Talk:Queen mother
<templatestyles src="Module:Message box/tmbox.css"/><templatestyles src="Talk header/styles.css" />
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Queen mother Template:Pagetype. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
| Template:Find general sources |
| Archives: Template:Comma separated entries<templatestyles src="Template:Tooltip/styles.css" />Auto-archiving periodScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".: Template:Human readable duration File:Information icon4.svg |
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for deprecated parameters".
Script error: No such module "Banner shell".
In re "Queen Mother" in India
Rajmata [sic] is currently translated in the article as "Mother of the State", with the justification that 'Raj' means 'State'. However, the technical term for state/kingdom is actually 'Rajya'. Furthermore, the actual term for the King (or, rarely, if at all, Queen) Mother is "Rajamata" [IPA: raːdʑɐmaːtaː](note the missing 'a' in the term in the article). This is technically from the same word in Sanskrit, which itself is a Sanskrit compound "राज्ञः माता या सा राजमाता।" (Translation: "She who is the King's mother is the King-mother". The translation here has the appearance of stating the obvious, but it gramatically defines the compound word in terms of the simple words whose place and meaning the compound word takes).
Basically, I think that the translation "Mother of the State" is inaccurate, with the inaccuracy being caused by the inaccurate term 'Raj' [IPA: raːdʑ] inaccurately being confused with 'State' due to lack of accurate Sanskrit transliteration of the word 'Raja' [IPA: raːdʑɐ] in "Rajamata" in the first place. The accurate term is, thus, "Rajamata", and the accurate translation is "King-Mother". Viv73 (talk) 05:35, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
Earliest English usage
The sentence “The term has been used in English since the early 1560s” does not make sense because the sovereign then was Elizabeth I and her mother died in 1536; no one could have been Queen Mother in the early 1560s. Please edit the sentence to name the person for whom the term was first used and to clarify whether the person was Queen Mother at the time or previously. 47.144.47.200 (talk) 23:57, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
- That would have been Catherine de' Medici, as is clear from the citation in the footnote. Celia Homeford (talk) 10:07, 22 April 2025 (UTC)