[floppydiskette]

What does it mean to be Czech or Slovak? At one point, those countries were combined into the nation of Czechoslovakia. Was a person born in Czechoslovakia Czech, Slovak, or Czechoslovakian? If we’re going to take ethnicity or language into account, then what does it mean to be American?

Many of those Eastern European languages are more of a sliding scale than divided by country borders. Moldovan and Romanian are basically the same thing.

I met someone on my travels from Italy who was Italian, but only spoke German, as they do in parts of Northern Italy.

[hef19898]

Nationality is pretty easy, just look at someones passport. Ethnicity is much more difficult.

[cratermoon]

Did nations exist before passports? What is I don't have a passport? If I hold a passport for a nation that no longer exists, what nationality am I?

[hef19898]

Well, the idea of nation states isn't that old. Passport are pretty recent, in their current form at least. And a person can be nationless, in which case they would be eligible for a UN passport.