How do you describe, in English, a set of different ethnic groups in one word?

Question

I am from Holland. In Dutch, we have the word "Volk" to describe the masses of people formed by a group with genetic, cultural, and ideological bonds and similarities. So in Dutch "Volk" is the proper original noun for "ethnic group" just as in English the proper original noun is "folk" (and not "people", since "people" is latinate).

Now in Holland we use the words "Volken" or "Volkeren" to describe the plural of the word "Volk", so they describe a set of several different ethnic groups. We use the word "Volks" when we use it as an adjective, both in the singular and plural forms. As a singular term, it would translate into English as "folkish".

However I am searching for the translation of the adjective used as a plural. In English, a plural is mostly created with an "s" after the singular, so that would make "folks". However, where "folks" in English can be used to define just a group of people, "Volken" or "Volkeren" as nouns in Dutch would never mean just a group of people, just as the Dutch adjective "Volks" used in the plural never would. It would always mean a set of different ethnic groups.

So now I am searching for one single word that, as in Dutch, describes "a set of different ethnic groups" like the word "Volks" without running the risk that folks think I am just talking about "a set of people". There is a large difference between the definitions of "a set of different ethnic groups" and "a set of people", and I need to make a headline in which I have only room for one word to communicate the correct meaning.

I should be able to use it in the translation of the Dutch sentence

"En het vrije volks verbond leeft voort...."

which in English would be

"And the free XXXX federation lives on...."

where XXXX is the word I am searching for.

Answer 1

It's really, really difficult, sometimes impossible, to use English without words that have a Latin origin. And really, peoples with its possessive peoples', is the first word a native English speaker would use. If a word came via Norman French, as "people" did, it's indubitably part of the English language.

In order to complete your example sentence, you use the possessive of "peoples":

And the free peoples' federation lives on....

You could also use nations (such as in the Canadian term "First Nations") but that has an implication of political sovereignty and is just as derived from Latin. Possible candidate words in Old English could be slydeas or one of the derivatives of þéod such as ingeþeóde, gumþéoda, werþéoda (cf. Tolkien's name Éothéod for the Rohirrim), but if you used one of these, only a few people would know what you're talking about.

You may have found it difficult to find a definition for "peoples" in an online search, because of the way search engines work. Usually, it's buried in a definition for "people", such as the one at Merriam-Webster:

People 5: (plural peoples) : a body of persons that are united by a common culture, tradition, or sense of kinship, that typically have common language, institutions, and beliefs, and that often constitute a politically organized group.

The definition at Dictionary.com has a really good example, buried in a "usage note":

The aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere speak many different languages.

And of course we have no less a light than J.R.R. Tolkien, in The Two Towers, during Treebeard's perplexity over what kind of thing Merry and Pippin were:

Learn now the lore of the living creatures!

First name the four, the free peoples,

Eldest of all, the Elf-Children,

Dwarf the delver, dark are his houses,

Ent the earthborn, old as mountains,

Man the mortal, master of horses...

Tolkien clearly uses "peoples" to refer to several different but distinct groups of people.

Update: I was asked to address the concept of "peoples' X of Y." Google NGrams shows a huge ratio of "people's republic" to peoples' republic" and the first half dozen Google Books results for the latter were actually mistranscribed by Google -- they appear as "people's republic" in the actual books. My feel is that socialism is a homogenizing influence when it becomes the foundation of a state -- ideology is going to trump separate cultural identity.

Answer 2

You actually get quite close to the answer in your own question, where you say:

Just as in English where the proper original noun is "Folk" (and not "People", since people is a latination).

Whatever you might like to call "the proper original noun", the commonly used word in English for "ethnic group" is "People":

4. the entire body of persons who constitute a community, tribe, nation, or other group by virtue of a common culture, history, religion, or the like: the people of Australia; the Jewish people.

^{dictionary.com}

And, as that link says, the plural of people is Peoples. Anything belonging to them, or for them, would use the possessive apostrophe, making your sentence:

"And the free peoples' federation lives on...."

