English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:06 AM

Dear Turkey,

Next time build cottages, not flats. That was just asking for trouble.

@Mitch I found this lemonde.fr/en/m-le-mag/article/2022/05/06/…

> Even if the state seems to have forgotten this town, on the edge of the Urals, hit by deindustrialization and unemployment, its inhabitants continue to think that Vladimir Putin has restored the country to greatness.

Now I will only seat in the middle of couches

Thank you, top US urologists. That left margin seat used to be my favorite.

CowperKettle

12:57 AM

> A political reactionary in his own country, fearful that democracy would inevitably lead to mob rule, Custine went to Russia looking for arguments against representative government, but he was appalled by autocracy as practiced in Russia and equally by the Russian people's apparent collaboration in their own oppression.

Haha. "Visiting Russia - the best way to flip your opinion" (c) Custine, Andre Gide, Orwell

@Vikas For some reason, floods are deadlier. Probably due to the associated diseases, and spoiled crops leading to famine

CowperKettle

1:59 AM

Мы все хотим замуж за Путина

►

A mock song "We all want to marry Putin"

In the style of the 1970s Soviet pseudo-folk officialeze songs

CowperKettle

2:23 AM

along the railway in Şekeroba (Türkoğlu, Kahramanmaraş, Turkey)

> - See, you just press here, and a second tab opens.
- So there was no need to buy a second laptop?

Cerberus

2:53 AM

He is known for his wild speculations and uncritical acceptance of 'sources'.

I wouldn't take him seriously.

He's also 85 or something.

Mitch

3:24 AM

@jlliagre 👍

French place names always seem to be trick questions, like it's obviously some Latin word, but it turns out it really is some preceltic word for 'hill'

@Cerberus my thoughts exactly

CowperKettle

Lawyer uses Zoom filter by mistake - 'I'm not a cat' - BBC News

►

Two years ago this day

@jlliagre Ah! Interesting. Someone should add the Etymology section to the Wikipedia article and explain the name's provinence

> The name Champagne, formerly written Champaigne, comes from French meaning "open country" (suited to military maneuvers) and from Latin campanius meaning "level country" or "plain"[2] which is also the derivation of the name of the Italian region of Campania.

CowperKettle

3:47 AM

#Worldle #385 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Vikas

4:26 AM

> #Worldle #385 2/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

CowperKettle

4:50 AM

I forgot the country's capital

Vikas

5:04 AM

I've heard capital name but didn't know it's its capital.

M.A.R.

6:15 AM

@Mitch well it still sounds like sort of a starter to me.

> having a pentagon shaped table with six chairs

Hunh? There are authors out there who 1) conjure up a pentagonal table, and 2) say there are six chairs arranged around it?

CowperKettle

Another Wagner member died in Ukraine.

In 2004, he beat up a security guard and stole some equipment from a warehouse worth 1 million rubles. The next month, he and friends killed a guy who was delivering monthly pensions to old people, and took 206 thousand rubles.

After that, he managed to evade capture for 15 years, and was put into a high-security jail for 18 years in 2019.

Enrolled as a mercenary in a bid to cut his sentence, and was killed in Ukraine.

M.A.R.

Evil Jake Gyllenhaal had it coming

CowperKettle

The State Duma is currently considering a bill that would make it illegal for media outlets to mention the criminal past of any people who have died in Ukraine.

So this particular stream of news will soon be cut.

M.A.R.

> In fact, McCarthy may be the source of another frequent irritant: the evaporation of quotation marks. If it’s meant to seem sophisticated or streamlined, it’s not working.

I dunno what I was expecting but the article is too Buzzfeed-y for me.

CowperKettle

Yes, a lookalike

M.A.R.

6:27 AM

He was great in Prisoners. I thought you said you watched it?

@CowperKettle it's interesting comparing the attitudes of our regimes. In a similar case, Iranian officials would never have hesitated or waited for a bill to censor stuff

Is it that, no matter how crazy they get, they still hold some respect for the power of information and media, so much that they feel guilty for manipulating it and need a bill for a band-aid?

I mean, our respective officials would filter everything without remorse, and they really would believe it's the right thing to do.

