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Archive 1

Prime Minister, not Minister-President

His title in English, as used by the government of the state of Lower Saxony, is Prime Minister, not Minister-President. He writes himself on the English website of the Lower Saxony state government (cached): As Prime Minister of Lower Saxony I would like to.... Also see Curriculum vitae of Prime Minister David McAllister (cached) and the English language website of the State Chancellery (cached).

"Minister-President" is a less used translation from German "Ministerpräsident". The Germans call David Cameron a "Ministerpräsident"[1][2]. Similarly, in English we use the most common term, Prime Minister, when describing a German "Ministerpräsident". In the case of Lower Saxony, even the relevant German authorities (the state government) consistently use the title Prime Minister officially in English. Josh Gorand (talk) 12:07, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

This is constitutional law, not linguistics: Prime Minister requires a formal head of state, while a Minister-President of Lower Saxony is acting as a head of state, representing the state abroad (article 35,1 Constitution of Lower Saxony).--Dodo19 (talk) 12:18, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think German constitutional law regulates the English language, besides, Prime Minister and the rarely used term (in English) Minister-President mean the same, so I think you are mistaken. I'm convinced the government of Lower Saxony wouldn't consistently use the term Prime Minister if it was incorrect (they have used this term for years, apparently). I think this is only a matter of English language. Prime Minister is the common English term, and it's used officially by the state government as well as the prime ministers themselves. Josh Gorand (talk) 12:27, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
No, they don't mean the same, as I explained on talk:Christian Wulff#Prime Minister once again. BTW the term Minister-President is used to describe the heads of government of all the other Länder, not just Wulff and McAllister.--Dodo19 (talk) 12:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Incorrect, the heads of government in Bremen, Berlin and Hamburg have different titles (President of the Senate, Governing Mayor and First Mayor, respectively). Your claim that Prime Minister and Minister-President have different meanings remains unsourced, and I find it hard to believe. I don't see any reason to continue a debate over McAllister's title when the official sources (and even McAllister himself) clearly establishes that the title is Prime Minister. Josh Gorand (talk) 12:38, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, ask yourself why Lord Mayor is missing from your list. You desperately need a 101 on German constitutional law. As I said before, McAllister or the state chancellery are not the places to look for a solution. Go, find a dictionary and/or a handbook on German government. --Dodo19 (talk) 13:11, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Just give it up. The sources are clear, official publications of the state government take precedence way before some random short dictionary entry that doesn't even deal specifically with Lower Saxony. I have no idea why you think Lord Mayor is missing from any list, AFAIK none of the heads of government of the states are called Lord Mayor, at least not today. Josh Gorand (talk) 14:07, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
I am with Josh on this one. You cannot take expressions and their usages from different countries (with different languages, constitutional laws and constitutional histories) and force some sort of cross-border constitutional interpretation on one term or the other.
The article should do the sensible thing: use the most commonly used English term, i. e. Prime Minister and then add the German term Ministerpräsident immediately after it (in brackets and quotation marks) - that is the way non-English titles, degrees, etc. are usually presented in CVs that are written in English.
Btw, I found Dodo's links to the German articles calling David Cameron "Ministerpräsident" extremely interesting and unsettling. For as long as I live, every respectable paper or TV news programme has used the half-French term "Premierminister" (or just: "Premier") when refering to a British Prime Minister. For the two most important high-brow daily newspapers in Germany to transfer the German term "Ministerpräsident" into other contexts is highly surprising - I've certainly never heard or seen it being used for a British Prime Minister before.
This must either be one of those acts of language fascism in which weird people all over the country are trying to purge non-German terms from public life..... or it is a way of dumbing down the news, so that imbeciles have less trouble reading papers....... but I'll stop ranting now ;-) Otto von B (talk) 01:12, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Why not simply link Ministerpräsident then, and leave the rest to the language fascists. --Dodo19 (talk) 05:03, 2 July 2010 (UTC)P.S. The discussion is on talk:Christian Wulff#Prime Minister vs. Minister-President.
There is now a separate article on the office of Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, where both the German term and the possible translation Minister-President are mentioned/linked. Josh Gorand (talk) 05:22, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Just to mention something: I've never heard any German media refer to David Cameron or any of his predecessors as "Ministerpräsident", as Josh Gorand has been claiming here and elsewhere. It has always been "Premierminister".

As for the Prime Minister/Minister-President discussion: the fact that the government of Lower Saxony is using the term Prime Minister in their English translation publications does in no way make it an official title and not necessarily the correct translation. It is merely the term chosen by the government of Lower Saxony for their English-language publications. Other states use Minister-President (here: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern [3]), although the official German title is the same everywhere but the three city states. I don't think that there is any "correct" translation, and to determine which one is more usual, one would have to conduct a quantitative study. It's defintely not worth starting a war about. Bibfile (talk) 07:23, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

As for Germans referring to David Cameron as Ministerpräsident, I have backed it up with sources from two of Germany's leading newspapers.

