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A bit out of date, that
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Nov 11, 2020 00:37
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Golbez posted:I'm an American so I have no comprehension of how you can have a large country with dozens of functional languages, and the largest is only 60%. The largest city speaks a language, Wu, that according to Wikipedia is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin. And that's just one of several languages there with over 50 million speakers that doesn't mix with Mandarin. Multilingualism is the norm in most of the world. It's not that China is strange (though it is, for other reasons), it's that the US (and to a lesser extent Russia or any former empire) is really exceptional for having one language be so dominant over such a large territory. Many regions and countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia are still vibrantly multilingual, even across large swathes of territory. Like biodiversity, language diversity is in decline globally, the US is just ahead of the curve, but for most of human history, if you wanted to trade, wage war or get around, speaking multiple languages has absolutely been the norm rather than the exception. Unlike biodiversity, language death is a bit more controversial. For instance, I am probably one of the last speakers of the dialect of the town I grew up in, but I don't really care - the only way for me to pass that dialect on would be if I had kids with a partner who also spoke it, but my hometown culture is nothing to write home about (my dialect has like 5 words for fighting but only 1 for loving). My native dialect has been absorbed by the standard language, more or less, to which it is also very closely related. Things get trickier when people promote the idea that we'll end up speaking some sort of Globish all over the world in like 200 years, which is extremely unlikely since language death is tied to political and cultural power as well as mass violence, migration, genocide and colonisation, e.g. barring some cataclysmic event, I don't see Dutch, with a healthy ~22 million native speakers, get subsumed into English or German (the languages it is most closely related to).
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Nov 11, 2020 00:41
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i can't believe america beat england
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Nov 11, 2020 00:48
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Given that English itself is already developing in many independent vector to the point of mutual unintelligibility kinda shows that the idea of an universal language is a pipe dream, at least in any foreseeable future.
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Nov 11, 2020 00:51
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Anyway, in 2010 Microsoft promised that by 2020 we would have a gizmo that would allow people to have a seamless conversation while the participants spoke different languages, and I'm steamed, steamed I tell you that it was a lie.
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Nov 11, 2020 00:53
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On English varieties Singapore is a fun counterexample to the Mandarin thing I mentioned because the Singaporean government has more or less given up trying to stamp out Singlish and it's started seeping into official contexts like political campaigns. Singlish is really its own creole language and not just a dialect of English but it shows the possibilities for future English diversification.
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Nov 11, 2020 00:56
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I thought Sean's Bar (founded circa 900 and still in the same building) was the oldest in Ireland. Maybe they don't serve enough food to qualify as a restaurant.
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Nov 11, 2020 01:57
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Zedhe Khoja posted:A bit out of date, that Yeah, the map as of the ceasefire shows a devastating defeat for Artsakh. 
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Nov 11, 2020 02:21
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 Frontlines at the time of the signing of the agreement with Azerbaijan's territorial gains during the war in red, the Lachin corridor under Russian peacekeepers in blue, and areas to be surrendered by Armenia to Azerbaijan hashed
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Nov 11, 2020 13:41
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What's the deal with that Nakhchivan enclave? Can't Azerbaijan give Armenia little a territory just to sort that ugly thing out
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Nov 11, 2020 14:56
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Carbon dioxide posted:Well, Belgium is of course a rather divided country, with separate governments for each language area. Most multilingual countries don't have anything like this. Belgium has a federal government but I'm not sure what language they speak. I would guess French since in general it seems Dutch Belgians are better at French than vice versa, but most likely there's a lot of translation going on. Probably every document is translated into all three official languages, and perhaps during debates live translations are provided. lol holy poo poo, even with how mild-mannered and self-loathing Flemings are, there would be rioting and blood in the streets if that were still the case. But in an informal way I guess you're right, whenever there are cross-community negotiations for a new federal government, they're usually conducted in French...for some strange reason. I'm not 100% familiar with the legal basis, but I am pretty sure the federal administration simply operates according to the territorial principle, just like the regional ones do. That is, communication with Flemish and Walloon citizens will be in Dutch and French, respectively, people in Brussels get to choose, etc. Physically, it is mostly concentrated in Brussels, and the departments/services located there are all bilingual (although, again for some strange reason, not all individuals are). Now, the astute observer will have noticed that I say bilingual and not trilingual. I assume the German minority communicates in German with the federal level, but I have no idea how it's organized in practice. Eupen-Malmédy is part of Wallonia, which as a region has French as its sole official language, but all of its municipalities are German-speaking with language facilities for francophones, or the reverse. The truth is that half the time everyone in Belgium forgets all about the German speakers, since they're such a tiny minority.