It's at least partly because Iran has always felt isolated and weak, even compared to post-Special Operation Russia

CowperKettle

Finland: 2.5 stillborn babies per 1000, Pakistan: 25 stillborn babies per 1000 data.unicef.org/resources/…

@M.A.R. Yes, Russia is yet advanced.

@M.A.R. Maybe because in Iran there's this totally permeating ideology, like it was in the USSR

When Lenin introduced censorship, he said it would only be temporary, until the Civil War ends.

After the Soviets have power in their hands, no censorship would be allowed. :)

@M.A.R. I am amazed that Putin has not closed the borders, even now.

He should have done it right away, when specialists started leaving the country.

How does he expect to fight the war?

Not closing the borders, not shutting the press totally. Curious.

M.A.R.

6:45 AM

@CowperKettle everyone knows promises made during a power struggle are trustworthy, so this keeps happening around the world

@CowperKettle maybe the number of people leaving is exaggerated?

CowperKettle

I read about the early days of the Taliban. "We were so inspired and kept having discussions what a bright world it would be. And then it was all centralized, and discussions on policy were banned".

@M.A.R. I don't know. Three of my friends have left, and one is preparing to leave.

M.A.R.

Hmm

CowperKettle

7:20 AM

I wonder if censorship was part of the idea of the Islamic Revolution, or if it was also a temporary measure that grew constant, like in the USSR.

CowperKettle

7:40 AM

> Until 2015 or so, a very small number of these boys comprised the population of pediatric gender dysphoria cases. Then, across the Western world, there began to be a dramatic increase in a new population: Teenage girls, many with no previous history of gender distress, suddenly declared they were transgender and demanded immediate treatment with testosterone.

thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids

Maybe all these transgender transitions should be postponed until at least age 21.

CowperKettle

7:54 AM

@M.A.R. A further two friends wanted to move to Turkey even before the start of the Operation. A couple. The husband of the couple has a brother in France, who moved there in the 1990s. Maybe if Putin announces a new bout of mobilization, they will move.

If his life will be endangered through possible mobilization, and he has three kids.. I can't see a reason for him to stay here.

Xanne

8:10 AM

Wordle 601 5/6

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M.A.R.

@CowperKettle sure but I wonder how underrepresented Special Operation supporters are in your friends

jlliagre

8:41 AM

#Worldle #385 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐🏙️🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr
Funny: When the browser has a French locale, the country has 6 border countries but with using the English locale, it has "only" 5. Actually, it has 3 land borders.

CowperKettle

8:55 AM

Crissy Froth-Seapickle

9:38 AM

@CowperKettle TheFP makes me laugh, they're simply apologists of some intellectual dark web. In their article about Canada's residential schools "mass graves", they call the reporting on the issue a hoax because the reported number of graves was inaccurate. Terry Glavin's article is excellent, and lots of reporting was inaccurate. But many investigations are still ungoing and it doesn't make these discoveries a "hoax".

On Jordan Peterson they very much focus on this idea of "wrongthink", and just leave out many of the more damaging things the guy said, including the fact sexual discrimination in work is not so much about that as it is about competence. Or the fact he relies constantly the criticizing of Cultural Marxism. But cultural marxism is an antisemitic trope of neo-fascists accelerationists.

Plus rules of conduct from regulatory bodies in Canada are taken seriously. But because he's popular and rich, he should be above these rules.

After reading a couple of their articles I've come to the conclusion they're highly biased. They smear "mainstream media" and leverage all those tropes from the far-right I'm now used to seeing in such publications. Anyways, my 2c.

Meh, the world is going to shit.

Crissy Froth-Seapickle

9:57 AM

icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/…

M.A.R.

10:07 AM

Maybe the world and shit are accelerating towards each other, and they will ultimately form a three-body system that revolves around the sun

2

@CowperKettle I haven't read the article but FWIW, since it's such a sensitive subject, I pay special attention to "many" and other similar quantifiers. How many, exactly? And why is it a problem? Maybe there's a threshold when it becomes a problem? I suspect some academics already have the answers to these, but as usual, they're horrible at communicating it.

