I think there's more difference than that. They have distinct histories and languages. It's like, New York and... Louisiana? Puerto Rico? Not really any close analogy
i think the us has a sense of cultural unity that can make things like this hard for Americans to understand. The civil war and "states rights" crap afterwards are largely about policy. Texas and California were separate republics for like five minutes before joining the union. Deseret was founded by guys who thought the American democracy system was super great. The country didn't take over or assimilate existing governments, it just annihilated them. The only state that had a venerable and reasonably un destroyed government of its own before statehood is Hawaii. Something like Wales, an independent kingdom for a billion years, we just have no understanding of the practicalities of that.
I think there's more difference than that. They have distinct histories and languages. It's like, New York and... Louisiana? Puerto Rico? Not really any close analogy
Maybe New York and Cajuns. But even then it doesn't really capture ^^ that, it's just sort of starting to scratch the surface of relative foreign-ness.
What Klinotaxis said sounds right, but honestly i'm way, way too ignorant about the cultural differences across US states and Canadian provinces to even answer that question.
i mean i'd guess not, because afaik there isn't a major Virginian Nationalist party that gets significant political support, and New York doesn't have laws still on the books permitting one to shoot Virginians with a longbow providing they are within the city walls after midnight
i mean i'd guess not, because afaik there isn't a major Virginian Nationalist party that gets significant political support, and New York doesn't have laws still on the books permitting one to shoot Virginians with a longbow providing they are within the city walls after midnight
Well I mean it's not that there aren't differences, it's just that those are differences that arose within the last two centuries (which is not a ton of time by European politics standards) from a pretty homogenous "settler" population, rather than differences that are so old and established that you need paleontology to understand their origins.
What Klinotaxis said sounds right, but honestly i'm way, way too ignorant about the cultural differences across US states and Canadian provinces to even answer that question.
i mean i'd guess not, because afaik there isn't a major Virginian Nationalist party that gets significant political support, and New York doesn't have laws still on the books permitting one to shoot Virginians with a longbow providing they are within the city walls after midnight
If I may, I think part of the problem here is that American acts as a super-identity that contains within it all the different cultural identities within it, contradicting none. Cajuns and New Yorkers and Utah Mormons are very different, but they all still fly the American flag, and light up fireworks on the fourth of July. You can be a Cajun and an American without contradiction. As far as I can tell, the United Kingdom doesn't act as nearly as much of a substantial super-identity, especially when it tends to overlap with one particular sub-cultural identity and national pride.
Yes, i think that is the difference. i mean they're even called 'constituent countries'. In the Six Nations (rugby), the six competing nations are England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and (for some reason) Italy.
Scots don't celebrate St. George's, the English can't even pronounce 'eisteddfod', St. Patrick's is observed everywhere but only to the extent of drinking Guinness and wearing green, and if you're not Scottish the only reason you celebrate Burns Night is if you actually *like* haggis.
Meanwhile Bonfire Night is a beloved holiday in England and Scotland, and probably the closest thing we have to the 4th of July celebrations, but in parts of Northern Ireland is a highly controversial act considered offensive to many.
And the different 'nationalisms' are very different. A Welsh or Scottish nationalist is a socially respectable political stance, an English nationalist is a fascist. And there are people who identify strongly with 'Britain' but even that means different things depending on which country you're in.
The longbow remark was a facetious comment, in case that wasn't obvious, but laws like that *do* exist in places, and there are historical reasons why. To this day there are bars where if you speak with an English accent you want to be very careful, and very polite.
It was facetious insofar as it was a reference to various local bylaws that only haven't been struck from the books because they're largely forgotten about and would never actually hold up in court nowadays.
It's complicated but the short version: in GB Scotland is associated with social liberalism, socialism, an international outlook (although there are, of course, many conservative Scots). In Ireland the Scots were essentially colonizers and emphasizing Scottish culture is sometimes put forward as the Unionists' answer to Irish nationalism and contemporary Celtic revivalism (though, be careful, as by no means all Irish Scots are Unionists).
Oh, that must be the same group as the Scotch-Irish I'm not descended from
Yes, Ulster Scots. They came over during Cromwell's time, most of them are fairly devout Presbyterians or Anglicans (of the Church of Ireland specifically), and they natively speak a small family of Scottish dialects which are indescribably strange and put the lie to the idea that Scots and English are really the same language.
