Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 March 22

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March 22

Arab nation number of seats

I know that Lebanon has 128 electoral seats. So, what about Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Comoros, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, Tunisia, Jordan, Palestine, Somalia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and U.A.E.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.117.54 (talk) 00:16, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Electoral seats in what?!? What body are we asking about? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:13, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps 74 wants to know if those countries have elected goverment assemblies of some sort (parliaments etc)? Nil Einne (talk) 15:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe he wants to know if they have local electoral districts (as opposed to nation-wide proportional representation without electoral districts practiced in Israel). AnonMoos (talk) 19:44, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Majority Arab Shi'a

Like Iran, Iraq's Shi'a population are the majority while Sunni population are minority. So, does it mean that Iraq is the only Arab nation with a Shi'a majority? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.117.54 (talk) 00:17, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

According to Shia Islam, the majority Shia countries are Iran, Iraq, Bahrain and Azerbaijan. Of these, Iraq and Bahrain are mostly peopled by Arabs. Algebraist 00:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

"English is the hardest language to learn"

Is that a true statement? That would implied that English speaker believe all languages are easier than their own language, and then how come Americans today barely know more than one languages. --Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 00:28, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Not really. All children aquire their native language at the same rate, regardless of whether that native language is English, Mandarin or Klingon. It's a little "old wive's tale" about English being particularly "tricky". Noam Chomsky's work on language aquisition is seminal in answering this question, and Syntactic Structures is as good a place as any to start on his work. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:12, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

(I suggest asking this question at the Language Desk.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:18, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Similar questions have been asked there before. One example from Dec '07 which prompted the creation of the article on hardest language. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:23, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

And to answer your second question. Many Americans only know one language because that's all they need to know. Sure, a year of a second language is generally required to get a high school diploma but after that, the language skill that they've learned goes unused. It's not like in Europe where there are so many local dialects and so many languages grouped so closely together. Take any random American who has never left their continent, which is quite a few of us, and look at who they have to deal with on a day to day basis. Most of the time, they're just other random Americans. As for those who have left the continent, it's generally not a significant amount of the population that stays wherever they go long enough to need to learn any of the language for where they're travelling to.

Also, it doesn't help our language skills that one of our only two neighbors is Canada where, again, the predominant language is also English. Even the French Canadians in Quebec generally know English. It's just a lack of need really... Dismas|^(talk) 04:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The American economy, and thus commerce and intercourse, is mostly domestically driven. Even in the outward-looking aspect of the economy, the US has vastly stronger economic and cultural power, so that the interaction is invariably conducted in English. This is different to European countries, even the English-speaking one, where 1) they are not vastly economically and culturally more powerful than their neighbours and trading partners, and 2) their economies are more trade-orientated.

A limited analogy could be given with other countries with large populations, such as China, whose economy is (despite what you might hear) largely domestically driven, at least for the vast majority of the population, and which is in an economically and culturally more powerful position compared to some of its neighbours - there, just as in the US, foreign language ability is much less widespread than it is in many other countries around the world. The analogy is limited, of course, because the Chinese still need to trade (etc) with the Americans (and other countries), and they inevitably use English, not Chinese, as the medium in those cases. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:57, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The English-speaking one? 209.251.196.62 (talk) 11:37, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, they like to think they speak Gaelic. =D --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:02, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Do they, or do they just like the rest of us to think they speak Gaelic? (If any Irish people are reading this - we're not fooled! ;)) --Tango (talk) 22:22, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

As you'd see if you bothered to read the Gaelic article, "in Ireland people rarely call the Irish language Gaelic". They call it Irish. Malcolm XIV (talk) 09:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, they've managed to fool us twice over! =P --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 07:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The only unusually difficult thing about English is the spelling. Most other languages have a more phonemically consistent spelling system. Haukur (talk) 08:43, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

English also distinguishes more vowel phonemes than most languages (that I've encountered); that is, a list analogous to bait bat beet bet bit bite boat boot bought but would be shorter in most other languages. Mood and aspect can trip people up, but I guess any language has comparable quirks. —Tamfang (talk) 05:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are asking in terms of an adult wanting to gain basic skills in a language, English is one of the easier ones, it seems to me. Not too many grammatical cases, no genders on nouns, and your pronunciation and grammar can be really bad without stopping people from understanding you. As for those vowel phonemes, again, you can mispronounce them pretty badly without impairing comprehensibility too much. If you do the same thing in Hungarian, nobody will understand you. Finally, I don't think English has all that many vowel phonemes--a bunch of the ones on Tamfang's list are actually dipthongs and fairly easy to learn. Again that's different from, say, French, where you have to practice the front-rounded u in "tu"--or Hungarian, where there's that and and lots more. 75.62.6.87 (talk) 06:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Swedish Communities

