Two nations divisible
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[This is a guest post by Barbara Phillips Long]
There is an interesting sidelight in commentary about an article in the New York Review of Books, which posits that the U.S. is two nations under one government, where the two entities exchange political power. The link to the NYRB (paywalled) article is here.
The concept of two nations doesn’t really track with the concept of political power remaining in “the people’s hands,” since the basically mystical concept of “the” people is usually thought, as a matter of political legitimation at least, to be more or less synonymous with the idea of “the” — as in one — nation.
This I think is somewhat obscured by the usages of the English language in regard to the underlying concept. Here’s the official government translation of the Constitution’s preamble into Spanish:
Nosotros, el pueblo de los Estados Unidos, con el fin de formar una Unión más perfecta, establecer la justicia, garantizar la tranquilidad nacional, atender a la defensa común, fomentar el bienestar general y asegurar los beneficios de la libertad para nosotros mismos y para nuestraposteridad, por la presente promulgamos y establecemos esta Constitución para los Estados Unidos de América.
“El pueblo” — literally “the town” — conjures up a more concrete and less metaphysically vague concept than “We the People.” Someone more learned in such matters can no doubt explain how the Greek word “polis” ended up being translated so much more literally in some languages than others, but I think this historical accident, if that’s what it is, could have considerable psychological/practical significance.
(source)
I thought Paul Campos made a good point about how "We, the people" does not convey the same rhetorical flourish in every language. Language Log readers are likely all aware of the pitfalls — and illuminations — of translation, but I confess I am curious about how many and different ways the Preamble and the concept of "polis" are expressed.
Selected readings
- "One nation [head], under God [adjunct]" (6/14/04)
- "'(Next) Under God,' Phrasal Idiom" (6/20/04)
Keith said,
July 2, 2025 @ 7:20 am
I see no problem with using the word "el pueblo" for "the people"; it literally means "people" and etymologically comes from the Latin "populus", like En "people", Fr "peuple"…
By extension it can also mean "village", "town" or "city" (although there is a more administrative term "ciudad"), but to use it in the sense of "people" seems perfectly cromulent. The alternatives might be either less PC ("los hombres") or less familiar ("la gente").
Cervantes said,
July 2, 2025 @ 9:50 am
Well of course the unit of political organization in Greek antiquity was the city, but as a political entity the polis meant free (non-enslaved) men, as it did to the writers of the U.S. constitution. So they weren't talking about the same concept most of us refer to nowadays, although notice I said "most."
Another alternative in Spanish could be "las personas," but it's rather stilted (just as "persons" is in English). La gente is common and has the collective meaning we're looking for, but pueblo does have more of a political connotation so I think that's the right translation.
Rodger C said,
July 2, 2025 @ 9:51 am
Reminds me of when I was in grad school and was told that many Latin American folklorists denied the possibility of urban folklore, because "folklore" means the lore "del pueblo."
Coby said,
July 2, 2025 @ 10:34 am
I don't think any Spanish-speaker would take the word pueblo in Nosotros el pueblo… — any more than in the slogan el pueblo unido jamás será vencido — as meaning 'village', let alone as an equivalent of polis. In the Spanish Wikipedia page on polispueblo appears only as a translation of demos.
But in Spanish el pueblole peuple in French) the additional meaning of 'the common people' or 'the lower classes'.
Chas Belov said,
July 2, 2025 @ 2:13 pm
Was thinking "la raza" but that's ethnically specific.
And looking up "gente" in Wiktionary exposed me to Chavacano, a Spanish Philippine creole, which led to a rabbit hole of obscure (to me) languages that I tried to track down music in, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
J.W. Brewer said,
July 2, 2025 @ 3:02 pm
Here's the preamble to the Argentine one (from 1853): "Nos los representantes del pueblo de la Nación Argentina, reunidos en Congreso General Constituyente por voluntad y elección de las provincias que la componen, en cumplimiento de pactos preexistentes, con el objeto de constituir la unión nacional, afianzar la justicia, consolidar la paz interior, proveer a la defensa común, promover el bienestar general, y asegurar los beneficios de la libertad, para nosotros, para nuestra posteridad, y para todos los hombres del mundo que quieran habitar en el suelo argentino: invocando la protección de Dios, fuente de toda razón y justicia: ordenamos, decretamos y establecemos esta Constitución, para la Nación Argentina."
This sort of seems like the implied mystic numinosity attaches to la Nación, rather than el pueblo thereof, but I don't know Spanish and may be misinterpreting.
J.W. Brewer said,
July 2, 2025 @ 3:07 pm
To the meaning of πόλις, I think if you look at a bunch of different English translations of e.g. Aristotle's _Politics_ (Πολιτικά), the word will be rendered by some translators literally as "city" and by others as "society" or "community" or whatnot in a given context, and I expect some translators English it differently as used in different passages in order to create a more idiomatic output.
Victor Mair said,
July 2, 2025 @ 3:32 pm
Cognate with the "pore" of Singapore and many Indic derived toponyms in other languages.
polis
From Proto-Hellenic *ptólis, from Proto-Indo-European *tpólHis, from *tpelH- (“fortification, city”). The early form πτόλις (ptólis) shows metathesis tp > pt because Ancient Greek stop clusters always end in a coronal. Cognate with Sanskrit पुर (pura, “fortress, city, dwelling”) and Lithuanian pilis (“stronghold”). Irregular accent on genitive πόλεως (póleōs) is due to a quantitative metathesis from older πόληος (pólēos); genitive plural imitates genitive singular.
(Wiktionary)
"ancient Greek city-state," 1894, from Greek polis, ptolis "citadel, fort, city, one's city; the state, community, citizens," from PIE *tpolh- "citadel; enclosed space, often on high ground; hilltop" (source also of Sanskrit pur, puram, genitive purah "city, citadel," Lithuanian pilis "fortress").
(eymonline)
American Heritage Dictionary of IE roots:
pelə-3
Citadel, fortified high place.
Oldest form perhaps *pelh3- (but exact laryngeal uncertain). Zero-grade form *pl̥h3-.
1. police, policy1, polis, politic, polity; acropolis, cosmopolis, cosmopolite, megalopolis, metropolis, necropolis, policlinic, propolis from Greek polis, city (phonological development unclear).
2. gopuram from Sanskrit pūr, pur-, fortress.
[In Pokorny 1. pel- 798.]
American Heritage Dictionary
pueblo
Word History: The word pueblo ultimately comes from the Latin word meaning "people," populus, also the source of other English words like population and even people itself, by way of Old French pueple. As the spoken Latin of Spain developed into the Spanish language, Latin populus became Spanish pueblo, meaning "town, village," as well as "nation, people." The 16th-century Spanish explorers who visited the area naturally used this word to refer to the distinctive adobe and stone villages of the Pueblo peoples, in which some buildings rose as high as five stories. Pueblo first appears in English as a word for the distinctive villages of the Pueblo peoples, and it later came to be used to refer to the peoples living in the villages.
TR said,
July 2, 2025 @ 7:03 pm
The quoted blog seems to be implying that "people" and "pueblo" in the Preamble are somehow translations of πόλις, which is an odd thing to say. In any case the more directly relevant Greek word, and the one used in similar context by the Greeks, is not πόλις but δῆμος.