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Golden_Zucchini posted:Except the bird it was named after is actually native to West Africa. It's just that all trade from West Africa came through Turkey to get to Europe so Europeans assumed it came from Turkey. After the confusion with the American turkey the original turkey was renamed the guinea fowl under the new assumption that it came from Guinea, which is in East Africa. Still wrong, but at least they got right continent. Guinea? East Africa?
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Nov 14, 2013 16:12
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Ras Het posted:Guinea? East Africa? Maybe he is from South America:  LocationGuinea.png
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Nov 14, 2013 16:18
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Zeno-25 posted:Here in Illinois, small municipalities seem to prefer being referred to as "villages" instead of "towns". Village of Sugar Grove, Village of Oswego, Village of Skokie, Village of Schaumburg, etc... True, and while there are exceptions "town" is not used commonly here in Illinois to avoid confusion with the townships. Especially since most have the same name as the cities they overlap.
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Nov 14, 2013 17:00
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Caribbean countries today, from this animated map: That makes 12 sovereign countries in the Caribbean proper, US non-colony Puerto Rico, along with and a handful of small UK & US dependent territories, France's colonies which are mostly integrated into the French political system, and some Dutch-speaking islands which are primarily autonomous countries in the federal Kingdom of the Netherlands.
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Nov 14, 2013 17:07
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Rumda posted:I like how the Caucasus is such a mess of entyomologies in almost every case. This is probably directly a function of the fairly crazy (for how close it is to Europe) linguistic situation in the area. You have three endemic language families (Kartvelian, incl. Georgian; NW Caucasian/Abkhaz-Adyghean/Pontic; and NE Caucasian/Nakho-Dagestanian/Caspian), plus a presence from the Indo-European family, a number of Turkic languages, and even an isolated Mongolic language in Kalmykia.
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Nov 14, 2013 17:22
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SurgicalOntologist posted:New England is a bit different from the rest of the country since pretty much every piece of land is part of some town or another, with the exception of even-more-middle-of-nowhere-than-the-rest-of-the-state places in Maine (and perhaps VT or NH as well, I forget). The rest of the country has land in-between towns which I couldn't wrap my head around when I first left New Englad. "You mean we're not in any town?" When I'm in New England I have the opposite reaction, being from California. "everything is part of a town?"  Here in CA, every county (except the city-county of SF) has large unincorporated areas which include unincorporated towns. And the designations "town" and "city" mean the same thing. DrSunshine posted:My favorite city name in California is definitely City of Industry. Commonly referred to as just "Industry", there's just something amusingly straightforward about the name that simply tickles my funnybone. I always liked Weed. And here a bunch more wierd city/town names in CA: Zzyzx Bummerville Surprise Squabbletown Shafter You Bet Rainbow Rough and Ready Peanut Badwater Avocado Mormon Bar Hercules Happy Camp Chinese Camp French Camp Angels Camp Fort Dick Dunmovin Doghouse Junction Dogtown Forks of Salmon Fruitland Copperopolis Cool Challenge Burnt Ranch Mecca Vacaville (cow town) Los Gatos (the cats) Los Banos (the baths/bathrooms)
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Nov 14, 2013 18:12
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1861 ethnic makeup of the Balkans: I don't know how much this reflects contemporary stuff since there was a big migration of Balkan Muslims to other parts of the Ottoman empire during the various nationalist independence struggles, but this really illustrates to me how loving hard it is to understand the region. Like as I've been finishing out my history degree I've really gained a wider understanding of world geopolitics and their context but Balkan stuff is still opaque as hell to me. Sometimes I read boards full of Croatians/Serbs/Bosnians/Bulgarians/Albanians and the weirdly specific grievances they air super passionately are absolutely baffling. (My favorite is when Macedonians and Albanians fight over Tesla) Alternately this is also the best explanation for why the Ottoman empire always disintegrates differently in paradox games. ed re: etmologymapchat -  Whats up with Ukraine having such a different word for rose compared to Russia/Belarus? I mean I knew it was a distinct language but I thought it was largely mutually intelligible with other cyrillic slavic ones. Frog Act fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 18:25
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Fandyien posted:
Greek influence with the spread of orthodoxy, maybe?
