Ukraine Conflict - Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war

[xzar_monty]

48 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/narvik-movie-true-story

I watched this movie about Norway in WW2,  its good 

 

On that page, the sort-of headline reads: "Examining the True Story of World War II Drama ‘Narvik’".

After working in publishing for over a quarter of a century, I have developed a rule whereby no newspaper / magazine that uses exclamation marks on the front page is worth reading, and every book / article that talks about "the true story of" or "the secret life of" something or someone, should be ignored.

[Zoraptor]

You don't really need those red flags in this case though, it's a Netflix article about a Netflix movie. It's hardly going to call it an ahistorical whitewash replete with bad directing and awful acting- especially if that is what it was. Haven't seen it personally though.

I'm a bit more worried that Bruce seems to think the Swedes fought bravely against the Nazis than that he thinks the Danes did. A lot of german munitions were quite literally made with Swedish steel, not German. Not exactly alone in that though of course, a lot of the admin for the Holocaust was done using International Business Machines tech too for example. Or the Soviets selling heaps of stuff to the germans right up until Barbarossa launched...

Edited January 11 by Zoraptor

[xzar_monty]

10 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

A lot of german munitions were quite literally made with Swedish steel, not German.

Indeed: WW2 was a huge business opportunity for Sweden, and they probably milked it for all they could. I would in fact love to know the statistical details of this in relation to Sweden's overall finances. Like, for instance, of all the countries that benefited from WW2, was Sweden among the ones that benefited the most?

A Swedish friend of mine doesn't get tired of pointing out that after avoiding fighting in WW2 and benefiting from it, Sweden started to become increasingly naive and turned out unbelievably so, until very very recently, when it has finally started to realise that quite a few of the people who have moved into the country have absolutely no intention of even trying to "integrate" or whichever buzzword you want to use; their plan is to do something completely different. (This is his opinion.)

[ShadySands]

I get all my history from Mel Gibson movies.

Aim small, miss small... FREEDOM!!! and whatever part of Australian history Mad Max was.

[uuuhhii]

wait does finland count as nordic

modern fascist part of finland certainly seem to think they are

[Malcador]

13 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I get all my history from Mel Gibson movies.

Aim small, miss small... FREEDOM!!! and whatever part of Australian history Mad Max was.

Gibson needs to advance his Age or Braveheart series past Vietnam

[Keyrock]

14 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I get all my history from Mel Gibson movies.

Aim small, miss small... FREEDOM!!! and whatever part of Australian history Mad Max was.

I've been operating under the assumption that Mad Max is a biopic. It is, right?

[Elerond]

6 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

wait does finland count as nordic

Finland is part of Nordic countries.

Nordic countries are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

Often Nordic coubtries are mixed with Scandinavian countries, which are Denmark, Norway and Sweden, although some could argue that Denmark isn't really part of Scandinavian Peninsula

[xzar_monty]

On 1/14/2024 at 12:33 AM, Elerond said:

Often Nordic coubtries are mixed with Scandinavian countries, which are Denmark, Norway and Sweden, although some could argue that Denmark isn't really part of Scandinavian Peninsula

Linguistically, it's really interesting: Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland are all close to each other, whereas Finland is far removed from all of them.

The former Finnish president Tarja Halonen made a clear distinction between Finland and the Baltic countries, claiming that we are part of Scandinavia, not the Baltics. Fair enough, but if you look at it from a linguistic point of view, Finland is right next door to Estonia and very far away from Scandinavia.

[Gorth]

3 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Linguistically, it's really interesting: Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland are all close to each other, whereas Finland is far removed from all of them.

The former Finnish president Tarja Halonen made a clear distinction between Finland and the Baltic countries, claiming that we are part of Scandinavia, not the Baltics. Fair enough, but if you look at it from a linguistic point of view, Finland is right next door to Estonia and very far away from Scandinavia.

Isn't Hungary the closest relative to Finland (linguistically and genetically)?

Being originally one tribe splitting in two, one heading northwest (Finns), the other southwest (Magyars)?

[Zoraptor]

Estonian is closer than Hungarian/ Magyar to Finnish/ Suomi by a decent margin as are a few others.

(They use a lot of the same tools for language relationships as they use for population/ species DNA relationships eg phylo'gene'tic wheels. Probably should be something like 'phylomemetic wheel' for linguistics...)

 

[xzar_monty]

2 hours ago, Gorth said:

Isn't Hungary the closest relative to Finland (linguistically and genetically)?

Cannot speak for genetics, but linguistically it's definitely not. Like @Zoraptor says above, Estonian is closer by a decent margin. Take this from a native Finnish speaker who has studied quite a few languages and knows a thing or two about the topic: listening to Estonian, a native Finnish speaker is just on the verge of understanding it; the sentence structures are almost identical and the vocabulary sounds incredibly familiar. It's a bit like listening to someone who is extremely drunk or slightly unhinged: you know they are speaking something that you almost understand, but it doesn't quite make sense. However, a native Finnish speaker listening to Hungarian will understand nothing. It's just another foreign language that definitely requires study before you even get the basics of it.

