the.com/selfdetermination

means The principle that a people or individual has the right to freely choose their own political status, government, and course of life without outside coercion.

from A transparent compound of "self" and "determination." "Self" traces back to Old English "self," the same word that's been naming the I-that-is-me for over a thousand years. "Determination" comes through Old French from Latin "determinare," "to set bounds, fix limits" — built from "de-" (off, completely) plus "terminare," "to mark an end or boundary" (the same "terminus" that marks a border). So at root it's about drawing your own line. The political sense — peoples choosing their own governance — became a rallying phrase in early 20th-century diplomacy, famously attached to Woodrow Wilson's post–WWI rhetoric, though the underlying idea was already circulating in 19th-century nationalist and democratic thought.