Which is the most northerly Swedish Community? Excluding Samii Communities. Which latitude is it at?68.148.145.190 (talk) 07:00, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Kiruna municipality, specifically the township of Kiruna. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 09:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Kurravaara is more north.68.148.145.190 (talk) 11:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops: BTW, the en:WP says the population is 266 (end 2006), the Swedish and Dutch WP has 57 for 2005. I guess, it´s them dark and stormy knights (and damsels) up north. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:16, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Karesuando is the northern-most settlement in Sweden. It is a traditionally Finnish-speaking area, but sv.wiki notes that the village is bilingual today. --Soman (talk) 07:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

is it true that woodwind instruments can be learned to a master level at a comparatively very late age (late 20s, versus like 7 for a piano)

if someone is in their late twenties, they have way way missed being a concert pianist, or anywhere close -- they should have started when they were like 7, if not 3. (A few concert pianists started, really intensely, as late as 19 -- they're not too good though).

is it true the same is not true of woodwind instruments, and someone in their late twenties could still learn the instruments to the level I have in mind? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.132.205 (talk) 15:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the 10,000 hours theory is what matters here? It's discussed a little in Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Outliers'. (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23588962-details/The+secret+of+your+success+10,000+hours/article.do). I don't really buy into the idea that you'd have to start a 7 (or younger) to be a really good pianist I can see it being a factor but don't see how starting late would necessarily exclude you from becoming equally as talented/able. You might also be interested in his book Blink, which looks at biases in selection of orchestral performers. ny156uk (talk) 16:23, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this is the book, by Malcolm Gladwell: Blink (book). Bus stop (talk) 00:24, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Well the brain is far more adaptive and quicker to learn things at an early age. Also that book is just total speculation, I found it a very aggrevating read as Gladwell leads you to the conclusion he wants to reach with inconsistent (and sometimes without any) evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.17.47.250 (talk) 00:20, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I've heard of someone famous who took up the flute at age 40, but have forgotten who. —Tamfang (talk) 05:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

on an 'eye for an eye' basis (if it doesn't matter whose eye), if Israel were wanting to make up for Jewish holocaust deaths, how long could it keep up MAXIMUM "rate" of palestinian losses reached?

The New York Times recently ran a bunch of articles about how Israeli soldiers were told or given the impression that they should be killing Palestinians indescriminately (one supposedly got a t-shirt reading "one shot, two kills" as a reward for killing a pregnant woman).

My question is, since Israel positions itself as the "Jewish" state (which I disagree with, being a Jew), if they were somehow going on the "eye for an eye" theory (and it doesn't matter whose eye) and starting with a net -6,000,000 lost Jewish lives (those lost in the Holocaust), how long would it take them to make up that figure in Palestinian losses, going at the maximum rate they have reached so far?

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.132.205 (talk) 18:06, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I should add that obviously it is impossible to reach anywhere near that number - I am only interested in the rate which I am having trouble finding or calculating! Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.132.205 (talk) 18:09, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

A somewhat approximate result seems to be 1.5 millennia. You may find the Mathematics reference desk more suitable for further enquiries on arithmetics. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:12, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

thanks - will you tell me which rate you used and how you found it (or did you just use your impression) thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.132.205 (talk) 19:45, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, some people seem to believe that the fact of being the descendants of the victims of the biggest and most horrible genocide of the human history is something that gives a kind of bonus to commit atrocities for free. And the horrible, unbearable doubt is that a people that suffered such a violence may have been infected by the evil virus itself of this violence. Primo Levi, one of the greatest writers of the last century, survivor and witness of Auschwitz, suggested this idea in The Drowned and the Saved, 1986 (few years after the massacre of Sabra and Shatila (1982); he committed suicide in 1987).--pma (talk) 21:05, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I've followed the news from Israel quite closely for a long time, and I've never heard anyone suggest that it's OK for Israelis to "commit atrocities" because of the Holocaust. On the contrary, Israelis perhaps feel a stronger commitment to human rights because of their experience, which is why revelations such as the ones recently reported generate such attention and revulsion among the Israeli public. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:58, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