By the way, here's another detail about Finland that I think is quite interesting and something someone like @BruceVC might appreciate: whereas a country like Italy has a clear north / south division, in Finland the division is east / west, with the west doing a lot better in many ways. Whether it be overall health, employment or other stuff like that, people in the western parts of the country are likely to do much better than those in the east. Some of the details are downright bizarre: a Finn from the western parts of the country is much less likely to get into a serious accident than someone from the east (which is a nice demonstration of how everything tends to coalesce, i.e. healthy people tend to have jobs and friends and interesting hobbies and not a lot of stress and all the rest of it, and it all comes together into a whole, whereas people at the other end of the spectrum tend to lack much or all of that and thus tend to get into all kinds of trouble much more easily. Chronic stress seriously impedes your thinking and thus almost certainly makes you more accident-prone, perhaps even Hemingwayanly so.)

[Mamoulian War]

And IIRC there should be indigenous Karelian people of Russia, who have their own fino-ugric language close to Finish laguage, and some language group of indigenous people around Kola peninsula (Murmansk). Correct me if I am wrong.

[BruceVC]

12 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Cannot speak for genetics, but linguistically it's definitely not. Like @Zoraptor says above, Estonian is closer by a decent margin. Take this from a native Finnish speaker who has studied quite a few languages and knows a thing or two about the topic: listening to Estonian, a native Finnish speaker is just on the verge of understanding it; the sentence structures are almost identical and the vocabulary sounds incredibly familiar. It's a bit like listening to someone who is extremely drunk or slightly unhinged: you know they are speaking something that you almost understand, but it doesn't quite make sense. However, a native Finnish speaker listening to Hungarian will understand nothing. It's just another foreign language that definitely requires study before you even get the basics of it.

By the way, here's another detail about Finland that I think is quite interesting and something someone like @BruceVC might appreciate: whereas a country like Italy has a clear north / south division, in Finland the division is east / west, with the west doing a lot better in many ways. Whether it be overall health, employment or other stuff like that, people in the western parts of the country are likely to do much better than those in the east. Some of the details are downright bizarre: a Finn from the western parts of the country is much less likely to get into a serious accident than someone from the east (which is a nice demonstration of how everything tends to coalesce, i.e. healthy people tend to have jobs and friends and interesting hobbies and not a lot of stress and all the rest of it, and it all comes together into a whole, whereas people at the other end of the spectrum tend to lack much or all of that and thus tend to get into all kinds of trouble much more easily. Chronic stress seriously impedes your thinking and thus almost certainly makes you more accident-prone, perhaps even Hemingwayanly so.)

Thanks ,  I do find these types of specific stories  about a country very interesting and informative 

It  all helps to build an understanding of any country  that you havent visited

 

[xzar_monty]

44 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

And IIRC there should be indigenous Karelian people of Russia, who have their own fino-ugric language close to Finish laguage, and some language group of indigenous people around Kola peninsula (Murmansk). Correct me if I am wrong.

You're not wrong. Interestingly, even though most Karelians live in Russia or Finland (more in Russia than in Finland), the third largest group of them lives in Ukraine (though it is significantly smaller). I am not all that familiar with their languages, of which there are at least two, Karelian and Livvi-Karelian.

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

Cannot speak for genetics, but linguistically it's definitely not. Like @Zoraptor says above, Estonian is closer by a decent margin. Take this from a native Finnish speaker who has studied quite a few languages and knows a thing or two about the topic: listening to Estonian, a native Finnish speaker is just on the verge of understanding it; the sentence structures are almost identical and the vocabulary sounds incredibly familiar. It's a bit like listening to someone who is extremely drunk or slightly unhinged: you know they are speaking something that you almost understand, but it doesn't quite make sense. However, a native Finnish speaker listening to Hungarian will understand nothing. It's just another foreign language that definitely requires study before you even get the basics of it.

I know, don't believe everything you read (especially on the internet), but I do remember it from geography classes from my childhood...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-they-say-that-the-Finnish-and-the-Hungarian-languages-are-related-to-each-other

"The Finnish and Hungarian languages belong to the same language family, known as the Uralic language family. This language family also includes other languages spoken in the region around the Ural Mountains in Russia and in parts of Scandinavia. Linguists have identified similarities in vocabulary, grammar, and phonology between Finnish and Hungarian, which suggest a common linguistic heritage. However, it's important to note that Finnish and Hungarian are not mutually intelligible, meaning speakers of one language cannot understand the other without studying it."

 

(Estonian also mentioned somewhere as being the third language spoken today, descending from old Uralic)

[xzar_monty]

43 minutes ago, Gorth said:

However, it's important to note that Finnish and Hungarian are not mutually intelligible, meaning speakers of one language cannot understand the other without studying it."

