Talk:Four nations/@comment-68.192.4.126-20120611004442/@comment-71.65.211.73-20120619021300

One could ascribe to the other meaning of nation, a shared culture or ethnicity, not necessarily the formation of a state. For example, pre-1871 German states coalesced around the idea of a German cultural nation then they formed the German state. The German nation preceeded the country of Germany. This interpretation touches on more abstract concepts such as the gradual formation of a "nation." Clearly, republic city is a hodgepodge of cultures, but we cannot glean from the current material an average citizen's cultural identification. When the citizen's of the United Republic stop seeing themselves as part of the old 4 nations and believe themselves as sufficiently different by either ethnicity or culture, a fifth nation is born.