M.A.R.

10:24 AM

I skimmed through the article. I do have several comments, but the crux of the issue, I don't know much about:

1) With all the mention of politics, someone is experiencing quite the political dysphoria. I can't help but feel it's mixed up in all this, especially because of all their insistence as to the contrary.

2) Every drug has side effects. The most skilled physician will not be able to predict or prevent most of them, and their role is rather to minimize 'adverse events' while maximizing a positive outcome. Sure, there's always the issue of informing the patient, and depending on the setting, the physician(s) plays a small or a major role in informing the patient.

3) . . . which brings up the fact that the tone is rather antagonistic. Healthcare is one of the few places where you harm the patient by not cooperating with the rest of the team, no matter how righteous you believe your cause. A 'whistleblower' is not in good conscience trying to inform patients or kids or somesuch, they're looking to prosecute . . .

4) . . . who, exactly? Every doctor in a transition clinic? Every psychiatrist? Modern medicine?

5) It's hard to believe that just because they say so, there really isn't some rigorous stats on this. On whether transition improves the quality of life for these kids etc. On that note, the article is very heavy on personal anecdotes and lacking on stats, and that's always been a red flag for me. I mean, economists use stats to lie but everyone else? It's easier to tell.

6) Having said all that, I'm not all that informed on the subject itself, given how it's a very rare medical situation over here. All my rants and warnings might not amount to much. Anyhow, there are always more constructive ways to raise such an issue than playing into the hands of the enemy of these people she's trying to protect.

CowperKettle

10:53 AM

Faheem Mitha

I wonder why Indian pronunciations differ so wildly from standard English.

I was just listening to a psychiatrist say "adolescent", but she pronounced it "a doll es cent".

Another one is "industry", which in India is "in dust tree".

Rather than just considered wrong, this is considered "Indian pronunciation".

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Probably because the people's mother tongues have an impression on their pronunciation

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle It's not noticeably harder to pronounce it correctly.

M.A.R.

I think it's called that due to the sheer number of Indian English speakers. Otherwise it'd be speaking English with an Indian accent of course.

Are there any unusual features that you wouldn't expect in a Hindi or Tamil accent of English?

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. "It's called that". You mean the term "Indian pronunciation"?

@M.A.R. I don't understand the question.

M.A.R.

10:59 AM

Yep

Faheem Mitha

It's only a few words that have the doubtful privilege of this Indian mangling.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha I know what I expect an English speaker with a Farsi accent to sound like. It's not far from having a German accent.

Faheem Mitha

At least, to such an extreme level. Of course Indian make a mess of grammar and so forth all the time, but not pronunciation so much.

@M.A.R. Are they also far from standard pronunciation?

M.A.R.

Noticeably so. "I'm sinking" "hav arrr yooo" and such

Not the wet/vet thing though. That's just weirdness from the Germans part

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. The first one is "thinking"?

M.A.R.

11:05 AM

Yep

Faheem Mitha

I don't know what the second one is supposed to be.

M.A.R.

Hmm, I'm googling top languages spoken in India and I don't think I've met anyone in SE who said their native language is Marathi

@FaheemMitha "how are you?"

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Oh.

@M.A.R. There are a lot of native Marathi speakers, but perhaps they are not particularly well represented online.

Why do you care about Marathi speakers?

Crissy Froth-Seapickle

@M.A.R. I know nothing of the topic, and I'm sure many people just care about children and are worried. That being said, I expect if someone fears some M.D. is not conforming to the prevailing standards of acceptable medical practice, they would file a complaint with a regulatory authority, like a state board of medicine, so that it would be investigated. Instead, this ends up in TheFP with no mention of this.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha I wanted to indicate that r has a bit of, what's it called, trill in Farsi.

@FaheemMitha just wondering aloud. I remember people saying they speak Hindi (of course), Tamil, Telugu and Bengali. Of course, SE is for the most part the only place on the internet for me to interact with people from India regularly

Faheem Mitha

11:14 AM

@M.A.R. Marathi doesn't particularly travel in India. Usually people in Maharashtra speak it. Otherwise, not much.

