@Cerberus I don't think I have a native language.

Hmm.

What did you speak as a child?

English? Hindi? Both?

Or if I do, I don't speak it, at any rate. I think it might technically be Urdu.

@Cerberus English.

@Robusto Do you have a link to a specific duolingo test, so we can do the same?

Ah.

@FaheemMitha So then your native language is English. Right?

Or why would it be Urdu?

At what age did you learn English? nvm you said "as a child"

@Cerberus I'm not sure what the term "native language" means, tbh.

the definition of native is fuzzy

@crl I've never spoken anything else, afaik.

Which does seem a little odd, on the face of it.

hmm.

i wonder whether i could get away with using Google and Bind translate for the Spanish translation of my extension.

there must be a bunch of ppl working at those organizations that speak Spanish so I bet their Spanish translation isn't bad

@Cerberus do the Netherlands still have a royal family?

@FaheemMitha It means the language you grew up speaking.

there are only 12 strings

@FaheemMitha Yes, certainly.

or maybe that should be "does the Netherlands"...

Why?

@Cerberus You poor things. Have you thought about getting rid of them?

I myself prefer the plural in English, although I think it is officially singular.

@FaheemMitha Why poor? Why would we want to oust them?

@Cerberus I was watching the UK royal family in a video, and I got my hate on.

is "locale" acceptable as a noun in Spanish?

@Cerberus Royalty is instrinsically detestable.

@Jez You'd better just not translate it. Spanish speakers can no doubt read 12 strings of English.

@FaheemMitha Why?

@FaheemMitha Why?

@Robusto I didn't know we used that many calories, it's roughly 1000 calories per hour

@Jez Dictionary!

@Cerberus They're parasites and stuff.

@Cerberus nah i like to see as many translationsin Babelzilla as possible :-)

I'm guessing you don't agree though.

Your reasoning displays signs of circularity.

@Cerberus ooh that's a handy map. whence did it come?

From a Dutch newspaper.

article?

Fairly recent.

6 days ago or so.

Or that was when it was posted.

yeah but is it online

So what?

is it?

It is, or I wouldn't have been able to post it.

where?

@Cerberus how so?

@FaheemMitha The royal family are nice and well loved. They descend from the leader of the great revolution against the Spanish Empire in the 16th century. Their budget is negligible compared to the national budget. Old traditions are treasured here. Their popularity is very high. They are among the precious few things that both the upper and lower classes admire together.

It doesn't matter that the new King is a bit stupid.

@Cerberus huh.

His mother was the best sovereign ever.

Fine, I'll just hate the UK royal family then.

Let's hope his daughter will be a good Queen like his mother.

I don't actually know anything about the Dutch royal family.

Why do you hate monarchies so?

But I dislike monarchy on principle. Though in terms of evils of the modern age, they probably don't break the top 100.

@Cerberus They're undemocratic. Also, I'm Indian.

What is wrong with a monarchy, if the royal house hardly has any power any more?

Then it's not undemocratic.

@FaheemMitha how come India stays as one country and doesn't break up into like 10 countries? you have varying cultures and languages.

What does India have to do with it?

something i've never understood

@Cerberus They're still a living symbol of undemocratic things. Certainly in the UK, where everyone fawns over them.

@Jez No idea. I think there have been various secessionist movements, which the govt squashes. And North and South India are sort of different countries.

@FaheemMitha I find it incredible that 1.5 billion varying cultures and languages in India stay together, yet we can't even keep 60 million people with a similar culture and language in the UK as one country.

To some extent, maybe overall people feel they are better off as one country.

As in the Scottish independence movement. I don't think the Scots feel any great love of the Uk, but they still voted to stay.

barely.

@FaheemMitha That is a bit vague. How about Mediaeval churches, then? Should they all be demolished?

@Jez 1.3 billion people, I think.

Or perhaps most people in India just don't care enough.

@Cerberus Why should some old woman with a handbag be treated as someone with great importance? I'm referring to Elizabeth II.

There are parts of India that do want independence, though, aren't there?

@FaheemMitha Because she represents a tradition? Because the people like it?

@Cerberus Lots. We were raped by the British for 200 years. During much of that time Queen Victoria called herself Empress of India. People here were real thrilled by that.

"raped"?

Ah.

@Cerberus Sure.

bit over the top really.

Well, being the monarch of a conquered country is quite different.

you wanna see oppression, look at North Korea

@Cerberus Plenty of people in the Uk don't like the royal family. Not that getting rid of them would make much difference, regardless.

Britain was foremost in ending slavery

@FaheemMitha But plenty do.

@Cerberus Plenty of people in the Uk feel disenfrachised too.

And you can destroy an Mediaeval church or tradition only once.

@Cerberus Possibly. I don't know. Have there been polls?