It is worth noting that the Gaels of Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man are all ultimately descended from the same people, to the point that the literal translation of the Latin appellation Scotus is best translated as "the Irishman," as in the names of Eriugena and, naturally, Duns Scotus.
There isn't really a scientific distinction between a language and a dialect.
Scots is sometimes considered a dialect of English, sometimes a language in its own right. It's kinda mutually intelligible with English, but it can be a bit impenetrable if you're not accustomed to it, and there are a lot of words in Scots that aren't used in English.
Part of the reason it's treated as a distinct language is that it has its own distinct orthography and literary history.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
The Scottish have such great words for describing Republicans!
The problem is, of course, that nation states which want a national standard and wish to discourage regionalism tend to treat distinct languages as dialects to downplay their importance and forcibly assimilate speakers. Japan's treatment of Okinawan, Miyako and the other Ryukuan languages is a particularly egregious example, but countries like Italy, Spain and France have in the past attempted to erase or marginalise their own minority languages and strongly divergent dialects (e.g. Poitevin, Neapolitan, Leonese) in the same fashion.
The Scots dialects of Ireland and Northern Ireland are an interesting example because they are often recognised where they are spoken, but they have been politicised as a symbol of Unionism in such a way that official usage does not reflect the spoken language because Unionist activists want it to seem as divergent from English as possible—despite the fact that Connacht Scots in particular is already so different as to be mutually unintelligible with Standard British English or even Scots as it is spoken in Scotland.
Incidental note on the Ulster Scots: The Red Hand of Ulster is actually derived from my great-great-great-grandmother's family crest. It's one of the largest and oldest families in Ireland, actually.
My mother's father's family, or one of its branches, apparently has a castle somewhere in northern Germany. This bears no relation to the Uí Néill, however.
Yeah, and when they did those languages got some respect! But then the navies started sucking and look at it now. Sicilian means gangster slang and Aragonese pretends it's from Tolkien to cheer itself up. Sad!
I recently learned that the miko's song in Umi Monogatari is sung in the local language of the setting -- the Amami language.
Amami! I think it's the most common of the Ryukyuan languages but I'm not sure. Still, it sounds quite different from Japanese: For one thing, tu is a thing.
is Okinawan not the most common Ryukyuan language? I'd've expected that one, but maybe just because that's where the US military base is and it's where karate's from (though the popularity of karate in the West is also probably linked to the US military base)
It's the second or third. I'll Google it. *does so*
Huh, apparently I got the numbers wrong. Okinawan is *definitely* the most common. The second and third are apparently Miyako and Amami, although all three are kind of little dialect families to themselves.
The strangest thing about 2016 politics so far is that the UK has actually managed to do something stupider than anything the US has come up with so far.
Yes, this tops the rise of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for POTUS.
...no, the US still has one opportunity to top this.
...no, it's not an opportunity that should be taken advantage of. Far from it.
I honestly had no idea that Old Jersey still existed.
Like I knew the name must've come from somewhere, but I never knew where specifically and assumed it was some defunct territory.
Brief history/geography lesson: Jersey, Guernsey and Sark are all islands in the English Channel which were settled during the Norman Conquest and have since that time been semi-autonomous territories in sworn fealty to the English crown but culturally somewhat apart from the rest of the UK, like if Guam were colder and inexplicably white. The UK basically leaves them to do whatever they please and nobody cares because they are really just a series of lonely tourist spots and unless war is afoot they don't do much. For the longest time much of the population also spoke Jérrais, which is a dialect of French derived from the mediaeval Norman standard rather than the Parisian one from which modern French derives, although it's fairly rare now and mostly spoken by the very old.
They were occupied by the Nazis too. The nazis thought they we're strategically important and well defended but the Uk was like nahhhhhh you can have em
Comments
i mean i'd guess not, because afaik there isn't a major Virginian Nationalist party that gets significant political support, and New York doesn't have laws still on the books permitting one to shoot Virginians with a longbow providing they are within the city walls after midnight
Scots don't celebrate St. George's, the English can't even pronounce 'eisteddfod', St. Patrick's is observed everywhere but only to the extent of drinking Guinness and wearing green, and if you're not Scottish the only reason you celebrate Burns Night is if you actually *like* haggis.