It's possible in part because people from Maharashtra do not themselves travel much. But I don't have any statistics on that.

Crissy Froth-Seapickle

Then in the article, there's a link to "no reliable studies" to some blog challenging the methodology behind a published study by analyzing a difference between preprint and print analysis. I see this pattern all over the place. With covid, with vaccines etc. Skepticism is good, but when it always serves the same political agenda, which echoes the same tropes, and people want their opinion to be on par with those of professionals. In the end I prefer the way the world was before social media...

and "free" press.

Faheem Mitha

You will find, for example, that people from Kerala are quite peripatetic.

@M.A.R. On which SE forums do you interact with Indians?

M.A.R.

@CrissyFroth-Seapickle huh, we have a saying, "the more you stir it, the more it stinks".

@FaheemMitha oh I was referring back to my earlier experiences. These days I'm only on a couple of chatrooms

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. OK

M.A.R.

It is true that the American right has corrupted the anti-establishment spirit that used to be a hallmark of the left, as I understand it.

CowperKettle

11:26 AM

Don't overdose on tea.

M.A.R.

Scienz and those big scary white coats are the oppressive authority you need to subvert.

13 cups per day JAYZUZ

CowperKettle

I drink 3-4 liters a day

M.A.R.

Of tea?

CowperKettle

Psychogenic polydypsia.

Not, just something.

It can be tea, but I'm trying to limit myself.

M.A.R.

Well yeah it's not unusual if you include water and other drinks

CowperKettle

11:29 AM

I try to drink water in small cups, to try to decrease daily intake to the "normal" level of 2 liters.

M.A.R.

Don't you lose that water? By exercising or otherwise

I don't see why it'd be a problem

CowperKettle

Yes

Today is the hardest attack on Ukraine in many weeks.

Yesterday, the big Russian offensive started. I was expecting them to accumulate missiles for a large strike, and they did.

M.A.R.

A cup is something like 240 cc. Let's say 250 cc. 13 cups per day would be more than 3 liters of tea.

Iranians are avid tea drinkers but I haven't met a single person in my life who drank more than half a liter of tea per day.

CowperKettle

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was known to drink tea by samovarful.

> But they still persisted in heating the water a samovarful at a time . Perhaps they had no choice but to do so.

One find in Google Books.

M.A.R.

At that volume one should just use two tubes and make a small water cycle

CowperKettle

11:35 AM

Like the Fremen

M.A.R.

I'm surprised he managed to get anything done in his life. Maybe he did the writing in the bathroom

Point is even if it is the fountain of youth I wouldn't recommend 13 cups per day of it. No wonder their brain shrinks

CowperKettle

I'll try to limit myself.

Sometimes I drink 3 or 4 cups of coffee at a time

M.A.R.

Water, well, it could actually be good for your kidneys to drink above 2 but fewer than, say, 4 or 5 liters of water every day.

That's not a very strong "could", but if you're like most people and are not genetically predisposed to retain water, I don't think there's any harm in drinking a lot of liquid, up to a certain point.

CowperKettle

It took a strong effort to limit myself to 1.5 liters when I was told so by a doctor before doing some tests

The Russian term for a well-trained soldier is Yefreitor, borrowed from German Gefreiter, but in the US Army, both are just "Private"

In the Canadian Army, it's "Trained Private".

Gefreiter

Gefreiter ([ɡəˈfraɪ̯tɐ], abbr. Gefr.; plural Gefreite, English: private, in the military context) is a German, Swiss and Austrian military rank that has existed since the 16th century. It is usually the second rank or grade to which an enlisted soldier, airman or sailor could be promoted.Within the combined NATO rank scale, the modern-day rank of Gefreiter is usually equivalent to the NATO-standard rank scale OR-2. The word has also been lent into the Russian language (Russian: yefreytor/ефрейтор), and is in use in several Russian and post-Soviet militaries. == History == Historically t...

> The best-known holder of the rank of Gefreiter was Adolf Hitler, who held the rank in the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 of the Royal Bavarian Army during World War I.

