7 ms·

A minor pet peeve of mine : I would like English-speaking writers to stop using the term « Victorian » for places that are not Britain or the British Empire. Th

by Bayart 5y ago

A minor pet peeve of mine : I would like English-speaking writers to stop using the term « Victorian » for places that are not Britain or the British Empire. There was no Queen Victoria, no Victorian era, no Victorian spirit in France. Indeed it was a time of humiliation, political instability and rampant nationalism, albeit on a canvas of industry.

david-gpu 5y ago
It's a bit like asking people not to use the Gregorian calendar in places that are not predominantly Christian. We have to adapt our language to the person we are communicating with, and if they are familiar with the time frame associated with Queen Victoria, I can see how it makes sense to use it. We could refer to the period of Isabella II of Spain, but they wouldn't understand us, so it would be rather pointless.
- skissane 5y ago
  > It's a bit like asking people not to use the Gregorian calendar in places that are not predominantly Christian. I think it is different in that numbering years is useful, and we need to have an agreed starting point, and by historical accident we've all adopted an estimated (likely slightly incorrect) birth year for the founder of one of the world's major religions. It is hard to pick a culturally-neutral starting point – astronomers sometimes use the Julian period starting at 4713 BCE, but while that is more religiously neutral it still isn't culturally neutral. (It is based partially on astronomy, but also partly on the taxation cycle of the ancient Roman Empire, and that's still Western-centric.) By contrast, applying names to periods of time is far less useful and far less portable across cultures. The 1800s looked very different in different parts of the world, but it was the same 100 year span everywhere. And we only do this for a handful of historical periods anyway (most seem to be named after British monarchs – Victorian, Georgian, Edwardian, etc). Applying those period names to places outside the British Empire is a bit like applying Japanese era names to European history. The whole thing of historical era names seems to be somewhat dying anyway – references to decades (the 1990s, the 1920s, etc) seems more popular in discussing more recent history – the Elizabethan era was in the 16th and very early 17th century, not in the 20th and early 21st. > We have to adapt our language to the person we are communicating with, and if they are familiar with the time frame associated with Queen Victoria, I can see how it makes sense to use it. We could refer to the period of Isabella II of Spain, but they wouldn't understand us, so it would be rather pointless. "mid-to-late 19th century" covers roughly the same timeframe, and everyone knows what that is.
  - philwelch 5y ago
    It’s still a political decision though. The Romans would elect new consuls each year so instead of numbering their years, they just designated them by whoever were the two consuls that year. Later scholars numbered the years since the supposed founding of Rome. The French Revolutionaries created a calendar where Year 1 was the founding of the First Republic, but it didn’t catch on.
    - nescioquid 5y ago
      Well, the Romans also kept track of the years since the founding of Rome -- ab urbe condita (AUC). Writers in antiquity used the years AUC; that wasn't a modern invention.
      - skissane 5y ago
        It is true that writers in antiquity used AUC. However, it was only used infrequently – primarily when celebrations were held to mark the city of Rome's anniversary, as part of imperial propaganda, and also in historical writings. In everyday use, naming years by consuls was more common (especially in the West), and by the regnal years of the emperors (especially in the East and in later periods). After the reign of Diocletian, use of his regnal numbers were continued–in part because he introduced a system of having four emperors simultaneously (two senior and two junior). Even though that system only lasted 30 years (at the end of which Constantine became the sole emperor), the use of year numbering from Diocletian's reign stuck in the East – anno Diocletiani, or as Christians came to call it, anno martyrum (since Diocletian started the last major Roman campaign of persecution of Christianity). The Diocletian era was most popular in the East; in the West it was known, but less used. The monk Dionysius Exiguus proposed anno Domini as a replacement for anno Diocletiani. It became the standard in the West, but less so in the East. The Coptic Orthodox Church continues to use the Diocletian era to this day. Greeks (and also, through Greek influence, many Slavs) preferred to number years from the estimated creation date of the world (similar in principle to how contemporary Judaism does it), but using two different estimated dates of creation – hence the Alexandrian era and the Byzantine era. It is only in recent centuries that Greeks and Slavs have standardised on anno Domini. Use of AUC was actually far more popular in the West in the Renaissance than it ever was in antiquity. It helped produce a false impression that it was more significant in Roman history than it ever was.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Gregorian calendar was directly adopted in many places. It is still Gregorian calendar in France as is Ming vase sitting in a museum in New York. Arabic numerals used on Space Station do not stop being arabic just because there is no Arab in sight.