@FaheemMitha That is vague.

Churches aren't a symbol of undemocratic power.

@FaheemMitha Yes, many.

@FaheemMitha Of course they are!

@Cerberus True. I mean, they feel they don't have any control over the direction of the country. And don't count for anything.

They are a symbol of superstition, of persecution, of theocracy, repression, death.

@Cerberus How do you make that out?

@FaheemMitha they are, and unfortunately under that idiot David Cameron religion is getting more power and influence again

@Cerberus Interesting perspective, but I don't think that it what they symbolise in the 21st century.

If the crusaders had been able to reach Islamic India, you can imagine what temples and people they would have destroyed there.

@FaheemMitha Then neither does the royal family.

@Cerberus to be fair, Muslims were screwing over their neighbours too

advancing to Europe

And I actually quite like old churches. And I'm the least religious person on the planet.

@Jez Only a temporary hiccough.

@Cerberus In the Uk they do. Don't know about the Netherlands.

@Jez Of course. We all were screwing over each other. And the West still screws over Muslims and Christians and everyone in poor countries.

@FaheemMitha So you declare.

@Cerberus Well, yes, I think so.

@Cerberus and Muslims still screw over any non-Muslim unlucky enough to live in their countries

@FaheemMitha My point is that you could say churches and monarchs can be seen as a symbol of a past situation that was not all good, but that it doesn't matter any more if they are now no longer that.

But I'm really no fan of the Uk.

@Cerberus yes, I see your point.

Doesn't mean I have to agree with it, though.

Of course there are exceptions, and time matters.

A depiction of tortured Jews should probably not still be displayed prominently in a city hall, for example, even though it is in the past.

@Jez you list your location as the Uk. Are you English then?

yes

@Jez Oh, ok.

But a depiction of tortured Mennonites from the 16th century should be displayed, because it was so long ago.

True, the Scottish referendum was pretty close. Nearly 50/50, I think.

@FaheemMitha I am not a fan either of the way it is going, the Americanisation and the censorship.

But I still like the soul of England very much.

Since pragmatically, Scotland is better off as part of the Uk, this suggests that lots of Scottish people don't really like being part of the Uk.

Its old culture and traditions.

emphasis on the old

@Cerberus Like?

And old as in how old?

@FaheemMitha I thought the majority was larger.

@Cerberus as a small child I was a major Anglophile. But we are all young and foolish once.

@FaheemMitha Well, their indirectness. Their architecture.

@Cerberus Let me check.

Oh, I am still an Anglophile.

@Cerberus indirectness?

The English are known for their understatedness and indirectness in communication.

The "No" side won, with 2,001,926 (55.3%) voting against independence and 1,617,989 (44.7%) voting in favour

@Cerberus It's called lying by omission.

Never mind, I'm just being catty.

@Jez was the Scottish referendum a big deal locally?

Okay, so that means the ratio was 5:4.

@FaheemMitha yes.

Yes, a sizeable majority. I using WP here, but they are usually reliable wrt basic statistics.

and extremely annoying for those of us who aren't Scottish independence fanatics

@FaheemMitha So you don't like England? What other countries do you dislike?

@Jez I mean in the Uk as a whole, not Scotland.

Pakistan? America?

@Jez So, not much sympathy for the Scottish independence movement then?

yes. Scotland and the SNP have disproportionate coverge all over the UK, even moreso now that the SNP have a bunch of MPs

@FaheemMitha no. they're fucking morons.

A rather large bunch.

@Cerberus I wouldn't say I dislike it. Much of what is inside my head comes directly/indirectly from the Uk.

Okay.

@Jez huh. Why?

I guess I would call myself conflicted, really.

Mixed feelings might sum it up. I know something about British imperial history.

In India and elsewhere. And disgusting doesn't begin to describe it.

Every country has an evil history.

@Cerberus I'd have to disagree with that.

Every state, every region.

What terrible things did the Irish do, for example?

Do you?

@Cerberus Do I what?

@FaheemMitha because they arbitrarily want to draw a line on a map and separate from their neighbours with whom they share a culture, language, and an island

purely based on irrational hatred of those "down south"

@Jez Actually, much of the history of Scotland is the English kicking the crap out of them.

which has been whipped up beyond all sanity by the SNP

> November 1641 Portadown Massacre Portadown 100+ O'Neill clansmen massacred as many as 100 English and Scottish Protestant planters, including women, children, and other noncombatants. The massacre took place on the banks of the River Bann. Survivor depositions are available at: 1641.tcd.ie/…

And it is not "irrational".

@FaheemMitha not for a good 300 years.

so no, you're going way too far back in history

> 15 September 1647 Massacre of Cashel Rock of Cashel almost 1,000 A massacre of English Royalists, plus MacCarthy and O'Brien clansmen, during the Irish Confederate Wars.

