I often wonder how long it would have taken me to get up to speed linguistically if I had been allowed to join the international legion. I know I could drive a truck and free up a space, but I am too old. Anyway, I find I am talking to people in Ukraine and helping in the ways that I can. I don't feel too useful, which is incredibly frustrating for me.
I just had a conversation with someone in Lv'iv, which is in the west and "away" from the heavy fighting in the east. It's an area close to the Polish border. Still, they are having a hard time.
My family is firmly in the "Here they beat you up for the Russian language" territory. Nationalist relations prevented my gaining Polish citizenship. Amusingly, I am not sure if I qualify for Ukrainian citizenship, which would be analogous to denying one of the Kennedy clan (ya know, JFK, RFK, etc.) Irish citizenship. I saw an interesting comparison of Ukraine and Ireland, which I sort of agree with. And why I compare myself to the Kennedys.
This is pretty good on the differences between the two languages.
Or Just because a language belongs to a particular family doesn't mean that they will sound alike since English is a Germanic language. It shares a lot of similarities with Dutch, but most English speakers can't understand spoken Dutch.
I'm reposting this here since Wordpress stinks for editing. There's a quote in here which it doesn't do. I also wanted to add a video. That said:
I made a comment about how people in Europe kill each other over what religion they practise or language they speak. Slavic languages have the added factor of varying alphabets, which is interesting when you deal with the pan-Slavic crowd. They sort of have a point in that the languages are similar enough that you can be understood about the way most Scandanavians can understand each other. Then you get to the Alphabets. The former Yugoslavia was torn apart by religion and differences in Alphabets. Likewise, Polish and Ukrainian are fairly similar until you get to the Alphabet.
This is the Polish alphabet.
The Ł is pronounced like Elmer Fudd saying the letter "W". So, Wrocław is pronounced like Vroswav. In my opinion, the German transliteration of Breslaw (with a German accent) works better for non-Poles. The alphabet is a romanised version of Ukrainian/cyrillic.
Ukrainian and Russian both use the Cyrillic alphabet, but slightly different versions. There are four letters in Ukrainian missing from Russian (ґ, є, і, ї), and four letters in Russian missing from Ukrainian (ё, ъ, ы, э). Also:
One frequently cited figure is that Ukrainian and Russian share about 62% of their vocabulary. This is about the same amount of shared vocabulary that English has with Dutch, according to the same calculations. If you expand your sample by scraping internet data to compare a broader range of words than just those 200 ancient “core” words, the proportion of shared words declines. One computational model suggests that Russian and Ukrainian share about 55% of their vocabulary.
Using that higher figure of 62%, though, a Russian with no knowledge of Ukrainian (or vice versa) would understand roughly five in eight words. To understand this, have a friend cross out three out of every eight words in a newspaper and see how much of the text you can follow.
Anyway, the Cyrillic alphabet also was a force which prevented Russians from invading a good part of Western Europe. I mean, can most people read Cyrillic? Now, turn it around to the Roman alphabet for the average Slavic language speaker. You don't need guns to prevent a Russian invasion--Road signs work quite well.
On the other hand, these nations have different enough cultures that it requires a certain amount of sensitivity toward that fact which gets into how one transliterates Kyiv (or pronounces it for that matter).
More like Kew, or the "ł" in Polish, which I learned from my Ukrainian cousin.
My "slavic" heritage is more western (Ukraine, Poland, "Czechoslovakia"{1}, etc.) with my ancestors being definitely Austro-Hungarian. This is why I was musing on this topic: way more variation in Slavic languages outside of Russia.
Footnote:
{1} this saves listing a bunch of former and current countries due to European cartographical changes.
I used a picture of a costume Gendarme the last time I did this post on this subject. This time I am using actual material from the French Gendarmerie Nationale. Those who do not understand French can turn on autotranslated English subtitles.
The Maréchaussée, a precursor to the Gendarmerie Nationale dates back to the Middle Ages. Some historians tracing it back to the early 12th century around the commencement of the Hundred Years War.. The Current version of the Gendarmerie dates to when Maréchaussée was organised in 1536, or, formally, the Constabulary and Marshalcy of France (connétablie et maréchaussée de France). Gens d'Armes (men at arms) is a term used in even older sources. That's why I included "Second Amendment History" as a subject here. The Gendarmerie is a force of the nation for the protection and security of the people. It has been a military force since its inception. This is different from the Anglo-American sense of the police, and military, as being subordinate to the citizenry.
The basics:
The National Gendarmerie is one of two
national law enforcement forces of France, along with the National
Police. The Gendarmerie is a branch of the French Armed Forces placed
under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior, with additional
duties from the Ministry of Armed Forces.