  - mc32 5y ago
    The numerals are "Indo-Arabic". Arabs were a conduit but the number system was invented in the Indian subcontinent by Indian mathematicians, this was then adopted, centuries later, by Arab mathematicians who in turn exported/exposed it to the West.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      It is arabic numerals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals). "Although the Hindu–Arabic numeral system[1][2] (i.e. decimal) was developed by Indian mathematicians around AD 500,[3] quite different forms for the digits were used initially. They were modified into Arabic numerals later in North Africa. " Arabic numerals does not only describe the concept of decimal system, but also the shape of digits. Hence "arabic numerals" is the correct description, and "Hindu-Arabic numerals" describes different numerals -- shapes for digits.
      - mc32 5y ago
        Fair enough. The numeral system is Hindu and the typography is derived from Arabic thus Arabic, although what we use in most of the rest of the world diverges quite a bit from truly Arabic typographs. One could argue 0, 1, 2, 3, 9 are similar with some rotation , but 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 do not look like Arabic numbers. Curiously there is overlap of some E. Arabic numerals and Brahmi numerals.
      - jhgb 5y ago
        I'd definitely go with Chrisomalis on this one and just call them "Western numerals" to distinguish them from both Western Arabic and Eastern Arabic numerals. As you say, it's about the different shapes, and the three are definitely not the same.
- nescioquid 5y ago
  I'm a native English-speaker, and the use of the term similarly annoys me, though only just a little. Why not be clearer an simply say "19th century" (early/mid/late)? Reminds me of the story of the British headline "Fog in channel -- continent cut off".
- azepoi 5y ago
  No it is more like talking about the Meiji era for events outside Japan.
- vidarh 5y ago
  Ask English-speaking people, or indeed even people living in the UK, which years describe the Victorian era, and I'd expect it'd make clear that the term is wildly ambiguous as a way of describing a period of time. For most it describes clothes and architecture, a certain morality and works of fiction, not a range of years. And in that sense it's wildly misleading to apply it outside of the UK.
- goto11 5y ago
  No it is different. Years are just numbers and can be converted between different calendars. "Victorian" implies a certain political and cultural context. It's like saying "prohibition era London" or "Kentucky during the Sultanate".
philwelch 5y ago
My impression of the Victorian era is that the British Empire dominated world affairs for most of that period, making them a natural centre of attention for historians of that period. You don’t have to look too long before the Victorian era to find an era where France is the undisputed center of attention in Western history.
julienchastang 5y ago
Perhaps the French Third Republic would be better. :-) On this topic more broadly, as I recall (and something that any French citizen will know), civic records ("état civil", birth, marriage, death certificates, "livret de famille" etc.) are abundant, redundant and sort of foolproof. Moreover, I believe there are church records to corroborate her age (something the article does not mention).
- baud147258 5y ago
  > Perhaps the French Third Republic would be better. :-) I'm not sure a lot of people on the internet would be able to place the third Republic on a timeline. And then we'd be talking a 70-years period, close to the length of the Vvictorian era, but shifted 30 years forward ;-)
  - vidarh 5y ago
    I'm not sure a lot of people can place the Victorian era very precisely either.
brudgers 5y ago
As an American, there was no queen, ain’t no queen, and shouldn’t never be no queen. It is not an issue with the language. It is an issue of propaganda. Hence used in relation to France.
jayzalowitz 5y ago
Theres a strong argument that it would very much apply to France, in fact the victorian elite specifically were mostly called after a french phrase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_(le_bon_ton) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_(le_bon_ton)
retrac 5y ago
I, believe, that the Japanese at least sometimes, use the Emperor's regnal era in the same way. An English speaker might say "In Japan during the later Meiji era..." and a slightly more awkward one might say "In Japan during the later Victorian era". Which mean the same thing except for ~10 year ambiguity since the Empress of India and Emperor of Japan in question largely overlapped. I don't know enough Japanese to say for sure, but in Japanese we might have the exact thing except reversed with (literally) "In Victoria's ruling era Britain" and "in Meiji's ruling era Britain". (Anyone know if someone might actually say that?)
- lovemenot 5y ago
  Japanese wife confirms, this kind of parlance is actually used. Though never in official texts. And it is clearly not ideal. Sounds just the same.
  - retrac 5y ago
    Thank you! The symmetry is most pleasing.

