|
Inu posted:Why isn't Taiwan green? Taiwanese people call Taiwan "Taiwan" as well. I think you mean the "Republic of China", cough.
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 07:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 06:43 |
|
|
Inu posted:Why isn't Taiwan green? Taiwanese people call Taiwan "Taiwan" as well. They're still officially Republic of China and it's just easiest to go with that. Maybe orange and green stripes or something could work, too.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 07:54
|
|
|
Burma could go both ways too. I don't know too many people who call it Myanmar in common parlance.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 08:27
|
|
|
both names actually come from the same word. wiki: The colloquial name Bama is supposed to have originated from the name Myanma by shortening of the first syllable, from loss of nasal final "an" (/-àɴ/), reduced to non-nasal "a" (/-à/), and loss of "y" (/-j-/) glide), and then by transformation of "m" into "b". This sound change from "m" to "b" is frequent in colloquial Burmese, and occurs in many other words.[1][3] Although Bama may be a later transformation of the name Myanma, both names have been in use alongside each other for centuries.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 08:35
|
|
|
Who is the "they" in "what they call themselves"? The native people? The majority? The Chinese are surely not the natives of Taiwan, though I don't know what the indigenous people call their land. On Myanmar, the name has a negative connotation because it's associated with the military junta that formalized it. But yeah, it's basically the same word as Burma, and I don't think many Burmans make a fuss about it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 09:43
|
|
|
Vegetable posted:Who is the "they" in "what they call themselves"? The native people? The majority? The Chinese are surely not the natives of Taiwan, though I don't know what the indigenous people call their land. By this token, we shouldn't consider 'The United States of America' to be the local name of that country, since English speakers aren't the natives. For all intents and purposes, the local language in Taiwan is Chinese. You could debate whether Hokkien, Hakka or Mandarin is the appropriate variety of Chinese to call 'local,' but that's neither here nor there. Modern aborigines also refer to the country as Taiwan. A-Lin is probably the most famous modern aborigine, and she refers to herself as Taiwanese.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 10:39
|
|
|
Bloodnose posted:By this token, we shouldn't consider 'The United States of America' to be the local name of that country, since English speakers aren't the natives. For all intents and purposes, the local language in Taiwan is Chinese. You could debate whether Hokkien, Hakka or Mandarin is the appropriate variety of Chinese to call 'local,' but that's neither here nor there.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 11:10
|
|
|
Skeleton Jelly posted:They're still officially Republic of China and it's just easiest to go with that. Maybe orange and green stripes or something could work, too. A lot of young Taiwanese will loudly disagree if you call it Republic of China to their faces though.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 11:40
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:A lot of young Taiwanese will loudly disagree if you call it Republic of China to their faces though. This. While they don't necessarily care about RoC's claims to the mainland, and the youth don't vocalize their opinions on full independence, they all refer to themselves as being from Taiwan, which irritates the hell out of Beijing. The majority if them do realize that they are ethnically and culturally Chinese... They just don't want others to label them for them, they're pretty content with their Chinese/Taiwanese ambiguity. Taiwan is a fascinating politically-loaded subject.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 13:24
|
|
|
Backweb posted:This. While they don't necessarily care about RoC's claims to the mainland, and the youth don't vocalize their opinions on full independence, they all refer to themselves as being from Taiwan, which irritates the hell out of Beijing. I'd be interested to know if younger mainland Chinese people even care at all about Taiwan- have you ever heard any express an opinion on the subject? I haven't.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 01:19
|
|
|
The Real Quaid posted:I'd be interested to know if younger mainland Chinese people even care at all about Taiwan- have you ever heard any express an opinion on the subject? I haven't. Well, this is probably anecdotal, but from what I've heard from a few friends of friends they sort of treat it like Hong Kong - not "regular" China, but still Chinese.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 03:51
|
|
|
The Real Quaid posted:I'd be interested to know if younger mainland Chinese people even care at all about Taiwan- have you ever heard any express an opinion on the subject? I haven't. They've been force-fed special propaganda since they were in the womb that Taiwan is essentially their birthright to reclaim. It's really spooky how rabid they can get over a place that's been out of Beijing's control since their grandparents were their age. It's all "China" much like the Union and Confederacy were all "America." but you gotta be careful when talking context: Me: "Oh, you're from Shanghai? My girlfriend is from Taiwan" Them (group response): "TAIWAN IS PART OF CHINA!!" Me: "Right. But I mean Taiwan the island. As opposed to being from the mainland" Them: "We know where it is. Taiwan is part of China." I wait tables in DC part time, so I might get a disproportionate skew from diplomatic families. Edit: Newslab has a take on the China/Taiwan issue, there's a map they use to talk about it, so I hope it's relevant to the thread. Backweb fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Aug 17, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 04:09
|
|
|
The Real Quaid posted:I'd be interested to know if younger mainland Chinese people even care at all about Taiwan- have you ever heard any express an opinion on the subject? I haven't. I used to teach Chinese students. About half spat the memorized rabid PRC propaganda, 40% didn't give a poo poo, and 10% were happy part of China was free and wished they lived there. My two close Chinese friends don't care and consider Taiwan an independent country. They also aren't big fans of the government and automatically assume anything the PRC says is a lie.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 05:11
|
|
|
Lord Hydronium posted:On the topic of what English speakers call countries vs. what they call themselves, I whipped up this map: Really, the native South Africans call themselves South Africans?