In short, it is an internal army, which is a no-no in Anglo-American, especially American, tradition.
The first video is a short video on the history of the Gendarmerie Nationale:
The next clip requires some explanation since there are two different branches of the Gendarmerie Nationale: the Gendarmerie Départementale and the Gendarmerie Mobile (OK, three if you count the Garde Républicaine). The next video has more than you ever wanted to know about the organisation of the Gendarmerie Nationale. It does a lot of things.
Now, let's get specific as to the two main groups
The Gendarmerie Départementale is best explained by comparing it to US state police forces. It is in charge of policing small towns and rural areas. The Departmental Gendarmerie carries out the general public order duties
in municipalities with a population of up to 20,000 citizens. When that limit is exceeded, the jurisdiction over the municipality is turned over to the National Police.
The Gendarmerie Mobile is an internal military force organized into the seven regions of the Mobile Gendarmerie (one for each of the seven military regions of metropolitan France, called (Zones de Défense). It comprises 18 Groups (Groupements de Gendarmerie mobile) featuring 109 squadrons for a total of approximately 11,300 personnel. Its main responsibilities are:
crowd and riot control
general security in support of the Departmental Gendarmerie
military and defense missions
missions that require large amounts of personnel (Vigipirate counter-terrorism patrols, searches in the countryside...)
Nearly 20% of the Mobile Gendarmerie squadrons are permanently deployed on a rotational basis in the French overseas territories. Other units deploy occasionally abroad alongside French troops engaged in military operations (OPEX or external operations).
The Mobile Gendarmerie includes GBGM (Groupement Blindé de la Gendarmerie Nationale), an armored grouping composed of seven squadrons equipped with VXB armoured personnel carriers, better known in the Gendarmerie as VBRG (Véhicule Blindé à Roues de la Gendarmerie, "Gendarmerie armoured wheeled vehicle"). It is based at Versailles-Satory. This unit also specializes in Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense (CBRN) defense.
This system is unlike the US, which has the Posse Comitatus Act a United
States law which limits the powers of the federal government in the use of
federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the
United States, France has a professional military which works internally with no issues to that. To some extent, the British also use their military for civil defence. The Militia in the United States, which is now the National Guard, and has the powers to enforce internal order given to it under Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 & 16:
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming,
and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as
may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the
States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority
of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by
Congress;
The founders' intent was to have a civilian force, instead of a professional military one, to handle the tasks which are delegated to the Gendarmerie Mobile in France. This is due to a cultural difference where the Anglo-American tendency is to dislike large standing military forces. Or as the Virginia Constitution of 1776 states in its Bill of Rights:
Sec. 13. That a well-regulated militia,
composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper,
natural, and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time
of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all
cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed
by, the civil power.
I should add that modern police forces are a new thing in Anglo-American tradition dating back to the early to mid 19th Century. There were night watches and other non-professional forms of law enforcement early on. Modern policing only began to emerge in the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century, influenced by the British model of policing established in 1829 based on the principles of Sir Robert Peel.
Sir Robert Peel created what is termed an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent in the United Kingdom and other countries such as Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
In this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. "Policing by consent" indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so.
The first organized, publicly-funded professional full-time police services were established in Boston in 1838, New York in 1844, and Philadelphia in 1854.
As I said, the difference in attitude is based upon cultural differences.
This is interesting. I wouldn't say that I am a total Tucker Carlson fan, but I did start watching him during the Covid. This is an interesting take on him and his show. I have to agree with this since I feel the same way as Russell Brand does and he makes a lot of very interesting points.
These videos are more press release than research paper, designed to show
the subject in the best possible light. I doubt we’ll see Atlas running
cross-country races any time soon, and there are a whole host of
limitations, from battery life to noisiness, which would need to be
overcome for success in the wild, or even a warehouse. Still, if you’re
in any doubt as to what its creators have accomplished, or how hard this
is to do, I’ll leave you with a compilation of some of its peers.
Sure, it's neat to see videos of robots jumping up and down while doing things that would be impossible for most people. On the other hand, I wonder how fake those happen to be. Are the interviews with AI chatbots staged by people who know what to ask.
Yes, yet another attempt to get information from a computer "gatekeeper" which ended in failure.
You can't really complain to the company since the AI won't let you talk to a person: especially if your query isn't in their menu of options. This is why a human is far better than a machine--no matter how "intelligent" it may appear.
In this current case--I have received notice that a shipment is on its way from a company I am not familiar with. I contacted the company, but this shipment appears to be a mistake. So, I thought I would try to find out more from the carrier.
Unfortunately, the AI works as a gatekeeper to prevent me from actually getting help with my issue.