by Bayart 5y ago

david-gpu 5y ago

It's a bit like asking people not to use the Gregorian calendar in places that are not predominantly Christian. We have to adapt our language to the person we are communicating with, and if they are familiar with the time frame associated with Queen Victoria, I can see how it makes sense to use it. We could refer to the period of Isabella II of Spain, but they wouldn't understand us, so it would be rather pointless.

skissane 5y ago
> It's a bit like asking people not to use the Gregorian calendar in places that are not predominantly Christian. I think it is different in that numbering years is useful, and we need to have an agreed starting point, and by historical accident we've all adopted an estimated (likely slightly incorrect) birth year for the founder of one of the world's major religions. It is hard to pick a culturally-neutral starting point – astronomers sometimes use the Julian period starting at 4713 BCE, but while that is more religiously neutral it still isn't culturally neutral. (It is based partially on astronomy, but also partly on the taxation cycle of the ancient Roman Empire, and that's still Western-centric.) By contrast, applying names to periods of time is far less useful and far less portable across cultures. The 1800s looked very different in different parts of the world, but it was the same 100 year span everywhere. And we only do this for a handful of historical periods anyway (most seem to be named after British monarchs – Victorian, Georgian, Edwardian, etc). Applying those period names to places outside the British Empire is a bit like applying Japanese era names to European history. The whole thing of historical era names seems to be somewhat dying anyway – references to decades (the 1990s, the 1920s, etc) seems more popular in discussing more recent history – the Elizabethan era was in the 16th and very early 17th century, not in the 20th and early 21st. > We have to adapt our language to the person we are communicating with, and if they are familiar with the time frame associated with Queen Victoria, I can see how it makes sense to use it. We could refer to the period of Isabella II of Spain, but they wouldn't understand us, so it would be rather pointless. "mid-to-late 19th century" covers roughly the same timeframe, and everyone knows what that is.
- philwelch 5y ago
  It’s still a political decision though. The Romans would elect new consuls each year so instead of numbering their years, they just designated them by whoever were the two consuls that year. Later scholars numbered the years since the supposed founding of Rome. The French Revolutionaries created a calendar where Year 1 was the founding of the First Republic, but it didn’t catch on.
  - nescioquid 5y ago
    Well, the Romans also kept track of the years since the founding of Rome -- ab urbe condita (AUC). Writers in antiquity used the years AUC; that wasn't a modern invention.
    - skissane 5y ago
      It is true that writers in antiquity used AUC. However, it was only used infrequently – primarily when celebrations were held to mark the city of Rome's anniversary, as part of imperial propaganda, and also in historical writings. In everyday use, naming years by consuls was more common (especially in the West), and by the regnal years of the emperors (especially in the East and in later periods). After the reign of Diocletian, use of his regnal numbers were continued–in part because he introduced a system of having four emperors simultaneously (two senior and two junior). Even though that system only lasted 30 years (at the end of which Constantine became the sole emperor), the use of year numbering from Diocletian's reign stuck in the East – anno Diocletiani, or as Christians came to call it, anno martyrum (since Diocletian started the last major Roman campaign of persecution of Christianity). The Diocletian era was most popular in the East; in the West it was known, but less used. The monk Dionysius Exiguus proposed anno Domini as a replacement for anno Diocletiani. It became the standard in the West, but less so in the East. The Coptic Orthodox Church continues to use the Diocletian era to this day. Greeks (and also, through Greek influence, many Slavs) preferred to number years from the estimated creation date of the world (similar in principle to how contemporary Judaism does it), but using two different estimated dates of creation – hence the Alexandrian era and the Byzantine era. It is only in recent centuries that Greeks and Slavs have standardised on anno Domini. Use of AUC was actually far more popular in the West in the Renaissance than it ever was in antiquity. It helped produce a false impression that it was more significant in Roman history than it ever was.
lmilcin 5y ago
Gregorian calendar was directly adopted in many places. It is still Gregorian calendar in France as is Ming vase sitting in a museum in New York. Arabic numerals used on Space Station do not stop being arabic just because there is no Arab in sight.
- mc32 5y ago
  The numerals are "Indo-Arabic". Arabs were a conduit but the number system was invented in the Indian subcontinent by Indian mathematicians, this was then adopted, centuries later, by Arab mathematicians who in turn exported/exposed it to the West.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    It is arabic numerals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals). "Although the Hindu–Arabic numeral system[1][2] (i.e. decimal) was developed by Indian mathematicians around AD 500,[3] quite different forms for the digits were used initially. They were modified into Arabic numerals later in North Africa. " Arabic numerals does not only describe the concept of decimal system, but also the shape of digits. Hence "arabic numerals" is the correct description, and "Hindu-Arabic numerals" describes different numerals -- shapes for digits.
    - mc32 5y ago
      Fair enough. The numeral system is Hindu and the typography is derived from Arabic thus Arabic, although what we use in most of the rest of the world diverges quite a bit from truly Arabic typographs. One could argue 0, 1, 2, 3, 9 are similar with some rotation , but 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 do not look like Arabic numbers. Curiously there is overlap of some E. Arabic numerals and Brahmi numerals.
    - jhgb 5y ago
      I'd definitely go with Chrisomalis on this one and just call them "Western numerals" to distinguish them from both Western Arabic and Eastern Arabic numerals. As you say, it's about the different shapes, and the three are definitely not the same.
nescioquid 5y ago
I'm a native English-speaker, and the use of the term similarly annoys me, though only just a little. Why not be clearer an simply say "19th century" (early/mid/late)? Reminds me of the story of the British headline "Fog in channel -- continent cut off".
azepoi 5y ago
No it is more like talking about the Meiji era for events outside Japan.
vidarh 5y ago
Ask English-speaking people, or indeed even people living in the UK, which years describe the Victorian era, and I'd expect it'd make clear that the term is wildly ambiguous as a way of describing a period of time. For most it describes clothes and architecture, a certain morality and works of fiction, not a range of years. And in that sense it's wildly misleading to apply it outside of the UK.
goto11 5y ago
No it is different. Years are just numbers and can be converted between different calendars. "Victorian" implies a certain political and cultural context. It's like saying "prohibition era London" or "Kentucky during the Sultanate".