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Nov 14, 2013 18:42
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Fandyien posted:1861 ethnic makeup of the Balkans:
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Nov 14, 2013 19:07
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The Yugoslav Front of World War II is the direct cause of the ethnic tensions in what was Yugoslavia. Prior to that, there wasn't a lot of tension. During World War II, the Axis invaded Yugoslavia, split the lands into client states, and lead to lots of ethnic cleansing and genocide on all sides with various resistance groups collaborating when it was convenient. More than a million Yugoslavians died on all sides (collaborators and resistance, military and civilian) while Germany only lost 24,000 men and 12,000 missing in action. It's one of the more depressing chapters of an already horrible war.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:47
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cheerfullydrab posted:Balkan conflicts aren't any more complicated than any others. In fact the idea of the Balkans being incredibly complex and full of "old tribal hatreds" and crap like that really underlies the lovely American response to the Yugoslav wars in the 90's. We could have done a lot more without that attitude. I wasn't implying they're characterized by "old tribal hatreds", because it's pretty obvious that most Balkan conflicts are products of modern ideas and events, but I'm curious why you don't think they're as complex as people seem to think. From an American point of view it's hard to suss out how/why lots of the modern conflicts have persisted in such an ethnically diverse region. LP97S posted:The Yugoslav Front of World War II is the direct cause of the ethnic tensions in what was Yugoslavia. Prior to that, there wasn't a lot of tension. During World War II, the Axis invaded Yugoslavia, split the lands into client states, and lead to lots of ethnic cleansing and genocide on all sides with various resistance groups collaborating when it was convenient. More than a million Yugoslavians died on all sides (collaborators and resistance, military and civilian) while Germany only lost 24,000 men and 12,000 missing in action. It's one of the more depressing chapters of an already horrible war. Could you elaborate on this a little? I know a lot of them are really related to the breakup of Yugoslavia but it seems like that has most of it's roots in late 19th / early 20th century nationalist movements in the Ottoman empire that split a lot of populations along sectarian lines. Like I said though I don't really know much about the topic and I could be totally buying into some kind of reductionist viewpoint.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:58
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Rah! posted:Los Gatos (the cats) Los Gatos is named after a canyon which was known for its pumas. I only know this because a NASCAR driver is from Los Gatos.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:03
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Peanut President posted:Los Gatos is named after a canyon which was known for its pumas. I only know this because a NASCAR driver is from Los Gatos. Interesting, I never knew that. But you'd think they'd name it "puma canyon" or something, rather than "the cats".
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Nov 14, 2013 20:50
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Rah! posted:Interesting, I never knew that. But you'd think they'd name it "puma canyon" or something, rather than "the cats". The original name was apparently "El Rancho Rinconada de los Gatos ". The Land grant where the city is located anyway.
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Nov 14, 2013 20:57
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Yeah it ain't a canyon I remembered wrong.Rah! posted:Interesting, I never knew that. But you'd think they'd name it "puma canyon" or something, rather than "the cats". Well it's like Los Angeles (aka El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula), people just shortened it to something you could put on a sign.
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Nov 14, 2013 21:20
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reagan posted:I have never heard this. There are a bunch of Germans in the region and I just assumed they named it after Otto von Bismarck.
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Nov 14, 2013 23:25
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Peanut President posted:edit: Indiana also has Ireland AND Holland so suck on that.
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Nov 14, 2013 23:58
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Ofaloaf posted:Michigan has Holland and Hell. Isn't Holland, MI and Hell a bit redundant?
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Nov 15, 2013 00:11
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HorseRenoir posted:Isn't Holland, MI and Hell a bit redundant? No, there's quite a difference. One of them's full of liars, sinners, narcissists and all the other loathsome sorts, and the other's Hell.
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Nov 15, 2013 01:08
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SurgicalOntologist posted:New England is a bit different from the rest of the country since pretty much every piece of land is part of some town or another, with the exception of even-more-middle-of-nowhere-than-the-rest-of-the-state places in Maine (and perhaps VT or NH as well, I forget). The rest of the country has land in-between towns which I couldn't wrap my head around when I first left New Englad. "You mean we're not in any town?" Yeah, in MA cities and towns are the same level, with the main difference being the form of government-- e.g., Newton's population is only a bit bigger than Brookline's, but Newton is a city with a mayor and Brookline is a town with a town meeting and board of selectmen. Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of how New England towns work, since apparently they're pretty atypical. I grew up here, so I was also surprised to learn how much of the country isn't in any town at all.  Edit: And while we're talking about wacky town names, I've always enjoyed going through Florida, Massachusetts. One time I looked it up and learned that the name was because Flordia was a hot topic of discussion at the time.
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Nov 15, 2013 02:11
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HookShot posted:Well they did, yes, but they only did it to attract more German investment in the region. Alright, I guess. Any other information on it?