> In the armed forces of the Soviet Union (and later the Russian Federation) yefreytor is the highest rank of enlisted personnel. According to NATO-rank system the rank might be comparable to OR-4 in Anglophone armed forces

Ah. It's OR-4

Then it's Specialist (US Army)

Or Lance Corporal (UK Army)

M.A.R.

I'm familiar with the UK terms because of Sir Pratchett

CowperKettle

11:48 AM

I just saw a news about a Russian yefreitor, and wondered what it would be in English..

M.A.R.

That is indeed a well-known gefreiter. I'll take those guys seriously

CowperKettle

Etymology: From the fact that the rank was originally freed from sentry duty. (Wiktionary)

So complicated

M.A.R.

A system that relies on who has and who doesn't have to endure the drudgery is very practical

CowperKettle

Private first class (or "Specialist"?) from Yekaterinburg, Vyacheslav Churov received an Order of Bravery from Vladimir Putin e1.ru/text/politics/2023/02/10/72049388

Thanks to the etymology, I think I'll now remember the meaning of this word.

"frei" is easy to remember.

M.A.R.

Imagine it being applied to an operation room. "A specialist surgeon is protected from blood splashes as a nurse leaps to catch all the jumping blood streams"

I wouldn't wanna imagine it being applied to plumbers

Honestly I'm just distracted by all the cute Ranch Adventures: Amazing Match Three ads

Crissy Froth-Seapickle

12:13 PM

@M.A.R. I hear you... "con plus esmuet on la merde, et ele plus put" (circa 1180) vs 1576. Cheers!

Mitch

2:04 PM

@M.A.R. Agreed...tantalizing in an empty gossipy way, "I want to see what other people complain about with little justification".

But it was on-topic gossip?

Also, multiple peeves about 'lie' and 'lay' which is insane because 1) nobody else cares or notices (and uses the two in free variation) and 2) nobody uses either, you just stand up all the time.

Robusto

2:49 PM

#Worldle #385 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐🏙️🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.

🌎 Feb 10, 2023 🌍
🔥 28 | Avg. Guesses: 4.95
⬜🟧🟧🟩 = 4

globle-game.com
#globle

That was weird.

Wordle 601 4/6

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Daily Quordle 382
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jlliagre

3:07 PM

Wordle 601 5/6

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Daily Quordle 382
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parz

‘Lo.

jlliagre

Daily Octordle #382
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Score: 61

Bonjour

Robusto

Daily Octordle #382
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Score: 74
Meh. Weak ending to an otherwise decent wake-up.

CowperKettle

4:17 PM

> Fourscore high-altitude explosions
And humankind has kicked the pail
Now there's no word in Russian
For 'snail'

Faheem Mitha

5:52 PM

@M.A.R. Half a liter isn't that much. Some English/British people really like their tea.

Mitch

6:30 PM

@FaheemMitha Here is some data:

That's just immigration to the US. It still shows that Marathis do at least move to the US more than other Indians (except for Gujaratis)

M.A.R.

6:46 PM

@FaheemMitha assuming most people drink hot tea, as opposed to those other weird variations, you can't just gulp it down, it takes several minutes to finish a single cup. So tea drinking must be the major activity of the day for anyone who drinks three liters of tea

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch Thank you for posting the graphic.

@M.A.R. I imagine there are British people out there who can get through 12 cups a day (less a beverage than a way of life), but I agree that it seems quite a lot.

Personally I've never seen the appeal of hot liquids.

@M.A.R. It's actually possible to do other things while drinking tea, just to point out the obvious. Clearly such other activities are limited. For example, standing on ones head while drinking tea (or anything else) could pose a challenge.

M.A.R.

These Brits are getting more interesting by the day

@Mitch is it racist to say when I hear 'Gujarat', the first thing that comes to my mind is spam?

Mitch

8:52 PM

@M.A.R. I... couldn't say. Is there some association between Gujaratis and spam (I have no idea)?

jlliagre

9:06 PM

> In 2021, Russia ranked first by its share of unsolicited spam e-mails. Overall, 24.77 percent of the global spam volume originated from IPs based in Russia. Germany ranked second with 14.12 percent of the share of global spam email. The United States followed, accounting for 10.46 percent of global unsolicited spam emails during the measured period. statista.com/statistics/263086/countries-of-origin-of-spam

Robusto

9:50 PM

@jlliagre Wait, Russia is winning the spam email gap? We need to close that gap as soon as possible!

jlliagre

@Robusto Free world, let's unite our forces!