As I said, AI is more useless than trying to talk to someone in a call centre who happens to speak my language as a second language: if even that. At least the person in the call centre will make some effort. The machine lacks empathy and understanding of the actual issue.
The only thing to worry about artificial intelligence is that there isn't some form of human check to keep if from doing what it does best.
It was very weird for me to watch the coronations of Charles and Camilla on French TV. There was the distance caused by the language and commentary. Also, it seemed like something from the past, which it is. But it seemed even more anachronistic.
Toss in that it is way more ostentatious than any of the other European monarchies, there are 12 of them, six of which are members of the EU (Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden). Things have changed quite a bit since at the start of the 20th century only France, Switzerland and San Marino were the only European nations to have a republican form of government.
Unfortunately for the people who want to say the US is a republic, not a democracy, the only real difference between those two systems of government are that democracy has the ability to be a monarchy. Euronews has an interesting article: Politics and popularity: Why are there still so many monarchies in Europe? It's not the only news source discussing European monarchies.
I'm not sure how I feel about monarchy these days. Although I do side with the comment that “There is no contradiction between a country being a monarchy and being an advanced democracy”. Also, “One of the roles for the royal family is to be a symbol for the nation as a whole and therefore the monarch as an institution has to strive to represent the whole of the nation.”
Monarchy unifies a nation as Clement Atlee said: “Far less danger under a constitutional monarchy of being carried away by a Hitler, a Mussolini or even a de Gaulle.” That's an interesting thought to ponder in light of US politics.
Hang around me and start talking about technology and you will hear the term Luddite. The Luddites were people in early 19th Century England who hated technology. They are the ones who put the spanner in the machine. These days, they would just unplug the thing. Or to quote History.com:
“Luddite” is now a blanket term used to describe people who dislike new
technology, but its origins date back to an early 19th-century labor
movement that railed against the ways that mechanized manufactures and
their unskilled laborers undermined the skilled craftsmen of the day.
I'm not exactly sure where I stand in this spectrum, but I am less enthusiastic, or frightened, about AI than most people. On the other hand, it does tend to replace humans who are actually much better at interacting with other humans than a machine.
Machines are like people who have a limited understanding of a language, yet are working where they need total fluency and proficiency. Sometimes, they don't even rise to that level as the Comcast "intelligent assistant demonstrates". I kept asking it the same question and wanting to speak to a human, but it ended up disconnecting me.
I find interactions with Artificial Intelligence to be more frustrating than helpful. And once one sees past the illusion, AI proves to be totally useless. One doesn't need Luddites to smash the machine: the machine is useless. Still, the bosses would prefer to spend the money on technological toys than hire people to actually do the job.
I was going to give ChatGPT a try to see how long it would take to show it isn't worth the hype, but I would need to sign up for an account. That doesn't make me trust it since there is no disclaimer as to what this company will do with my information.
I have tinkered with AI art programmes with varying results: most of which I would consider crap. Of course, some people find the results to be incredible.
On the other hand, AI is worse than the call centres in some country where they do not speak my language as a first language. Although, in reality, they are both pretty bad. At least the human is making an effort to communicate.
A computer can't.
It cannot truly empathise with your situation. It doesn't really understand what is happening. It only compares what it is being told to possible scripts, but life is not scripted.
So, don't worry--just unplug the thing. And hope that business will realise that it isn't saving money in the long run--especially if they start haemorraging customers.
As I detail in my book, DNA samples recovered in Egypt from the New
Kingdom to the Roman Period reveal that Egyptians had predominantly
southern European and Near Eastern ancestry; sub-Saharan African
ancestry didn’t exceed 15 percent in the ancient times and doesn’t
exceed 21 percent in Egypt today. So it’s safe to say that even with
some Egyptian heritage, in today’s terms she wouldn’t have been Black
but biracial.
There are quite a few important things to keep in mind here since the Mediterranean is surrounded by three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia and there was trade between those continents from pre-historic times (yes). OK, this map is modern, but the geography is pretty much timeless.
You might be able to try and waffle that sub-Saharan Africa wasn't part of the trade, but the Gahanian and Malian Empires pretty much refute that: toss in the Kerma culture of Nubia for good measure.
It's simplistic to think of Europe as being this island in the upper parts of the Eastern (and some Western) Hemisphere isolated from the rest of the "known world": especially when you think of "here be monsters" on old maps. But the Hereford Mappa Mundi includes India.
I have no problem with the actress playing Cleopatra since she pretty much looks like what I would expect a Cleopatra to look like, instead of Elizabeth Taylor. Biracial and lighter complected.
Just because I identify with the Eastern Hemisphere, and Europe, doesn't mean I don't acknowledge that other cultures haven't been influential in Europe. It's hard to deny when Africa is touching Iberia at the west.