It must be pointed out that this has become a matter of grave concern in Israel itself. The NY Times [1] you are mentioning in your original query (but also the British Guardian [2] and other respected media) speak of a "religious war" between factions of the army, where - simplified - secular liberals have lost ground to religious nationalists. As Mwalcoff above, I feel that some of the arguments are questionable and may be misplaced on the reference desk.--Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 00:08, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The entire premise is wrong. The people with whom Israel is in conflict had nothing to do with the Nazi Holocaust. Moreover, it is . . . deeply offensive to suggest that committing genocide would some how “make up for” an earlier atrocity. DOR (HK) (talk) 04:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah well, the OP did not ask for a moral judgment... --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that there has been nothing comparable with the Holocaust in human history, but if we want to answer the OP, answer is not 1000 years, nor 100, nor 10. The numbers of victims in persecutions never follow a well behaved constant rule, as the OP assumes. There is something named escalation, in all stories of genocides. Kristallnacht, 9-10 november 1938, less than one hundred Jewish people killed in Germany. Europe watched that without moving, and there were who minimized, making computations and comparisons with the number of victims of WWI.--84.220.118.44 (talk) 06:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I see what you're getting at... you're saying that the rate is not constant, that it always starts small... you're saying if I had asked the reference desk in 1938 when fewer than 100 Jewish people were killed how long, at that rate, it would take for that number to reach 6,000,000 the answer would have been 164 years...clearly not what happened. Okay, so my arithmetic assumptions are wrong. However I'm not sure how to phrase the correct question then. What do you suggest is a more correct figure than 1.5 millennia? (based on what you suggest is more appropriate than a "well behaved constant rule"). What is the curve "the numbers of victims in persecutions" really follow then, as a rule? Thank you! again, I am not asking whether Israel is really trying to make up for 6 million victims of the holocaust on the "eye for an eye" principle (if it doesn't matter whose eye) -- I am only asking, if this were what were happening, how long could they keep up the maximum rate (or, in light of the above, rate of change), before they reached 6million...even if that number could not actually be reached because of size constraints in the area, etc....I'm just asking about fitting a curve, and wondering how long extrapolation, even if after a while the curve is no longer appropriate for that area, would take to reach 6 million, given the appropriate curve in such historical cases. Thank you! 79.122.48.154 (talk) 12:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you see exactly what I mean. It's not a captious argument though. Excuse me, but I am reluctant to do such a computation as you are asking, with numbers that are not numbers, but represent killed lives. I can't help imagining Eichmann summing ciphres over ciphres with neat and ordered hand-writing. Still, we must count, and remember the numbers of all victims of the Shoa and of all genocides, but respect and memory has to be our only end; this is what I think. What's the scope of this extrapolation you are looking for? You may wish to recall that 6,000,000 is so enormous that escapes our faculty of imagination. It's true, and in this case I agree that your intention is right... I was never able to go beyond the idea of 100 individuals murdered. But then, what is the point of making a comparison. This I can't understand. If we use the past tragedy to minimize the present one we are betraying the memory of the dead people. How many pregnant women did the israeli soldiers kill, compared to the number of those killed by nazi. An unbelievably small ratio, and unbelievably enormous. --pma (talk) 20:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is the link to the original article in the English edition of Haaretz from which the New York Times and other media picked up the story. Read the article, and then see what of the above makes sense. The original query poses a speculative and unfounded (and highly offensive to all parties) "connection" between mass killings in the Holocaust of European Jewry and the army of the State of Israel conducting warfare against hostile forces, whether neighboring states (since the day the state declared its independence and five of them attacked; only two of the original five have made peace with Israel in the intervening 60 years) or organizations (notably Hamas and Hizbollah) dedicated to Israel's destruction. The article relates to a serious problem within Israeli society; read about the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict if you want to know what real issues are pertinent. The above question is grotesque. -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

good article. unbelievable. whoever wear those t-shirts is sick. --pma (talk) 21:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

What's grotesque about it, Deborahjay? When a government (or rather, to be fair, its foreign supporters), harp on about a past injustice and yet commits its own injustices, amost every day, how can you blame people for drawing a connection between them?

If I go around bashing my neighbours every night, and my "friends" defend me on the basis that I was, years ago, stabbed in the street once by a robber - it is not beyond rationality for casual observers to think I'm just taking it out on the world because I can't get over what happened a long time ago?

