if I had the steely self-restraint of a @Michael or @ssu I might frequent the pol threads more often. It's not from lack of interest but I usually can't last more than a few days before exhaustion sets in. Should we push them off the front page? I don't think so. But some of us should probably accept on certain issues engaging with them is just emotionally destructive.

English is more Arabic even than Spanish. — Lionino

Where is your evidence for this? And was the mechanism by which the language mixing occurred?

The case for the Arabic influence on Spanish is set out in the following wiki article. (There is no dedicated page for its influence on English.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language_influence_on_the_Spanish_language

In fact, in the small section devoted to the subject on this page:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_Arabic_on_other_languages

There is this:

"Like other European languages, English contains many words derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish. "

Which suggests Spanish was not only more influenced by Arabic than English but was a major conduit for the influence of Arabic on English.

I don't know that it's necessarily better to have more words — Baden

E.g. There are (supposedly) 645 distinct meanings of the word "run". Would English be a better language if we had a separate word for all of them? I doubt it.

To a degree it depends on how you measure things. If you include all possible combinations in agglutinative languages where words are made up of multiple affixes specifying case, tense, person, possession, plurality, etc then you can claim massive numbers of distinct words. English is on the analytic side of the spectrum here, meaning the number of affixes is relatively limited, so we tend to need to use relatively more words to describe things (and thus have less individual combinatory words). Chinese is super analytic with hardly any prefixes or affixes at all. I think Vietnamese has literally none, so you won't find that at the top of any vocabulary list.

I don't know that it's necessarily better to have more words, but before anyone gets into an argument about it, try to compare like with like at least.

Thanks for the vids. :up:

but that's because all other language is gibberish to me — Hanover

:lol:

What is impressive is that as Netanyahu's Likud party had as it's party platform "River to the Sea" and also the platform "No two state solution ever", hence all the later part would have worked just fine if you would change the Palestinians and the Jews, like the "Jewhaul", to "Arabhaul". Of course the part:

5:55
As my friend, Dr. Phil says, "How's that working for you?"

The answer would be: it's working quite well!

Yes, Hamas and Likud share quite a lot together — ssu

:up:

And when you call them out for it, they always seem to cut and run...case in point: — Merkwurdichliebe

It was 12 midnight and I had an important meeting the next morning. Should I spend more time trying to convince someone on here that a comedian was wrong about some of the basic history of my country when they just don't want to believe that? I mean this article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pale is all anyone would need, but then I'd just be inviting more off-topic conversation. Maher's statement that Ireland had the whole island to themselves before the plantation period (per Schopes most charitable analysis of what he was saying) is 100% wrong. Not 99%, not 80%, but 100%. They didn't. Look at the map (e.g. "Land held by English King"). His related statement that the start of this foreign intervention in Ireland was Britain coming and taking the tip (N. Ireland) of Ireland is also factually wrong. 100% (e.g. The Pale was on the east coast not in the North). The two things are wrong. Nothing to do with lack of detail, misphrasing. They're just completely wrong. Anyone who made those claims in an exam on the history of Ireland would fail on those points, but someone doesn't want to believe that it's possible Maher (or more likely his writers) are just doing comedy and actual facts don't matter to them. That person wants to take it seriously. I don't know why but there's little point responding further to them.

(Even the first plantations weren't in Ulster but in the midlands. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland . )

Maybe you can send me a link to the study or studies. As @Hanover said, it's more likely just cultural stuff that's being seen there. At least that would be my base presumption until evidence was offered otherwise.

Yes, Britain "controlled" Ireland, but they "settled" Northern Ireland much earlier than Ireland's independence movement, which depending on how we are looking at the history, is why the conflict is a thing in the first place. But yeah, maybe the exact wording doesn't quite fit that narrative, but it is true that Ireland wanted all of it under the Republic of Ireland, including Ulster County, and Britain said no, we retain that. — schopenhauer1

No, that's not how it happened either and Ulster is not a "County" and you have no clue what you're talking about but if you would like to know something, you can read this. We are off topic.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ireland

Good night.

I have work to do. I'll come back to this tomorrow.