Answer 3

Disclaimer: I’m an American, and other people might use the same words differently.

You can say ethnicities, and one word for a society with many of them living together is multiethnic.

AndyT’s suggestion of peoples is good, and would be considered a literal translation of volken. (Volkswagen is translated into English as “The People’s Car.”) Winston Churchill spoke of “the free peoples of the world” at the start of the Second World War and the Cold War, and Harry Truman, in his 1948 inaugural address, also used this same phrase It predates them; Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson also said something similar. More recently, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton quoted Churchill’s version as well in her 2016 convention speech, and Vice-President Mike Pence talked about “the free peoples of the Americas” in a speech on August 15, 2017.

A place where many different ethnic groups live and mingle is cosmopolitan. If they live in segregated neighborhoods and don’t mix very much, those are ghettos or various less-pejorative terms such as enclaves. If they’re all assimilating to the same culture, it’s a melting-pot. If they’re equal, not segregated, and don’t want to assimilate, that’s multicultural. If each linguistic minority gets its own autonomous region, that might be called cantons after the districts of Switzerland, and a system like that is (with slightly negative connotation) cantonized or (more neutrally) cantonal.

Although I wouldn’t recommend it in this context, “peoples of the world” is a secondary meaning of the word nations, used for example in modern translations of the Bible. Today, though, nations more often means countries, and using the word in the archaic sense might confuse people. (Or, worse, give an American the impression you don’t think they’re a real American.) It survives in the terms nation-state as distinct from a multiethnic state or a diaspora, and when we call an ethnic separatist trying to create a nation-state a nationalist.

Cultures comes close, but refers to customs and traditions, not to the people themselves; if a culture is dying out, that means that the people are still alive but their children are assimilating.

I would recommend against races in this context, although it wouldn’t offend anyone, because it has a slightly-different meaning. Someone whose ancestors were from another continent might be fully-assimilated, especially in America, yet still considered a different race from the majority, and a proud nationalist who doesn’t speak the same language or dress the same might be considered the same race. You’re not talking about their physical features.

The cognate folk exists in English, but has the wrong connotations (folk tales and folk wisdom connote rural superstitions). The plural, folks, is best known for a cartoon character’s catchphrase, “That’s all, folks!” and is just slang for “You guys.” Avoid the loanword volk in English. It’s associated with Nazi Germany and has strong negative connotations.

Answer 4

I would most likely use the word "community". Very broad scope.

Answer 5

In the Dutch expression:

volks verbond

which is usually written as:

volksverbond

the word "volks" is not a plural or an adjective, but the genitive of the singular noun "volk"; it comes from:

des volks verbond

or, in less archaic Dutch:

het verbond van het volk

So the correct translation is:

people's federation

As the use of the singular "volk" indicates, it is a federation of members of one people or nation.

It should not be confused with "volkenbond" or "volkerenbond", the Dutch term for the "League of Nations". Here you have the plural "volken" and "volkeren" because the League of Nations is indeed a league of several nations or peoples.

Answer 6

You can use "races" but that's pretty verboten these days; it has a raft of negative connotations attached to it. "Peoples" is also a grammatically appropriate term and probably better accepted by most readers.

Answer 7

Multicultural

relating to or constituting several cultural or ethnic groups within a society.

Answer 8

There may be some problems with saying "races" but if you say "the races" that's not an insult -- it means multiple different ethnic groups, particularly multiple different ethnic minority groups.

Answer 9

"Races" wouldn't work because it only suggests a genetic bond while ethnic groups also have cultural bonds.

"Nations" wouldn't work because it suggests a geographical boundary, while ethnic groups can live spread over several nations.

I thought "peoples" wouldn't work because "people" is often used in a more general sense without referring to a common ethnic background and "peoples" might suffer the same way.

But, if "peoples" used as an adjective ALWAYS refers to groups with different ethnic backgrounds, then I suppose that would be the way to go.

Pity, because the term "Free Folks Federation" has so much more creative possibilities than "Free Peoples Federation" and I just cannot come up with something that really sounds and alliterates equally well and communicates the same idea.