Topographic map of Somaliland

Topographic map of Somaliland

7952 x 5030

‘What’s the political status of this these days? Still under the Somali yoke?

There is no yoke as there is no government to speak of in Mogadishu. It’s operating independently and is fairly safe to visit last I heard. Had big issue lately with a fire in a market, that market was around 40% of the GDP’

1911 ethnographic map of Ontario and western Quebec

1911 ethnographic map of Ontario and western Quebec

6863 x 4825

‘I think Windsor is the Irish green. I would say that the only Russian green is around Frederick House L. (in the corner inset)

I’m from Windsor, it’s French. There used to be a large population of French in the area and many of the street names are French, now locally pronounced with awful anglicized versions

I heard that a-lot of French Canadians have Irish blood from the huge influx of Irish into Quebec in the 1840’s. Is that maybe a reason for the green? Many of those people probably switched from Gaelic to French speaking, skipping the English part

While it’s true that many Irish immigrants in Quebec (or their descendants over several generations) assimilated into the Francophone majority, the Irish in Ontario overwhelmingly spoke English, even in areas where French was spoken

My guess is that was a 20th century phenomenon. The famine immigrants were from overwhelmingly Gaelic speaking areas in the west of Ireland, many had no English atall. It could well be that for many it was English they learned when they got to Canada

The Irish that settled in Montreal largely integrated the English speaking community. In the Quebec countryside, many married fellow Catholic French Canadians and eventually switch from Irish or English to French. Also, many Irish orphans were adopted by French Canadians and became French speaking. That was the case with my Irish great-great grandmother.’

Household Firearm Ownership Rate by U.S. State

Household Firearm Ownership Rate by U.S. State

2560 x 1266

‘Correlates pretty nicely with the North American bear population maps

Meanwhile in WA state we are going to bring the grizzly back while simultaneously restricting access to firearms. Good times ahead

What on earth are you talking about?

The only restrictions I’ve seen is the new bill that limits magazine size to 10 bullets, and requires a permit & firearm safety class for purchase. As a gun owner who lives in bear country, I have zero problems with any of those things.

And reintroduction of the grizzly is going to be incredibly slow. It’s not even guaranteed to work considering the fact that Washington is getting warmer and warmer. There’s not going to suddenly be Alaska lvls of Grizzlies in Washington. That would take decades, if not centuries.

I think you might be over exaggerating the danger, here’

The prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somalia

The prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somalia

526 x 720

‘Not exactly a female friendly place to live..

Somalia is pretty much one of the top 3 worst countries in Africa for all types of rights.

Strange to see coming from a country shaped like a high heel.

There is no government to actually enforce rights, the central government in Somalia and Somaliland are ineffective and arbitrary.

Somaliland government is actually sorta decent, but not nearly as good as it should and could be.

Somalia on the other hand’

Polish speakers in Prussia and northern Germany according to the census of 1905 and 1910

Polish speakers in Prussia and northern Germany according to the census of 1905 and 1910

100024 x 6960

‘why did they get Danzig?

They didn’t get the city itself, it was run by League of Nations with the Polish mandate (and the city officials certainly didn’t let the Poles run it like they would like to, they controlled some aspects of the city but it had it’s own parliment and currency, Poles controlled the post, maintained a military garrison and were ment to dictate the economics of the city state, but it failed soon due to the toll war with Germany), also the coastline had no Poles because it was majority Kashubian at the time (really, the Polish corridor was mostly rural, full of these Kashubian speaking villages, with some resort towns pre ww1) and the minority is still present there to this day’

Percent with the Urdu language as mother tongue in Pakistan (2017)

Percent with the Urdu language as mother tongue in Pakistan (2017). Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan

3210 x 2010

‘How come Urdu is the national language of Pakistan if so few people speak it natively? Is it because of the influence of the Mughal empire?

Pakistan is an ethnically heterogeneous and multilingual country. There are a lot of languages with a million+ speakers and gets even more complex with the inclusion of regional dialects. We needed a single language that could be used by all communities to talk with eachother and that was Urdu. It didn’t give an unfair advantage to any other group and didn’t make others feel like they were being cheated.

For example, a Punjabi and Baluch are speaking. They can’t expect the other to know their native language so they’d speak in Urdu. That’s why our founders chose it.

Mughals didn’t really use Urdu when they were in power so it isn’t related to them. It certainly was regarded as the language of the educated by the time of partition though.

Additional info:

The British picked Urdu as the official language since locals were more comfortable with using it (than Persian) and Urdu was a standardized language (quite rare among South Asian languages at the time).

The eventual Hindi split led to Urdu becoming a symbolic language for Muslims, which obviously meant Pakistani leaders were more prone to use it.

And lastly, Urdu is extremely easy to learn for any Indo-Aryan language native speaker. It’s the easiest Indo-Aryan language out there, and its heavy use of Persian also makes it the ideal language for Iranic language speakers to learn.

I wouldn’t know how you could classify anything as ‘easiest’

Easiest since it’s essentially a manufactured language, and you’re right, convenience also plays a huge factor.

But if we dig deeper into the origins of Urdu, it’s clear that this is a language that was always meant to be a bridge, rather than someone’s native tongue. The extreme and often forceful Persianization of North India led to Urdu becoming sort of a compromise language.

The urban legend (just clarifying since this isn’t a factual retelling of history) is that Urdu was formed in military barracks. Soldiers from all different parts of India and the Persian sort of developed the Urdu language to easily communicate with each other. It had elements, structures, and vocabulary of Indo-Aryan and Iranic languages.

It’s hard to explain why Urdu is easy, but it boils down to the fact that it’s a language that’s meant to be similar to others around it. If you, as an English speaker, pick up French. Your first dive into the language would be the words that are similar to those in English. From there, you’ll form cues, context, and more to start learning the whole language.

If you speak an Indo-Aryan or an Iranic language, you’ll immediately pick up these cues in almost every sentence of Urdu.’