持つことを許可する。?


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## frequency

Nino83 said:


> 元老院とローマの*人民*.
> If I want to say "the Japanese" in the sense of "the Japanese citizens", "the Japanese people", should I say 日本*人民*はアメリカ*人民*


Nino, sorry I'm not sure about this stuff..but 人民 sounds old to my ear!


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## Nino83

frequency said:


> 人民 sounds old to my ear!


Mh...is 市民 better? 
Does it exclude countrymen? 
Or is 人 sufficient in order to translate "citizens" (in the sense of "people who have citizenship") or "people"?


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## frequency

Nino83 said:


> Mh...is 市民 better?
> It excludes countrymen?


Yes, you're right.  市民 focuses on people in the city.



> Or is 人 sufficient in order to translate "citizens" (in the sense of "people who have citizenship") or "people"?


I suppose 民 may contain a bit legal things, but 人 doesn't do. We say 宇宙人 but don't 宇宙民.


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## Nino83

So 人 can mean both "person" (singular) and "people, citizens" (plural) when following the name of a country?


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## frequency

Nino, well, nouns and languages are not so free as we think. We have some defined ones. In your cases we have popular ones such as
日本人、日本国民. 日本人 suggests that a person or people are Japanese, but 日本国民 suggests the people of Japan.
We have the words 人民 and 国民 too, and they must work for their appropriate purposes.

You know, we have some alternatives, and we need to choose any


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## 810senior

Nino83 said:


> If I want to say "the Japanese" in the sense of "the Japanese citizens", "the Japanese people", should I say 日本*人民*はアメリカ*人民*が日本の領地で軍事基地を持つことを許可する。?


*日本国民*は*アメリカ国民*が日本の領地で軍事基地を持つことを許可する。 (of course the general American citizens do not possess any army bases, just translated in a faithful way)

日本人民 sounds very odd to me. I've never heard of it at all except for 中国人民(the Chinese people).


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## Flaminius

I would say that it was simply a mistake to use the third person singular with the Japanese.  In order to avoid embarrassment, we have no such thing as personal endings in our verbs!  Japanese nouns are neither plural or singular by themselves.  

人民 is sometimes used for translating "the people," a Marxist notion.

市民 can be either residents in an administrative unit called 市 or a translation for citizen, citoyen or anything that goes back to Greek and Latin words that mean full members of city-state democracy.  In the latter sense, there is a nuance that a 市民 is exercising their right to resisit the power that be.



frequency said:


> Yes, you're right.  市民 focuses on people in the city.
> 
> I suppose 民 may contain a bit legal things, but 人 doesn't do. We say 宇宙人 but don't 宇宙民.


Good point.


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## Nino83

Minasan, arigatō!
So 人民 is an old, archaic, specialized term, while 国民 is more common. 人 can be used too in order to indicate "peoples".
So イタリア人 can mean both Italian person (singular), イタリア人です, and Italians (plural), イタリア人はイタリア語を話します.


810senior said:


> (of course the general American citizens do not possess any army bases, just translated in a faithful way)


Of course 


810senior said:


> except for 中国人民(the Chinese people)





Flaminius said:


> 人民 is sometimes used for translating "the people," a Marxist notion.


If I understood well, 人民 is a word deriving from the (Marxist) People's Republic of China, and it's not so much used in Japan. 
(Now I'm wondering why SPQR is translated 元老院とローマの*人民* )


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## Flaminius

Nino83 said:


> If I understood well, 人民 is a word deriving from the (Marxist) People's Republic of China, and it's not so much used in Japan.


No.  I meant 人民 is used to translate the notion of "the people" as used in the Marxist works.  The word 人民 itself had been around for a long time when it was appropriated for "the people."  I wouldn't be surprised it was done in Japan but I am not up to a wild goose hunt for the moment.  Anyway, the birth of PRC is a much later event.


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## Nino83

Flaminius said:


> The word 人民 itself had been around for a long time


Ah, ok, got it. 
Let's say that it got a Marxist flavour after the birth of the PRC.


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## Flaminius

No.  It got the Marxist flavour way before PRC.


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## Nino83

Ah, ok, since 1848 (more or less).


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## Flaminius

I mean Marxism was talked about and written about in relation with the Russian revolution or with ample stock of Japanese socialists and communists.  人民 as a political term has a longer history than PRC.


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## Nino83

So, more or less since the birth of Marxism-Leninism?
Yes, probably Marxist theories arrived a bit later in East Asia (I don't know very much about the history of East Asia).


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