Meanwhile Bonfire Night is a beloved holiday in England and Scotland, and probably the closest thing we have to the 4th of July celebrations, but in parts of Northern Ireland is a highly controversial act considered offensive to many.
And the different 'nationalisms' are very different. A Welsh or Scottish nationalist is a socially respectable political stance, an English nationalist is a fascist. And there are people who identify strongly with 'Britain' but even that means different things depending on which country you're in.
The longbow remark was a facetious comment, in case that wasn't obvious, but laws like that *do* exist in places, and there are historical reasons why. To this day there are bars where if you speak with an English accent you want to be very careful, and very polite.
(Also I didn't know that the longbow comment was facetious.)
It's complicated but the short version: in GB Scotland is associated with social liberalism, socialism, an international outlook (although there are, of course, many conservative Scots). In Ireland the Scots were essentially colonizers and emphasizing Scottish culture is sometimes put forward as the Unionists' answer to Irish nationalism and contemporary Celtic revivalism (though, be careful, as by no means all Irish Scots are Unionists).
It is worth noting that the Gaels of Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man are all ultimately descended from the same people, to the point that the literal translation of the Latin appellation Scotus is best translated as "the Irishman," as in the names of Eriugena and, naturally, Duns Scotus.
Scots is sometimes considered a dialect of English, sometimes a language in its own right. It's kinda mutually intelligible with English, but it can be a bit impenetrable if you're not accustomed to it, and there are a lot of words in Scots that aren't used in English.
Part of the reason it's treated as a distinct language is that it has its own distinct orthography and literary history.
And pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
And there's a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
The problem is, of course, that nation states which want a national standard and wish to discourage regionalism tend to treat distinct languages as dialects to downplay their importance and forcibly assimilate speakers. Japan's treatment of Okinawan, Miyako and the other Ryukuan languages is a particularly egregious example, but countries like Italy, Spain and France have in the past attempted to erase or marginalise their own minority languages and strongly divergent dialects (e.g. Poitevin, Neapolitan, Leonese) in the same fashion.
The Scots dialects of Ireland and Northern Ireland are an interesting example because they are often recognised where they are spoken, but they have been politicised as a symbol of Unionism in such a way that official usage does not reflect the spoken language because Unionist activists want it to seem as divergent from English as possible—despite the fact that Connacht Scots in particular is already so different as to be mutually unintelligible with Standard British English or even Scots as it is spoken in Scotland.
Steal all those subs I say
The Miyako word for "to sell" is vv. Literally a long v noise. That is so stupid and yet so amazing I can't even express it.
Like phonic bagpipes
*does so*
Huh, apparently I got the numbers wrong. Okinawan is *definitely* the most common. The second and third are apparently Miyako and Amami, although all three are kind of little dialect families to themselves.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Also, Boris Johnson has finally explained his Brexit plan, which is to join the EU
nigel farage seems like someone who should be punished with not one but fifty thwacks to the head from a newspaper
At least he made a token acknowledgement that there were and are unspeakably horrible people on the Unionist side. Well, barely, but it is there.
Soon to join Andorra and Liechtenstein as one of those tiny nations with no purpose save to remind us that Europe is a very strange place.
Also, Andorra is implied to be the setting of part of the anime series Noir.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Yes, this tops the rise of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for POTUS.
...no, the US still has one opportunity to top this.
...no, it's not an opportunity that should be taken advantage of. Far from it.
Brief history/geography lesson: Jersey, Guernsey and Sark are all islands in the English Channel which were settled during the Norman Conquest and have since that time been semi-autonomous territories in sworn fealty to the English crown but culturally somewhat apart from the rest of the UK, like if Guam were colder and inexplicably white. The UK basically leaves them to do whatever they please and nobody cares because they are really just a series of lonely tourist spots and unless war is afoot they don't do much. For the longest time much of the population also spoke Jérrais, which is a dialect of French derived from the mediaeval Norman standard rather than the Parisian one from which modern French derives, although it's fairly rare now and mostly spoken by the very old.