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 09:32
|
|
|
Randandal posted:Really, the native South Africans call themselves South Africans? Well,English is one of the official languages of South Africa. Kurtofan fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Aug 17, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 09:54
|
|
|
Randandal posted:Really, the native South Africans call themselves South Africans? What? Yes. Unless you're asking if some slang local term exists, as does Naija for Nigeria. Or if you mean a name from one of the hundreds of local languages.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 10:02
|
|
|
And looking at the eleven official names for the country all the non-English ones seem to be translations of "South Africa" anyways. Purely guessing though because every single one of the names has either Afrika/Aforika/Afurika in them.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 10:35
|
|
|
Randandal posted:Really, the native South Africans call themselves South Africans? South Africans refer to their country as South Africa, yes.  If you want to get technical about who is 'native', I would assume South Africa is called South Africa in the Khoisan languages as well. I think people are just being pedantic at this point.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 11:12
|
|
|
Oh heres a good one.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 21:16
|
|
|
I know this is the opposite of the point the map is trying to make, but it actually really is impressive that they were the first to discover islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 21:25
|
|
|
I'm a bit surprised at some of the Pacific islands close to Japan or the Philippines like Bonin. Didn't the Japanese have quite a few islands colonized in that region, Okinawa for instance? Same with the islands in the Mozambique Channel - if Africans had made their way to settle on Madagascar, it's reasonable to assume they'd "discovered" the little islands between it and the continent - and just decided it wasn't worth settling those tiny islands. I see the footnote about Arab traders and the Indian Ocean islands, so it seems like the mapmaker decided to move the goalposts midway through creating this map. Actual European discoveries are probably even fewer than this map depicts. And re: South Africa. I guess I understood that the modern political entity of South Africa has a similar name in the native language, but surely before the arrival of the Dutch and the British, the native Africans didn't just call that land "South Africa". Randandal fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Aug 17, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 21:34
|
|
|
For what it is worth, English uses "Russian" where Russian has two seperate, but related words. Russkii, русский, refers to the ethnicity or cultural aspects. Rossiiskii, российский, refers to the things related to the state. If you met a nice Tatar fellow in Crimea, he might not like being called ruskii, but would likely be a rossiiskii citizen.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 21:47
|
|
|
Lawman 0 posted:Oh heres a good one.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 22:00
|
|
Randandal posted:I'm a bit surprised at some of the Pacific islands close to Japan or the Philippines like Bonin. Didn't the Japanese have quite a few islands colonized in that region, Okinawa for instance? Same with the islands in the Mozambique Channel - if Africans had made their way to settle on Madagascar, it's reasonable to assume they'd "discovered" the little islands between it and the continent - and just decided it wasn't worth settling those tiny islands. I see the footnote about Arab traders and the Indian Ocean islands, so it seems like the mapmaker decided to move the goalposts midway through creating this map. Actual European discoveries are probably even fewer than this map depicts. The Caribbean islands on the map and the Galapagos were also probably known before 1492, but their names (if they had any) are lost to posterity and nobody bothered to settle there permanently. The Bonins, however, while they may have been populated in prehistoric times, were uninhabited when the Spanish arrived in the late 1500s and were only claimed by Japan in 1630. Okinotori island was only officially claimed in 1931 and may not have been on Japanese maps until 1888. And native people wouldn't necessarily have had any sense of a nation encompassing the region of modern South Africa, just like only the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Kuna appear to have had common names for the American continents. There certainly would have been names for various groups, nations, and regions, but conflating any of them with modern South Africa is pretty arbitrary and potentially offensive. Black nationalist groups have sometimes called South Africa "Azania", but that's what the Romans called everything south of modern Kenya, so indigeneity is still absent.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 22:01
|
|
|
Vegetable posted:How did Austria-Hungary discover some obscure stretch of land just off Russia's coast? Most likely they funded an artic expedition in the late 1800s.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 22:38
|
|
|
Lawman 0 posted:Oh heres a good one. I thought Hawaii had been inhabited for quite a while, but then my shirt informed me otherwise. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 22:46
|
|
|
neurobasalmedium posted:I thought Hawaii had been inhabited for quite a while, but then my shirt informed me otherwise. The Polynesians didn't colonize all of the Hawaiian islands.  I think all of them are currently uninhibited except Midway where about 60 people live today.