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Nov 11, 2020 15:03
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Negostrike posted:What's the deal with that Nakhchivan enclave? Can't Azerbaijan give Armenia little a territory just to sort that ugly thing out No, because it would cut Armenia off from Iran due to Ataturks Turkish Gate in the west, and also there's some major settlements there. But part of the agreement is building a highway connecting Nakchivan to Azerbaijan. I am curious about the southern parts of the oblast esp Hadrut province, as there's been alot of conflicting information about how much of it is getting taken. Which is pretty important as the province has more people than all of the hashed areas combined.
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Nov 11, 2020 15:05
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:
So how come Azerbaijan's been more effective this time around? Massive Turkish support, probably, but I assume Armenia also has 'connections'.
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Nov 11, 2020 15:10
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Phlegmish posted:So how come Azerbaijan's been more effective this time around? Massive Turkish support, probably, but I assume Armenia also has 'connections'. It's a petrostate with 3x the population and a greater gap in wealth. And a greater strategic position, enhanced by being a petrostate. Pipelines go to Baku, not Yerevan. Bros with Israel and Turkey, friendly with Russia and the US. There's no reason for anyone but Russia to support Armenia. Someone in the Middle East thread also made an effort post about how Armenia did so well in the 90s and a big factor was armenians being much more present in the Red Army officer corps and in front-line enlisted roles, as well as actually making use of that expertise instead of kicking them out when the USSR fell. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Nov 11, 2020 |
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Nov 11, 2020 15:19
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That all makes sense. Israel, too? Why not I suppose, Azerbaijan has never struck me as a very religious country, more similar to Albania in that regard.
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Nov 11, 2020 15:30
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Negostrike posted:What's the deal with that Nakhchivan enclave? In the Soviet Union internal border neatness didn't really matter, because it was all Soviet territory anyway. It's the same reason the borders of the 'stans are such a mess in the Pamir-Alay and Tien Shan mountains and the Ferghana valley. The Ferghana valley is particularly ridiculous. The foothills, are Kyrgyz, the central valley is Uzbek, except for the mouth of the valley, which is Tajik  Demographically the Nakhchivan exclave makes sense, because it's continuous with other Azeri-majority areas. It should be noted that the country with the largest Azeri population isn't Azerbaijan (approx. 10 M), but Iran (approx. 15 M). 
Jasper Tin Neck fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Nov 11, 2020 |
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Nov 11, 2020 15:35
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Jasper Tin Neck posted:
What's the light blue in this map?
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Nov 11, 2020 17:00
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places where Azeri is spoken but isn't dominant I imagine.
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Nov 11, 2020 17:03
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BELGICA DELENDA EST
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Nov 11, 2020 17:31
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Phlegmish posted:lol holy poo poo, even with how mild-mannered and self-loathing Flemings are, there would be rioting and blood in the streets if that were still the case. But in an informal way I guess you're right, whenever there are cross-community negotiations for a new federal government, they're usually conducted in French...for some strange reason. Wet inzake het gebruik van talen in bestuurszaken Federal entities as a rule of thumb must communicate in the language of the local authority or citizen with whom they communicate. Certain documents (applicable to all, or to entities in Brussels) must be bilingual. Fun fact: there’s literally an office with 12 people (4 of whom are supporting staff) who have, officially, the task of translating all legal documents to German. Obviously they can’t keep up, so there’s a system whereby you can request certain documents if you need an authentic version in German and they will bump that document up the priority list just for you. If it’s a big text (eg the new company code) they do individual chapters on a case by case basis as requests come in. Why yes it is an absolute mess, how did you figure that out, dear reader?
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Nov 11, 2020 17:48
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Phlegmish posted:So how come Azerbaijan's been more effective this time around? Massive Turkish support, probably, but I assume Armenia also has 'connections'. Connections with who, precisely? IIRC in the Middle-East and Caucasus geopolitical space, everyone seems to absolutely loathe the Armenians, maybe barring Georgians and Russians.
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Nov 11, 2020 18:12
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Pope Hilarius II posted:Connections with who, precisely? IIRC in the Middle-East and Caucasus geopolitical space, everyone seems to absolutely loathe the Armenians, maybe barring Georgians and Russians. I think Iran made some noises in their favor, mostly because Turkey was on the other side, but then got major pushback from its own large Azeri minority.
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Nov 11, 2020 18:14
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Pope Hilarius II posted:Connections with who, precisely? IIRC in the Middle-East and Caucasus geopolitical space, everyone seems to absolutely loathe the Armenians, maybe barring Georgians and Russians. Some of my best Emperors are Armenian.
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Nov 11, 2020 18:22
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Nov 11, 2020 18:26
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Another country that's quite messy about language is Malaysia, since there isn't a clear geographic division between the Chinese, Malay and Indian groups, each of which have their own minority languages and are big enough they have to be accomodated (roughly 30, 55 and 10 percent respectively). In practice a lot of younger people speak 3-4 languages which is pretty nuts. There's stil some monolingual people but there's not very many of them. I have an ex from there whose entire family were fluent in 4 languages and used 3 of them at the same time to chat (Hakka, Mandarin and English) online and stuff. Singapore might be similar but as mentioned Mandarin is the main spoken language there (with english perhaps the more common written language).