At this point, on this forum, it is obligatory to note that Tolkien rather famously "based"(*) his Elvish language(s?) on Finnish. As for what that actually means, I have no idea, because nothing I have seen of Elvish in his works reminds me of anything I know about my first language. So Finns understand Elvish... NOT.

 

(*) So "based" could mean "was delighted by the discovery of the Finnish language [as he definitely was, which you can check from his letters] and decided to invent a language".

Edited January 15 by xzar_monty

[uuuhhii]

if intelligible are the standard than wouldn't a lot of accent doesn't count as the same language against eachother

still struggle to understand british english in some tv show

[xzar_monty]

3 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

if intelligible are the standard than wouldn't a lot of accent doesn't count as the same language against eachother

This is precisely the kind of language you want to write when discussing intelligibility.

Anyway, there is a good basic rule to determine whether something is a different language or merely an accent / dialect. It goes like this: go into a place where people speak differently from the way you do. Try to speak like them. If they appreciate your effort, we are talking about two different languages. If, however, they don't like what you're doing or are even somewhat insulted by it because they think you're making fun of them, then we are not talking about two different languages but merely two different dialects / accents.

In other words, Cóckney and Scouse are different English dialects -- an East Londoner going into Liverpool and trying to sound like the locals is generally not appreciated. But English and French are different languages -- a Londoner going into Paris and trying to speak like the locals is generally respected, even if he doesn't do it very well.

Edited January 15 by xzar_monty

[Elerond]

15 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Linguistically, it's really interesting: Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland are all close to each other, whereas Finland is far removed from all of them.

The former Finnish president Tarja Halonen made a clear distinction between Finland and the Baltic countries, claiming that we are part of Scandinavia, not the Baltics. Fair enough, but if you look at it from a linguistic point of view, Finland is right next door to Estonia and very far away from Scandinavia.

Yes, but because of Sweden 700 year rule over Finland and first converting Finns to Christianity through three crusades and then converting them to Lutheranism and ordering creation of written language for Finnish in order to steal Catholic church money for their Gustav Wasa's funds, Sweden and Finland have formed much closer cultural ties than Finland and Estonia.

Also Finland's ties to Denmark, Norway and Iceland are closer because first Denmark ruled all Nordic countries during Kalmar union and then Sweden took over and ruled most of the Nordics. What little of  Finno-Ugric past there was left was saved by Swedish speaking Finns Elias Lönnrot, Johan Runeberg and Johan Snellman when they were forefront of united meaning of Finnishness in 1800s.

Also in Geographical sense part of Finland belongs in Scandinavian Peninsula, so technically we Finland is part of Scandinavia, although generally we don't count us as part of Scandinavia even if Finland's highest points Halti and Saana fells are part of Scandinavian mountains. 

[Malcador]

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/01/16/eu-will-approve-50-billion-for-ukraine-with-or-without-hungary-vows-von-der-leyen

Guess will be an end to all the pessimism and fear mongering soon

[BruceVC]

23 minutes ago, Malcador said:

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/01/16/eu-will-approve-50-billion-for-ukraine-with-or-without-hungary-vows-von-der-leyen

Guess will be an end to all the pessimism and fear mongering soon

Hopefully the US border  issue is agreed  on because that $60 billion will also  be appreciated  

 

[BruceVC]

@Mamoulian War

https://www.politico.eu/article/in-post-election-reversal-slovakia-enables-weapons-exports-to-ukrainef-fico/#:~:text=The Slovak parliament backed an,send another bullet" to Kyiv.

Mamie what happened to the pro-Russian rhetoric "not another  bullet  to Ukraine "  ...these  politicians and there  grandstanding 

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

@Mamoulian War

https://www.politico.eu/article/in-post-election-reversal-slovakia-enables-weapons-exports-to-ukrainef-fico/#:~:text=The Slovak parliament backed an,send another bullet" to Kyiv.

Mamie what happened to the pro-Russian rhetoric "not another  bullet  to Ukraine "  ...these  politicians and there  grandstanding 

They are populists ****-for-brains, who do everything for money. To appease their voters, they stopped donating weapons to Ukraine, but they have no problem to sell weapons to Ukraine Especially, when the Minister of Defense is a corrupt ****, who owns few weapon re-exporting companies here, who was selling weapons few years ago to ISIS through Saudi Arabia middle-men

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Mamoulian War said:

To appease their voters, they stopped donating weapons to Ukraine, but they have no problem to sell weapons to Ukraine

Sounds smart, better to sell than give for free. Especially as a smaller country.

Free money from the US is on hold for a while longer - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/us/politics/johnson-biden-border-ukraine.html?unlocked_article_code=1.OU0.BImv.tbWjn4EYoVWe&smid=url-share

I'd bet they'd have cleared this up before the end of January, guess that was a bust.