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Nov 15, 2013 02:13
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computer parts posted:I like how in Turkey the Orange is named after Portugal like how the Turkey is named (incorrectly) after a type of bird imported from Turkey. In Persian, orange is ""porteghâl", same name as the country. I learned this from an Iranian woman at some party when i told her i was born in Portugal. I was pleasently surprised, had no idea that Portuguese made such a linguistical impact in the entire Middle East. Okay maybe not a huge impact, but Portugal giving name to a major fruit in arabic, persian, greek and turkish is pretty rad. Falukorv fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 02:44
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LP97S posted:The Yugoslav Front of World War II is the direct cause of the ethnic tensions in what was Yugoslavia. Prior to that, there wasn't a lot of tension. During World War II, the Axis invaded Yugoslavia, split the lands into client states, and lead to lots of ethnic cleansing and genocide on all sides with various resistance groups collaborating when it was convenient. More than a million Yugoslavians died on all sides (collaborators and resistance, military and civilian) while Germany only lost 24,000 men and 12,000 missing in action. It's one of the more depressing chapters of an already horrible war. Gotta disagree with you a bit there. While WWII certainly increased the amount of ethnic tension following WWII, the tension was already there all the way back to the Paris Peace Conference. Croats and Serbs weren't the happiest bunch, and the Croats were really disgruntled with the Serbs since Yugoslavia was really just a Serbian Kingdom with a bunch of non-serbs living in it. The Serbs kind of hoodwinked the Big Four at Paris in 1919, and the Croats never forgot. Then when the Germans rolled in and reversed the situation and put Croats in charge, they took out twenty years of anger and frustration in some of the worst mass-killings the war ever saw. Following the war, Tito and his Communist Party just went silent over the whole issue, so nothing got resolved about the ethnic cleansings, and when Tito died in the late 80s, the tensions blew up again.
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Nov 15, 2013 02:44
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Ras Het posted:Guinea? East Africa? Ah crap. I got my east and west mixed up. 
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Nov 15, 2013 03:04
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Rincewind posted:Edit: And while we're talking about wacky town names, I've always enjoyed going through Florida, Massachusetts. One time I looked it up and learned that the name was because Flordia was a hot topic of discussion at the time. Speaking of strange town name origins...
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Nov 15, 2013 03:28
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I was unaware at how many other states had names of other geographical places. Though I'm not at all surprised. My home state of Maine may have other states beat, diaspora loves their connections to the old countries I suppose. Maine has a few famous road signs scattered about that show traveling distances to countries like Mexico, China, and Sweden:  Or cities like Lisbon, Vienna, or Moscow:  To keep things relevant, here's a map of the signposts' locations:  Link to the Sun Journal article: http://www.sunjournal.com/node/817483 Apparently we have 9 towns named after presidents... plus one that was named before Clinton was elected.
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Nov 15, 2013 06:24
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Backweb posted:Apparently we have 9 towns named after presidents... plus one that was named before Clinton was elected. George Clinton (fourth Vice President, NY Governor) and DeWitt Clinton (his nephew, also NY Governor and associated with the Erie Canal) have a whole slew of cities, towns and counties named after one or the other throughout the country. Illinois loved the latter so much that there's a DeWitt County and a Clinton County there. So far as I know Bill and George/DeWitt have no relation.
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Nov 15, 2013 06:43
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cheerfullydrab posted:Balkan conflicts aren't any more complicated than any others. In fact the idea of the Balkans being incredibly complex and full of "old tribal hatreds" and crap like that really underlies the lovely American response to the Yugoslav wars in the 90's. We could have done a lot more without that attitude. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocW3fBqPQkU
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Nov 15, 2013 07:18
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Craniometric analysis of the Balkan people clearly demonstrates that they will always be at war with each other.
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Nov 15, 2013 09:01
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Golden_Zucchini posted:Except the bird it was named after is actually native to West Africa. It's just that all trade from West Africa came through Turkey to get to Europe so Europeans assumed it came from Turkey. After the confusion with the American turkey the original turkey was renamed the guinea fowl under the new assumption that it came from Guinea, which is in East Africa. Still wrong, but at least they got right continent. Nice to know: in Dutch, the word for 'turkey' (the bird) is 'kalkoen', derived from the city of Calcutta in India (though I think nowadays the preferred name is Kolkata).