Recall that the Arab states have existed on this piece of land for centuries. If a descendant of one of the indigenous owners of your land* turned up at your house one day and just started squatting in your living room, would you welcome them with open arms? Clearly they have a moral "right" to the land. Does that make things any easier for you?

*: that was a culturally specific reference that probably works best in North America and Australia. If you are not at one of those locations, you'll have to use your imagination. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:47, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't intend to make a debate forum of this so shall answer the above questions (most of which I already stated above and you apparently ignored) and no more: Simply, claiming that the Israelis kill Palestinians because of the Nazi Holocaust is specious and superficial, beside the point of a great deal of well-documented history. You seem either highly selective in your arguments or badly informed: do you not acknowledge the history of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel as told in the Bible? To the best of my knowledge, Israel does not justify its military actions based on the Holocaust; anyone who believes that has mixed up a lot of disparate facts to concoct a libel. Israel has to maintain an army of defense as it's been under constant attack since its founding (and before), and among the terrible costs is the moral damage to the generations of young people who must serve in combat (plus the civilians like myself who are occasional targets of rockets). Some, even many, on both sides of the conflict do agree that Israeli Jews (Zionists) and the Palestinian people each have aspirations for national identity and a national homeland. The situation is bad enough for all those affected - which means myself as much and quite likely more than all the above respondents put together, as I'm a Jew, an Israeli (naturalized), a professional Holocaust archivist, and mother of two IDF soldiers (noncombat, serving in the Education and Youth Corps). With all due respect to the comments above, the people directly affected in this conflict and aiming for objective presentation of facts—that may be contradictory but nevertheless true—have more credibility in discussion than do opinionated bystanders and those such as yourself who are openly hostile to Israel. -- Deborahjay (talk) 22:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

whoawhoawhoawhoa Deborahjay, nobody, including me, the original poster, who asked the original question, is suggesting "the Israelis kill Palestinians because of the Nazi Holocaust". We are talking about what the situation would look like if the Israelis were killing Palestinians on an eye-for-an-eye principle (if it doesn't matter whose eye) and how long they could keep the rate up (my original question), others have raised, under this hypothetical situation why they WOULD do it, but if you read the above very carefully no one except you is saying anything like "the Israelis kill Palestinians because of the Nazi Holocaust". Besides you everyone else is talking about what would happen IF THEY WERE DOING THAT. Or what we could understand in their psyche IF THEY WERE DOING THAT. You're the only one raising the idea that they're doing that. 79.122.31.69 (talk) 00:23, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the point is that your question is stupid, and since it refers to this particular situation, which is already controversial enough when it isn't hypothetical, it sounds a lot like a successful troll post. Congratulations, I guess? Adam Bishop (talk) 00:59, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe now is a good time to point out that at the top of this (and every other) Wikipedia Reference Desk page, it states:

"If you need advice or opinions, it's better to ask elsewhere... The reference desk does not answer requests for opinions or predictions about future events. Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead."

I think that hypothetical questions like this are really unsuitable for the reference desk as they almost invariably lead to debate. We can deal in hypotheticals, of course - "If the Earth were made of cotton candy, how much would I weigh?" - but questions that put a hypothetical spin on real-world controversies are inevitably, well, controversial.

I don't think this question or answers to it can be expected to make a positive contribution to this encyclopedia. There are forums all over the Internet where this sort of thing can be discussed. Why do we need to discuss it here? - Eron^Talk 00:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Question regarding the Field of the Cloth of Gold

Why were Henry and Francis on such good terms when Henry had fought against Francis at the Battle of the Spurs. Henry had peviously become part of a Holy League against France. I don't see why they were both so ready to show their "brotherly love" again, after all that had happened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.227.123.171 (talk) 19:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you read the article? It explains it pretty well. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:52, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

House of Hesse-Darmstadt

The Grand Ducal House of Hesse went extinct in 1968 and was passed to Hesse-Kassel, but was the junior Darmstadt line of Hesse-Homburg still living at that time? --Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 23:48, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

The article on Hesse-Homburg suggests that all parts of Hesse-Homburg were part of other states by 1880 odd- i.e. it no longer existed - so the title presumably didn't exist. But since you wiki-linked the page, I'm gussing I've misunderstood something here? Some off-shoot or other entity perhaps? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 20:49, 23 March 2009 (UTC)