Yes, I heard you say that, but you didn't provide your reason for your disagreement... I have yet to see what was wrong there. — schopenhauer1

It's not disagreement. He just got it totally wrong. The whole island of Ireland was fully under the control of Britain and then we fought a war of independence in which we negotiated away N. Ireland at which point the Free State, now the Republic came into being. It was not a case of Ireland being free (having the whole island to ourselves) and then Britain came and took N. Ireland (our tip) away when it became a colonial power. As I said, he just made that up. The fact that you took it seriously without doing even two minutes research on it, is a major weakness that I guess extends to your understanding of Israle/Palestine. Get your facts from books or other reliable sources, not second rate comedians. Also, don't double down when someone points out you're wrong as if Maher is some sort of a reliable source.

Have we not being addressing the topic for 155 pages? But please just spell out the new and incisive contribution Maher has made here and of course we can debate it.

The bit about Ireland is completely and utterly wrong, but whatever, it's light entertainment, so I don't expect him to know anything about that or bother finding out. It's not the point of the show. Ditto with the Middle East and the context there. He might get something right or not randomly. But most people, I presume, watch his show just to relax and have a laugh not to fact check it. Which is fine.

American audiences on mainstream TV are odd and seem to laugh when they think they're supposed to, regardless of content. I remember watching a Letterman episode where the actor who plays Kramer in Seinfeld came on to apologise for calling members of his audience the N word. The audience at the show couldn't get around the fact they were not watching comedy and thought they were supposed to laugh and kept doing so until they were literally told to stop. Odd.

Did I read somewhere its a socio-survival technique? — Daniel Duffy

Sounds right.

Stupid and superficial. There's nothing of substance there. There's no sharp satire or ... well, anything. Of course Hamas is not taking over Tel Aviv. Is that it?

Where are the great points?

As for this:

"The Irish had the entire island to themselves,
1:14
but the British were starting an Empire,
1:16
and well, the Irish lost their tip."

It's totally made up if he means as he seems to we had the entire island and then the British took N. Ireland (our tip). That's not at all what happened.

Anyway, I guarantee you @ssu who is an intelligent commentator will not find this impressive either.

I am familiar on a daily basis with these two feelings — Daniel Duffy

:lol:

this would make the use of 'je ne ce quoi' and other French phrases more about portraying a certain image of oneself rather than whatever the object is you are talking about. — Daniel Duffy

Yes, and that becomes automatic. Relatedly, from a very young age we can "code switch" between and within a language depending on who we're talking to and I think we do that as adults too as a form of social flexibility and image generation. We sadly tend to want to be liked and fit in more than almost anything regardless of whatever narrative we paste over that.

I very much doubt he does, but to highlight how much I dislike listening to popular American mainstream comedians who I find the absolute dullest and untalented people on earth (Letterman was maybe somewhat of an exception but he's gone now), I would much rather even read a post of yours rehashing some of those "great points", so feel free to steal his material.

Don't know why you're tagging me. I'm not going to waste my time on this guy. Maher is boring, conventional, and not too sharp. The comedians I like are mostly dead, unfortunately.

OK, well could hardly be clearer (even though I originally thought I was reading satire).

@NOS4A2 The "poisoning" was done by the Democrats according to Trump as you pointed out, but the poison is the illegal immigrants. Trump is saying that the act of allowing the immigrants (poison) into America is an act of poisoning the blood of the country. If it were not the case that he meant that illegal immigrants were the "poison" then letting them in would not be an act of "poisoning" as there would be no poison. So, if you support that comment, you cannot escape the fact that you are referring to that group of humans as poison. If you contest this, and you claim Trump did not mean the immigrants were poison, you need to specify with what the Democrats are poisoning the blood of the country. What else could the poison be? And you would really have to stretch reality on that one.

Do we native English speakers use these common phrases because French better conveys the meaning, or are we just accustomed to it by this point? — Daniel Duffy

Interesting question. I think you'll find the relative frequency varies according to language community. So, they can become a marker of being a member of a certain class or group. In that case, it would be more about being accustomed to it (and reinforcing your position within a group) than actually anything to do with better conveying meaning. So, I'm not convinced that saying "It has a certain "je ne sais quoi"" conveys the relevant idea better than "it has a certain something". The difference is more in the mood or resonance, which would pertain to the interpersonal (feeling) rather than the experiential (factual) side. There is an absolute ton of research done on this type of thing in Applied Linguistics anyhow as it's a major part of the field. And if we're talking French, there's an interesting historical story to that.