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Nov 15, 2013 09:57
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Huh, the Lithuanian word for turkey is 'kalakutas', sounds like they took it directly from the Dutch. The Russian one is 'indyuk', which means roughly 'Indian thing' 
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Nov 15, 2013 10:06
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the jizz taxi posted:Nice to know: in Dutch, the word for 'turkey' (the bird) is 'kalkoen', derived from the city of Calcutta in India (though I think nowadays the preferred name is Kolkata). Somaen posted:Huh, the Lithuanian word for turkey is 'kalakutas', sounds like they took it directly from the Dutch. Somaen posted:The Russian one is 'indyuk', which means roughly 'Indian thing'
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Nov 15, 2013 10:28
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cheerfullydrab posted:Balkan conflicts aren't any more complicated than any others. In fact the idea of the Balkans being incredibly complex and full of "old tribal hatreds" and crap like that really underlies the lovely American response to the Yugoslav wars in the 90's. We could have done a lot more without that attitude. Oh see I thought it was the southern terminus of the Slavic migration, the western terminus of the Turkic conquests, the triple border between Catholicism, Greek orthodoxy and Islam, and emerging from centuries of occupation by successive foreign powers. But now I know it's just America's fault! Thanks bro.
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Nov 15, 2013 11:21
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Arglebargle III posted:Oh see I thought it was the southern terminus of the Slavic migration, the western terminus of the Turkic conquests, the triple border between Catholicism, Greek orthodoxy and Islam, and emerging from centuries of occupation by successive foreign powers. But now I know it's just America's fault! Thanks bro.
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Nov 15, 2013 12:54
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Ofaloaf posted:Benelux is a land riven with historical religious divisions, Spanish and Austrian occupation, German, Dutch, Walloon and Frisian peoples living in close proximity, and scars from wars going back centuries. Clearly this complex confusion of ethnic and religious differences could only result in incessant sectarian warfare, which is why even today the region is plagued with instability and violence.
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Nov 15, 2013 14:58
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Except the Balkans have an additional major religion intermixed right on top of the existing religious borders, and a continuous occupation of most of the territory until the late 19th century, and finally a unification of the territory by a single nationality that lasted quite a bit longer than the Dutch-dominated Benelux. A more comparable situation would be if the southern parts of the current Netherlands were Muslim (for some reason), and the entire Benelux had been united under the Hollanders rather late, and then during an alternate WW2 the Flemish population had tried to turn the tables on the Hollanders, followed by ethnic tensions being put on hold for decades due to the unifying presence of a single man. Is it because they're Muslims? The Bosniaks are a minority population, Albania is a little confusing when it comes to religion and the only other country with a large population of "ethnic" Turks(usually people who's ancestors had converted to Islam from the local population or some Circassians left over from the 1860's) is Bulgaria, which from my recollection hasn't seen massive ethnic violence recently. You also forgot the most visible difference between the Balkans and the Benelux countries. One region is incredibly wealthy while the other is not.
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Nov 15, 2013 16:19
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the jizz taxi posted:Nice to know: in Dutch, the word for 'turkey' (the bird) is 'kalkoen', derived from the city of Calcutta in India (though I think nowadays the preferred name is Kolkata). In French it's "Dinde", contraction of "D'Inde": From India. Also Guinea pigs are called "cochons d'Inde" (India pigs)
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Nov 15, 2013 16:48
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Kurtofan posted:In French it's "Dinde", contraction of "D'Inde": From India. In Catalan it's gall dindi or indiot, same etymology. Later when I have a little more time I'll edit an etymological history of this confusion into this post.
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Nov 15, 2013 16:51
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One thing that does legitimately separate the Balkans from Western Europe is that it has always been a cultural mosaic. Before the twentieth century, you could have a Serb, a Bosniak and a German village right next to each other, all autarkic, with minimal interaction between them. Even at the local level there was rarely any ethnic homogeneity. That's what makes it so hard to draw lines, and why every attempt to establish nation-states in the area has been accompanied by ethnic cleansing.
Phlegmish fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Nov 15, 2013 |
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Nov 15, 2013 17:01
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Panas posted:Is it because they're Muslims? The Bosniaks are a minority population, Albania is a little confusing when it comes to religion and the only other country with a large population of "ethnic" Turks(usually people who's ancestors had converted to Islam from the local population or some Circassians left over from the 1860's) is Bulgaria, which from my recollection hasn't seen massive ethnic violence recently. Panas posted:You also forgot the most visible difference between the Balkans and the Benelux countries. One region is incredibly wealthy while the other is not.
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Nov 15, 2013 17:45
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