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 23:36
|
|
|
Dusseldorf posted:So what does a country do to get the name other countries use for it changed. Did the Ivory Coast ask really nicely and people were like "guess we can use the French name"? It seems like kind of a funny anti-colonialist statement post independence. Côte d'Ivoire and Timor-Leste give those names respectively as both the native- and English-language forms of their countries' names to the ISO and the UN and such. So if you're looking for the funny answer, it's that "Côte d'Ivoire" is French, which translates to "Côte d'Ivoire" in English 
|
|
#
?
Aug 17, 2013 23:59
|
|
|
Dusseldorf posted:The Polynesians didn't colonize all of the Hawaiian islands. Most images of Hawaii stop around Nihoa, I guess. You'd never know the rest existed unless you wanted to find out about them it seems. Google maps doesn't even bother to label them
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 00:02
|
|
|
neurobasalmedium posted:I thought Hawaii had been inhabited for quite a while, but then my shirt informed me otherwise. That shirt is when Hawaii became a state. As in, the State of Hawaii, established in 1959.
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 00:25
|
|
|
Vegetable posted:How did Austria-Hungary discover some obscure stretch of land just off Russia's coast? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_North_Pole_Expedition
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 00:42
|
|
|
Randandal posted:I'm a bit surprised at some of the Pacific islands close to Japan or the Philippines like Bonin. Didn't the Japanese have quite a few islands colonized in that region, Okinawa for instance?
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 01:32
|
|
|
neurobasalmedium posted:Most images of Hawaii stop around Nihoa, I guess. You'd never know the rest existed unless you wanted to find out about them it seems. Google maps doesn't even bother to label them Ni'ihau actually, which is an interesting island. Anyway, read about Captain James Cook and his three expeditions. The guy is pretty much the coolest dude to ever sail (and also died to the navtive Hawaiians). The history of Hawaii from Kamehameha I on forward is pretty awesome too.
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 01:38
|
|
|
Boon posted:Ni'ihau actually, which is an interesting island. I've heard a bit from a buddy of mine who is a native Hawaiian. It makes me realize that most of the history classes I've taken miss so much detail, especially about the Polynesian civilizations. Peanut President posted:That shirt is when Hawaii became a state. As in, the State of Hawaii, established in 1959. It's still rather interesting that the extend of Hawaiian history most people are familiar with is: Ancient times: Lots of volcanoes 1941: Pearl Harbor 1959: Statehood Today: Vacation neurobasalmedium fucked around with this message at 08:47 on Aug 18, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 02:05
|
|
|
The world's internet usage, by time of day. Oooh, purdy.
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 23:56
|
|
|
Why is North American internet usage so inconsistent?
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2013 00:09
|
|
|
Probably because it's not as dense. I think it's interesting that China get's REAL busy right before night.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2013 00:21
|
|
|
Fojar38 posted:Why is North American internet usage so inconsistent? Seems to me that the American usage drops as soon as the stock markets close.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2013 00:31
|
|
|
Boon posted:Probably because it's not as dense. I think it's interesting that China get's REAL busy right before night.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2013 00:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 06:43 |
|
|
Fojar38 posted:Why is North American internet usage so inconsistent? America has really inconsistent internet. Some places it's really good, others it's terrible. It's not even a rural/urban thing it's mostly random.
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2013 04:07
|
|