Some borrowed words I think are more efficient at conveying meaning, mostly because they kind of condense an idea in English into one concept. The German word "Heimat" (the feeling of being at home) is one and the Czech word "litost" (the feeling of coming face to face with your own misery) is another. You'll note though that as we can define them we have those ideas in English, they just take longer to say. That is, it's not like we're learning a new feeling we couldn't feel before or anything like that (as linguistic determinism might suggest).

I think this article might be a useful reference point;

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism#:~:text=Linguistic%20determinism%20is%20the%20concept,categorization%2C%20memory%2C%20and%20perception.

Linguistic determinism is pretty much refuted but there's some evidence for the weaker form of that idea, linguistic relativism, i.e. that distinctions between language can influence certain cognitive processes. For example, if you have more colour distinction words (and languages vary fairly widely on this) you might be quicker at picking out different colours. The differences are not very dramatic or important though and I've never had any wow moments reading about this stuff.

Confusion about grammar? — I like sushi

Yes, you seem to be confused about tense and future reference. You don't need the former for the latter and the latter is what's important functionally. Or if you knew that, I don't know why you think tense would matter in the context you gave.

. If you lack use of tenses (like Sicilians) then you are less likely to plan ahead. — I like sushi

This would represent both a strong form of linguistic determinism for which there is no evidence and a confusion about grammar. You don't need tenses to represent the future. English, by some definitions, only has two tenses (present and past) and uses modal verbs to express the rest. Some languages, like Chinese, don't have tenses at all. Does this mean the Chinese are deficient in planning ahead. No, it doesn't, any more than if I use "I am doing it on Saturday" (present continuous tense) to represent the future or I use "I am going to do it on Saturday" (modal auxiliary) makes me less likely to be planning ahead than if I use what we call the future tense "I will do it on Saturday" (but is actually a modal, oh no!)

Well, I was going to say something... Anyhow, fwiw, from a linguistic perspective, the question is somewhat analagous to asking a biologist if salmon are better than cod. Languages evolve to fill sociocultural spaces as animals evolve to fill environmental niches. It's the nature of human language that when a sociocultural gap or function becomes available, it will fill it. So, in their own context, languages can't really be said to be better than one another. Also, humans can both easily handle their own language and several more at the same time once we receive sufficient early exposure, so there's not really an issue of unwieldiness either. You might get some traction on the idea if you focus on writing systems though.

I appreciate that perspective, but what are they reading? And how do we separate out the day-to-day reality of who people are from what is selectively presented to us? My direct exposure to Palestinians is limited but having had, often through teaching online, students from all over the world, I've noted thst commonalities tend to trump differences and that's maybe why I tend to have a relatively positive view of the average person that may not take account of highly objectionable attitudes or beliefs they don't reveal to me. I'm willing to learn more on this, but again, qualitative studies, long form interviews is what I'm after. Anyhow, I agree completely war does degrade people and the cycle of degradation seems to have gotten completely out of control here. I don't think that was an inevitability if there had been different leadership on both sides.

It looks OK. There is an answer to the question from a linguistic perspective too. I might get involved.

Discussion or post? And what was it about? Then I'll go check.

I heard another disheartening statistic lately. According to one poll, 75% of the palestinian population supported the 10/7 attacks. I am now sympathetic to the view that the society now needs to be fundamentally restructured. — BitconnectCarlos

I would like to know the context for that but remember the way the attacks are presented is just as skewed on the Palestinian side. I would like to know what it is these people actually support. I doubt all 75% would say they support the indiscriminate killing of Israeli civilians any more than Israelis would say that. Instead, they are likely to simply deny that's happened and claim to be supporting a justifiable military operation. But there's just not enough information there. A qualitative study is likely to be more revealing.

Firstly:

"Hamas's fighters did not behead Israeli babies, was the conclusion of an investigation conducted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz"

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/did-hamas-fightersdecapitate-israeli-babies-israeli-newspaper-answers/

Secondly, regardless of that argument, you are not against killing babies or civilians as long as they are Palestinians. You continually justify it. In fact, it's hard to understand how you think you have any credibility when, with a simple change of label, you could be a Hamas spokesman justifying their killings. You are that person for whom the enemy, including its civilians, are nothing. That's your burden of confusion and moral emptiness to live with and I pity you.