philwelch 5y ago

My impression of the Victorian era is that the British Empire dominated world affairs for most of that period, making them a natural centre of attention for historians of that period. You don’t have to look too long before the Victorian era to find an era where France is the undisputed center of attention in Western history.

julienchastang 5y ago

Perhaps the French Third Republic would be better. :-) On this topic more broadly, as I recall (and something that any French citizen will know), civic records ("état civil", birth, marriage, death certificates, "livret de famille" etc.) are abundant, redundant and sort of foolproof. Moreover, I believe there are church records to corroborate her age (something the article does not mention).

baud147258 5y ago
> Perhaps the French Third Republic would be better. :-) I'm not sure a lot of people on the internet would be able to place the third Republic on a timeline. And then we'd be talking a 70-years period, close to the length of the Vvictorian era, but shifted 30 years forward ;-)
- vidarh 5y ago
  I'm not sure a lot of people can place the Victorian era very precisely either.

brudgers 5y ago

As an American, there was no queen, ain’t no queen, and shouldn’t never be no queen. It is not an issue with the language. It is an issue of propaganda. Hence used in relation to France.

jayzalowitz 5y ago

Theres a strong argument that it would very much apply to France, in fact the victorian elite specifically were mostly called after a french phrase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_(le_bon_ton) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_(le_bon_ton)

retrac 5y ago

I, believe, that the Japanese at least sometimes, use the Emperor's regnal era in the same way. An English speaker might say "In Japan during the later Meiji era..." and a slightly more awkward one might say "In Japan during the later Victorian era". Which mean the same thing except for ~10 year ambiguity since the Empress of India and Emperor of Japan in question largely overlapped. I don't know enough Japanese to say for sure, but in Japanese we might have the exact thing except reversed with (literally) "In Victoria's ruling era Britain" and "in Meiji's ruling era Britain". (Anyone know if someone might actually say that?)

lovemenot 5y ago
Japanese wife confirms, this kind of parlance is actually used. Though never in official texts. And it is clearly not ideal. Sounds just the same.
- retrac 5y ago
  Thank you! The symmetry is most pleasing.