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Nov 11, 2020 18:28
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:i can't believe america beat england The idea of "going out to eat" is really a post french rev thing. Public houses were explicitly for travelers and meeting rather than "going to the bar." It is very modern to buy pre-made ready to eat meals, I would even say the modern idea of a "restaurant" wasn't a thing until the v late victorian period.
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Nov 11, 2020 18:31
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Uhm, thanks for the insights in the Belgium government, but what I'm missing is, doesn't the federal government have like... meetings? Or debates? Or something like that? What language is used there?
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Nov 11, 2020 18:36
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Finally, a map where Eastern Europe is the good side.
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Nov 11, 2020 19:36
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Carbon dioxide posted:Uhm, thanks for the insights in the Belgium government, but what I'm missing is, doesn't the federal government have like... meetings? Or debates? Or something like that? What do you mean when you say 'government'? The legislature? Or the executive side - the ministers and their cabinets, and the parts of the administration that they preside over? Assuming it's the former, I am not a big parliamentary debate watcher, but from what I've seen/heard, everyone just uses their own language. It's been that way for a really long time. There are obviously no rules regarding the relatively rare informal meetings and negotiations between politicians who speak different languages (although it's Belgium so you are forgiven for assuming there are). As I said earlier, it's often French, simply because many francophones don't speak a word of Dutch or English. But that's just a matter of convenience (which still sometimes raises controversy, as it did in 2010), it's certainly not a guideline, let alone something that has a legal basis. That's why I was so shocked at your casual suggestion of French. Language is something that Belgium takes seriously, at least in a formal sense. It's been that way since the late 19th century, and Flanders has become crushingly economically dominant in the last half-century (while maintaining its demographic advantage).
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Nov 11, 2020 20:07
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Phlegmish posted:What do you mean when you say 'government'? The legislature? Or the executive side - the ministers and their cabinets, and the parts of the administration that they preside over? Would anyone in Belgium besides the royal family be sad if it just got annexed by France and Netherlands?
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Nov 11, 2020 20:41
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Would anyone in Belgium besides the royal family be sad if it just got annexed by France and Netherlands? That's the paradox which I addressed earlier, most people in Belgium identify with their country to some extent, or at least they use the word Belgian and their preferred regional identity interchangeably. It is all 'us'. Most don't think about what 'us' really means, and they don't have to. It is one of the rare state-political 'good fences' situations. People look at the incredibly long negotiations, the slew of rules and regulations, and the near-complete sociological separation between the two communities, and conclude that Belgium has no future. But that very seeming instability is a sign of stability, since despite the usually questionable results nearly everyone is still willing to play the institutional game to get what they want. Belgium will only be in trouble once they decide not to bother forming a federal government at all.
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Nov 11, 2020 20:54
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Charles V presents: South America! Tordesillas was signed in 1494 so I'm not sure what this was for?
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Nov 11, 2020 21:06
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:Charles V presents: South America! Everywhere east of it was for Portugal to claim. Otherwise, Spain. Not sure why that map isn't showing that properly.
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Nov 11, 2020 21:40
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Based on what I've learned from this thread, we can extrapolate that the "No Data" areas of the Balkans are actually orange, because Portugal is.
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Nov 11, 2020 22:36
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:Charles V presents: South America! Weird of Charles V to get his noun/adjective gender agreement wrong
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Nov 11, 2020 22:38
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He was born in Ghent and didn't pick up Castilian until well into adulthood, so it's not that strange.
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Nov 11, 2020 22:44
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Vasukhani posted:The idea of "going out to eat" is really a post french rev thing. Public houses were explicitly for travelers and meeting rather than "going to the bar." It is very modern to buy pre-made ready to eat meals, I would even say the modern idea of a "restaurant" wasn't a thing until the v late victorian period. Do you have anything to back this up? Everything that I've read about Roman cities is the complete opposite of this assertion. Wikipedia 100% disagrees with you and so do the tour guides at Pompeii and Herculaneum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_dining_in_the_Roman_Empire
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Nov 12, 2020 01:27
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Check out my monograph on Classic Mayan restaurant culture.
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Nov 12, 2020 01:32
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The actual Nuevo León is roughly a million miles north of where it is there, but they make extremely good food, and Monterrey is similar to like an Atlanta or a Dallas but mexican, low-key world class city.
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Nov 12, 2020 01:35
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Leviathan Song posted:Do you have anything to back this up? Everything that I've read about Roman cities is the complete opposite of this assertion. Wikipedia 100% disagrees with you and so do the tour guides at Pompeii and Herculaneum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_dining_in_the_Roman_Empire That poster is incorrect. In Roman cities most people didn't even have a kitchen, any cooked meal was eaten at a restaurant or as takeout. A lot like Hong Kong.
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Nov 12, 2020 01:40
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