Of course, Israel could be more brutal. It could nuke Gaza or just completely level it, but we ought not to give credit to them for not being as brutal as possible if we also want to claim they are civilized. because we are entitled to have certain expectations of civilized countries even in war. I acknowledge, for example, that if Hamas was granted Israel's military capability, they would likely be more brutal than Israel is being now, but it is of no credit to anyone just to be better than Hamas. The bar has to be higher. And what disturbs me here is when I get the impression from some that it's not.

I have had (online) students from Gaza. The last one I spoke to was trying to get out, on a scholarship to America, far as I remember. He didn't hate the West. He wasn't a fanatic. And he wasn't inferior to any of my other students either. He was an earnest, polite, and respectful guy looking for a better life and that is my base presumption of who people in Israel and Gaza, despite their shitty governments, are. It's also my base presumption that if any of us here had to bear direct witness to the killing there, we would not be so quick to gloss over the details of how this operation is being conducted, regardless of whether we thought some kind of operation needed to be undertaken. What's frustrated me on this thread is the unwillingness to look at the reality of what's going on head on. That requires at the very least humanizing, not generalizing.

And I'm sure you know by now that in Gaza the line between civilian and military is essentially nil. Hamas does not wear uniforms. — BitconnectCarlos

No, it's not. Civilians are civilians and militants are miltiants regardless of their fashion choices. You have to consider the logic of the alternative. If the line is really literally nil for you and you also support eliminating the military then you would be saying you support elimintaing 1.5 million people, only roughly 40,000 (less than 3%) of whom are actual militants, 50% of whom are children. I don't believe you do, but again, words have consequences and this idea that everyone in Gaza is Hamas is used to justify killing civilians and should not be so used. It's that simple. Talk about being civilized. The first rule should be "protect the innocent", no? Incidentally, Hamas have used a similar argument, that Israeli civilians are indistinguishable from the military due to their compulsory military service. This is again just an excuse to dehumanize innocent civilians so they may be attacked with impunity.

Here's where nuance comes in, for me at least. There's a difference, for example, between a targeted missile strike on an apartment that kills an enemy militant and also an innocent civilian from the apartment next door and simply bombing the apartment block and killing 100 innocent civilians and the militant. Every option in between could also be explored ethically but the former shows some respect for civilian life and the latter doesn't. This idea of respecting and protecting civilian life is expressed in the Geneva conventions as follows:

"In 1977, Protocol I was adopted as an amendment to the Geneva Conventions, prohibiting the deliberate or indiscriminate attack of civilians and civilian objects in the war-zone; the attacking force must take precautions and steps to spare the lives of civilians and civilian objects as possible.[6] Although ratified by 173 countries, the only countries that are currently not signatories to Protocol I are the United States, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Turkey."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty#:~:text=International%20law,-Following%20the%20Second&text=In%201977%2C%20Protocol%20I%20was,and%20civilian%20objects%20as%20possible.

It's expressed there because it reflects the appropriate, in my view, moral intuition that civilians should not be indiscriminately or unnecessarily punished during war. It's telling that the U.S. and Israel are two of only six countries that haven't signed up to this (although others have signed and simply ignore it).

Thanks for clarifying.

It confuses me that it's so fucking stupid. Superior in every way possible would include e.g. intelligence, which would make you a racist. So you ought to get busy, stop fucking around, and withdraw or clarify.

I did say it because I meant it. There is a moral superiority of the West to others. What's shocking is that you can't admit it. — Hanover

Your claim was not limited to morality. Your claim as it is written is that the West is superior to the non-West in every possible way. Are you saying now you didn't mean that? Feel free to clarify.

This is the quote under scrutiny:

The point here is that equality is not a wedding vow, and it is worth admitting that we (meaning the West and its values) are superior to others, in terms of morality, technology, civility, and in every way possible. — Hanover

The sweeping nature of which makes it obviously false. But I still want it admitted so and withdrawn without any BS attempts to pretend he never said that.

Just read @Hanover's post.