1641?? 100? jesus christ who gives a shit?

millions die every day

@Jez I kind of had the impression it had been going on till relatively recently. Hmm, the period that RLS wrote about, wasn't that 19th century?

I'm referring to Kidnapped and it's sequel.

@FaheemMitha well your impresion was wrong

> 5 January 1976 Kingsmill massacre Kingsmill, County Armagh, Northern Ireland 10 1 A mass shooting. A report by the Historical Inquiries Team found that Provisional IRA members were responsible. Part of "the Troubles".

@Cerberus yeah. that's thanks to Ireland being idiots and breaking away from the UK.

the huge irony is that all these Celtic nationalists are just fine being ruled from Brussels. they ALL want to be EU members.

@Jez Hmm, mid 18th century.

@Jez Maybe they prefer it to being ruled from London.

ancient history.

I don't have any opinion. I don't really know UK history that well.

@FaheemMitha yeah i'm sure. and that's why i consdier them idiots. London has far more in common with them culturally and linguistically.

But you think it is all irrational emotionalism, I guess.

agreed. or rather, yes.

@Jez Also a longer history of abuse.

But you are saying that hasn't been happening recently?

@FaheemMitha really? the Germans weren't all that friendly to them during the 20th century.

@Jez Weren't that friendly to who?

@FaheemMitha of course. Scotland has been a first-class UK citizen. Scottish nationalists whinging about London oppression is total and utter bullshit.

Scotland?

@FaheemMitha anyone in Britain, including Scotland.

@Jez Ok. Like I said, I don't know. So you think nearly half of Scotland wants to break away from the UK based on irrational and outdated nationalistic sentiments and old dislike of the English?

> Conchobar mac Donnchada succeeded Áed Oirdnide as Uí Néill overking in 819, and soon found himself challenged by Feidlimid, both by Feidlimid launching raids into Mide and Connacht and by him interfering (as would be the Uí Néill view) in the affairs of Armagh.

@FaheemMitha yes.

You can bet that many towns were plundered and wives raped during those campaigns.

@Jez well, maybe. That's an awful lot of irrationalism, then.

@FaheemMitha bear in mind that until maybe 10 or 20 years ago, the vast majority of Scots were happy being British.

A random sample from Irish history.

@Jez what changed?

yes, an awful lot of irrationalism has been stirred up in the last 10/20 years

Every region has an evil history.

@Jez it has to be there to be stirred up.

And we are still evil.

@FaheemMitha various things, mainly the SNP. also Blair stupidly built a Scottish parliament and devolved powers, giving the SNP a lot more credibility and the Scots more of a hunger for independence

And European monarchies are not part of that now.

@Jez what did the SNP do?

@FaheemMitha whipped up Scottish nationalism on the lie that Scotland would be better off independent.

@Cerberus if you are going on my comment about Ireland, the IRA weren't the nicest people, but they were presumably fighting for Irish autonomy.

@Jez Sounds like they had a receptive audience. And what arguments did they give?

@FaheemMitha yeah and look where Ireland are now with their autonomy. a mediocre economy and ruled from Brussels.

@Jez So you think they would have been better off in the Uk then?

@FaheemMitha that Westminster wasn't democratic and was ruled too much by the Tories, which has some truth, but they should've been fighting to reform Westminster

@FaheemMitha absolutely.

the main problem is that our electoral system is appalling

@Jez I don't think changing Westminster would be that easy. But I agree Scotland is rather small.

it does give the Tories too much power and a lot of people (in England also) hate that

a reformed Westminster, i think, would've solved a lot of the UK's problems

@FaheemMitha Everyone is always fighting for something, and innocent people die in the process. But I'm sure you can find 1000 incidents of violence committed by Irish organisations in Irish history. It would be a mistake to think that they did not do many evil things, as all regions have done.

instead it stubbornly refuses to change and nationalism abounds

Hmm, slightly over 5 million. About the population of Denmark.

@Cerberus I was thinking about more systematic things. E.g. the so-called British Empire.

"Systematic" is vague.

The Irish clans went on raids all the time and killed many people from other clans.

@Jez But maybe it doesn't want to be reformed. And England has always had too much power in the Uk.

@FaheemMitha not really. most people live in England, and it deserves proportionally more power.

@Cerberus The British trashed entire countries in their time. It's a truly impressive record, measured by any era.

Notably India, but also many other places too.

Irish raiding parties are hardly in the same league.

you might as well say San Fransisco and Los Angeles have "too much power" in California

The funny thing is, they were (and still are) rather proud of it.

do you guys think dunno is a "word"?

@FaheemMitha how did they "trash" them, exactly?