As for "official title": Of course only the German language title holds official status. However, as the German title is not an option (we are not writing in German), we have to look for the best English translation. When the government (and the PMs themselves) in question consistently uses the term Prime Minister, when that term is the most common term in English while the term Minister-President is rather uncommon in English, and when the term Prime Minister is also widely used by quality English language sources[4][5] (here's Deutsche Welle as well[6]), the choice is very easy. You are correct that the English translation of the title doesn't hold the same legal status, but I would say English translations of government titles as used in official government publications and on formal occasions de facto hold a kind of semi-official status, and that we would need extremely good reasons to overrule a government's choice of titles in English (like, if the title was totally uncommon or incorrect in English, which isn't the case here). Josh Gorand (talk) 09:00, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I have to admit that apparently very occasionally the term "Ministerpräsident" for the British Prime Minister is used, but I maintain that it is very unusual, as quick Google searches for "Ministerpräsident (David) Cameron" and "Premierminister (David) Cameron" do indicate (I could certainly find more sources for Premierminister, backing up my own experience).
Regarding the translations I merely wanted to say that I regard neither Prime Minister nor Minister-President as incorrect, given that different state governments use different translations. For the sake of consistency, it should be the state governments having this discussion about the term they are going to use, not us. Bibfile (talk) 13:59, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'd say McAllister's function, like the ones of the other head of governments of the Länder, is something between British Prime Minister and Scottish First Minister. But the nicest title of the Länderchefs is still the one of the Bremen head: "Mayor and President of the Senate of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen". Like a boss, he? :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.33.42.59 (talk) 23:27, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
I must say, I´ve never come across any news, either in newspaper or on tele, that referred to any British "Prime Minister" as "Ministerpräsident" and I read quite a few in my life ... the terms "Premierminister" or just "Premier" (usually "der britische Premier") are definitely most common throughout the media. However, it was interesting to learn about some people actually using it. As to Lower Saxony: I would never have thought that McAllister would translate "Ministerpräsident" as "Prime Minister" in his official presentation and for a number of reasons I find it very irritating. I believe "Minister President" would be a more appropriate term, especially because a "Ministerpräsident" of a German state is not comparable to a British "Prime Minister". Therefore using the same term for two different things is most irritating and misleading. I do understand, however, that the Wikipedia community obviously decided to referr to the translation issued by the State of Lower Saxony - no matter how wrong it might be. So you can´t argue with that. But how come that the term is used that way by McAllister? I guess the true reason might be, that translating "Ministerpräsident" to "Prime Minister" makes appear his position more important than it actually is. Of course a British Prime Minister can only be compared to a German Bundeskanzler/in, so declaring a the Ministerpräsident of Lower Saxony a Prime Minister ... well ... you see where Im heading ... and now back to actually calling a British Prime Minister "Ministerpräsident" ... just a wild guess: but how about the authors of those articles tried to make the British Prime Minister appear less important than he actually is by placing him on the same level as the head of a state like Lower Saxony (or any other) rather than on the level of a German Bundeskanzler? Even though journalists aren´t meant to let their personal point of view influence their news-reports (apart from the comment-section), there are many ways to make your opinion clear by the choice of words. So leave those accusations about language fascism away for a second ... it might have had plain political reasons after all! LagondaDK (talk) 09:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
all the other german Ministerpräsidenten seem to be calld Minister-president on wiki, so change them or him; calling one Ministerpräsident prime minister and the others minister-pres is a little odd the_consistency_cant_anybody_think_about_the_consistency-guy09:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)09:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)85.195.69.112 (talk) 09:49, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
The University of Edinburgh will be giving an honary degree to "Minister-President David McAllister" [[7]]. I'd suspect that the University will have thought about the correct title more than some news source. 86.146.125.223 (talk) 15:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:David McAllister which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 15:16, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Trivia

In the film The Chamber (film) from 1996, the governor of the US state of Mississippi is called David McAllister. Josh Gorand (talk) 21:43, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Ties to Britain

Lower Saxony is a new state, established as the successor to multiple states, including the State of Hanover. The State of Hanover was formed in 1946 from the former Province of Hanover and saw itself as the successor to the Kingdom of Hanover that was conquered by Prussia. The state emphasized this by adopting the flag and coat of arms of the kingdom. The State of Hanover was by far the largest predecessor state to Lower Saxony, and Lower Saxony has retained the Hanover state symbols. Naturally, the capital also remains Hanover. The fact that Lower Saxony is also the successor to some other, smaller states, doesn't change the fact that Lower Saxony is the successor to the State of Hanover (and it's predecessors). What's interesting to note here, is that the successor to a state once in personal union with the UK is led by a Scotsman. Josh Gorand (talk) 18:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, he is not really a Scotsman ... the son of a Scotsman. Interesting enough for me ... (^_^) ... LagondaDK (talk) 09:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

This page is not up to date

David McAllister was deselected on 20 January 2013. Please modify the page. The new prime minister of Lower Saxony is Stephan Weil. JDfromW (talk) 20:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

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