Robusto

@jlliagre All NATO countries should get behind this now!

As well as freedom-loving non-NATO countries!

Robusto

10:33 PM

ChatGPT is a blurry JPEG of the Web

> Think of ChatGPT as a blurry jpeg of all the text on the Web. It retains much of the information on the Web, in the same way that a jpeg retains much of the information of a higher-resolution image, but, if you’re looking for an exact sequence of bits, you won’t find it; all you will ever get is an approximation.
But, because the approximation is presented in the form of grammatical text, which ChatGPT excels at creating, it’s usually acceptable. You’re still looking at a blurry jpeg, but the blurriness occurs in a way that doesn’t make the picture as a whole look less sharp.

> This analogy to lossy compression is not just a way to understand ChatGPT’s facility at repackaging information found on the Web by using different words. It’s also a way to understand the “hallucinations,” or nonsensical answers to factual questions, to which large language models such as ChatGPT are all too prone.
These hallucinations are compression artifacts, but—like the incorrect labels generated by the Xerox photocopier—they are plausible enough that identifying them requires comparing them against the originals, which in this case means either the Web or our own knowledge of the w…

CowperKettle

11:18 PM

My friend seems to be moving to Kazakhstan for good. His wife is already there, and he'll leave in June.

jlliagre

11:35 PM

My knowledge about Kazakhstan is slim. I was only able to locate it on a map after seeing BORДT which is surely not the most informative movie about the country.

CowperKettle

11:51 PM

@jlliagre It's a huge steppe country, with a sizeable mountanous area in the southeast

> About 1 in 500 people in the United States are born with a primary immunodeficiency.

@jlliagre Russia gradually conquered it in the 18th - 19th centuries.

Russian conquest of Central Asia

The partially successful conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire took place in the second half of the nineteenth century. The land that became Russian Turkestan and later Soviet Central Asia is now divided between Kazakhstan in the north, Uzbekistan across the center, Kyrgyzstan in the east, Tajikistan in the southeast, and Turkmenistan in the southwest. The area was called Turkestan because most of its inhabitants spoke Turkic languages with the exception of Tajikistan, which speaks an Iranian language. == Outline == In the eighteenth century the Russian Empire gained increasing control...

> In 1730 Abul Khayr, one of the khans of the Lesser Horde, sought Russian assistance. Although Abul Khayr's intent had been to form a temporary alliance against the stronger Kalmyks, the Russians gained permanent control of the Lesser Horde as a result of his decision. The Russians conquered the Middle Horde by 1798, but the Great Horde managed to remain independent until the 1820s

Almaty

Almaty (; Kazakh: Алматы; Kazakh pronunciation: [ɑlmɑˈtə] (listen); Russian: Алматы́), formerly known as Alma-Ata (Kazakh: Алма-Ата), is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of over 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to 1936 as an autonomous republic as part of the Soviet Union, then from 1936 to 1991 as a union republic and finally from 1991 as an independent state to 1997 when the government relocated the capital to Akmola (renamed Astana in 1998, Nur-Sultan in 2019, and back to Astana in 2022). Almaty is still the major commercial, financial, and cultural centre...

Almaty is the old capital, serving as such until 1991.

It lies in the foothills of this mountain system, and thus has a cool climate due to winds and elevation

Trans-Ili Alatau

Ile Alatau (Kazakh: Ile Alatauy, Іле Алатауы), also spelt as Trans-Ili Alatau, is a part of the Northern Tian Shan mountain system (ancient Mount Imeon) in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It is the northernmost mountain range of Tian Shan stretching for about 350 km (220 mi) with a maximal elevation of 4,973 m (16,316 ft) (Talgar Peak). The term "Alatau" refers to a kind of mountain. The range is bounded from the north by the Ili Depression of the Ili River, hence the name. The former capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty, is located at the foot of the range. The Ile-Alatau National Park is a protected area...

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