Though, in fairness, Indians seem to be fairly enthusiastic about trashing their own country too. Finish what the British started.

what would South Africa look like today if the British hadn't colonized it? a lot more civilized?

@Jez Run those economies for their own profit, essentially.

@FaheemMitha but ran them competently

@FaheemMitha Trashed entire countries, that is a bit vague. Of course the more powerful an organisation is, the more evil it can commit, is that what you mean?

@Cerberus how do you Dutch people manage to all have fabulous looking hair

@FaheemMitha Yes, and they pillaged and plundered each other before the British came, as all states did...

if I get my hair cut in NL will it look that good?

@GeorgePompidou Um, we don't?

by the way, why is "anti-Americanism" a word? and can we have "anti-Britishism"?

@Jez Of course.

I'm not an economist, of course. But the model one most usually finds applied is that they would take raw materials from the "service areas", produced with cheap labor. Then manufacture stuff, then sell it back to the "service area".

@Cerberus except that nobody says that. just anti-Americanism.

@GeorgePompidou I had my hair cut last week, and it doesn't look good. Too short.

as if criticizing America is some special taboo

America can do no wrong

@Cerberus then you're the only one

@Cerberus I don't think it is that vague. Take a look at 21st century India.

@Jez Probably because anti-Americanism is big, while anti-Britishism is not that big around the world.

I'm going to Amsterdam for my haircut.

@Cerberus it's pretty big. people always bang on about British colonialism as if no-one did it or as if Britain was particularly bad.

@Jez Huh, what? That makes no sense. I would say the opposite: we all hate on America all the time.

oh, I was in Maastricht yesterday, it was nice.

@GeorgePompidou Oh, dear...

@Cerberus don't know what circles you hang out in, but I don't see people hating on America all the time

I went there with my Asian friends. I somehow came to Germany and made mostly Asian friends.

and if they do, they get called "anti-American"

It's a disaster zone. Before the British got here, India accounted for around 20/25 % of world GNP. Parts of India were among the richest regions on earth. Now it's an ecological disaster done.

@FaheemMitha That is just one factor. Another factor is that countries have slowly become less evil in the modern age.

@Cerberus Read the first few chapters of "Churchill's Secret War". About the events surrounding the Battle of Plassey.

@GeorgePompidou Welcome back.

@FaheemMitha anti-Britishism

@Jez What?

@Jez Perhaps only in the former colonies, then, because the rest of the world does not experience this sentiment.

@Cerberus You mean, like the Iraq war?

@Jez They did it on a larger scale than practically anyone else. The French were a distant second.

And they did an enormous amount of harm.

@Jez You don't? Here absolutely everybody hates America, as in most countries around the world. I suppose England has been more pro-America for a long time, hence its Americanisation...

@FaheemMitha really? have you seen the colonialism that Spain and Portugal did?

@FaheemMitha and did you know that the British practically abolished slavery single-handedly?

@Cerberus anyway, the book "Churchill's Secret War" has a good summary of what the East India Company did to Bengal.

@FaheemMitha Well, before the British came, the Renaissance was new in Europe, and the Industrial Revolution had just started. So Europe's GNP grew immensely. I doubt whether India's GNP really fell much in absolute terms, in the long term?

@Jez Agreed, they did very bad things. But Britain did more, and for a longer time. Plus, even today their attitude is that everything is fine. Benevolent empire, that kind of stuff.

@Cerberus Sure it did. Go online and take a look.

From around the late 18th century, India's GNP went down in a straight line. I think it levelled off around the early 20th century.

Much of what the British did was forceable de-industrialization. Because they didn't want the competition. I used the term "service area" earlier.

It is rather similar to the role that Hitler imagined for Russia and related territories.

@Cerberus another good book to look at is "Late Victorian Holocausts", by Davis.

@FaheemMitha Do you have a source?

The British tend to politely ignore the uglier aspects of their history. The books I referenced were written by an Indian (Bengali) and an American.

That is possible.

To be clear, I am not saying the British Empire was not evil.

@Cerberus Not off the top of my head, but I found some stuff online. Of course, these just represent estimates. I could probably dig something up.

@FaheemMitha utter crap, i'm afraid. Britain beats itself up more for colonialism than almost anyone else. hell, Tony Blair apologized for slavery 400 years after its abolition.

@FaheemMitha I tried to find information, but I couldn't find it.

it's one of the reasons British people are so scared to criticize immigrants

@Jez You have got to be kidding. The most notable thing about the British is that they never, ever, apologise for anything related to their precious empire.

omg we are teh ev1l colonianists!!

@Jez The British were, yes.

@FaheemMitha you obviously never listen to anything Britain says. whatever.

Well, not the most notable thing, perhaps. But one of them.

But I remember reading about the historic GNP of India and China and Europe, and I don't remember reading what you suggested.