Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 January 15

= January 15 =

Rabelais and his fruit
I'm trying to understand a curious detail of a passage due to Rabelais, in the Fourth Book of Pantagruel, where Panurge exclaims:
 * Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho! What the devil is this?  Do you call this ordure, ejection, excrement, fecal matter, egesta, copros, scatos, dung, crap, turds?  Not at all, not at all:  It is but the fruit of the shittim tree, "Selah! Let us drink".

Now, I take it that Rabelais wrote in French, correct? But the punchline doesn't work in French. What's going on here? Did the translator take it on himself to add a joke not in the original? --Trovatore (talk) 10:26, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Consider this: maybe there was a different joke in the original, one that wouldn't work in English, and the translator replaced one language specific joke with another? TomorrowTime (talk) 10:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, I found the original on French Wikisource, here:
 * Ha, ha, ha? Houay? Que Diable est cecy? Appellez vous cecy foyre, bren, crottes, merde, fiant, deiection, matière fecale, excrement, repaire, laisse, esmeut, fumée, estront, seybale, ou spyrathe? C’est (croy ie) saphran d’Hibernie. Ho, ho, hie. C’est saphran d’Hibernie. Sela, beuvons.
 * If there's a parallel joke there, I don't get it. --Trovatore (talk) 11:00, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ... oh, could be the color, maybe? --Trovatore (talk) 11:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * An article in Études rabelaisiennes, vol. 22, suggests that there's a pun on the name of one Robert Irland (Hibernie = Ireland). I must admit that I read very little of the author's explanation before being forcibly reminded that I'm not a Rabelais scholar, so I'm afraid I can't further explain how his argument runs. --Antiquary (talk) 12:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "C'est (croy ie) saphran d'Hibernie" means "It is (I think) saffron of Hibernia". Of course, Rabelais knows that saffron does not come from Hibernia (Ireland), but from Iberia (Iberian Peninsula, Spain -- "Ibérie" in French). This pun contains a nonsense, a self-contradiction, to escape fear with derision. The translation looks different. --Keguligh (talk) 19:43, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much! I'd noticed that it was strange to talk about saffron coming from Ireland, but I hadn't thought of the "Hibernia" "Iberia" connection.  But Mikhail Bakhtin makes a point of the connection with fruit, and there doesn't seem to be any fruit mentioned in the original. --Trovatore (talk) 20:25, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

How old, most likely, is the oldest military secret?
Obviously there's no certain answer to this. But, for example, is it plausible that a government somewhere is keeping something discovered 150 years ago secret as it is still of military use? I assume not. How about World War I? It's certainly the case that some things dating back to World War II are at least nominally secret so I've established a lower bound there... Egg Centric (talk) 12:17, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If anyone knew the answer to the OP's question, it wouldn't be a secret would it? 92.30.247.85 (talk) 13:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No, but I was hoping this might stimulate some discussion. It may be this is the wrong place to ask, so we'll see... Egg Centric (talk) 14:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I assume many governments consider basic things about natural features (good or poor ground for troop movement, caves to hide in, ...) to be military secrets without knowing how much of it is already known by potential enemies (damn Google Earth, now we are wide open for invaders!) Such things could go back really far but I don't have references. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:55, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * In the past, the secret of "Greek fire" was supposedly kept for centuries. As for WW2, information on many of the allied decryption efforts was kept classified into the 1980s... AnonMoos (talk) 15:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm interpreting the question as meaning a secret that is currently being actively kept (that is, still is under a secrecy order and will not be released upon being requested), and specifically being related to technical secrecy rather than, say, diplomatic secrecy (what arrangements we made with some other nation a long time ago), or, say, bureaucratic secrecy (why someone got promoted or denied promotion and other things that are usually kept very private).
 * In the United States, the bureaucratic and legal apparatus for true technical military secrecy as we think of it today did not really begin until the turn of the century (a good overview), and technical secrecy per se really didn't pick up until around World War I (when people started realizing that technical information was pretty vital to making weapons, etc.). Some of the known oldest still-classified documents deposited in NARA relate to steganography formulas (invisible ink) from the World War I period. Some of the oldest secret patents (no article? See Invention Secrecy Act) that have been released are related to WWI signals technology. My guess is that there is really nothing very technically secret earlier than these sorts of things relating to encryption or steganography. The reason you might keep such things secret today is that they are not so much about being clever, as about knowing the specific formula (or settings, or circuits) that reveal the messages. Now, what's silly about it is that surely they are not using those same old methods today.
 * For other countries, I have no clue. The US is a good case study though because it actually has legal mechanisms to force secrets to be reviewed and released (the Freedom of Information Act), so you can really say "they are purposefully keeping this a secret" when they deny your request (whichever agency it is). Our secrecy laws are, for all of the ballyhooing they get, also much more codified than many other countries. I do know that technical secrecy in the UK perks up at around the same time as it does in the US (see David Vincent's excellent The Culture of Secrecy). I don't know about other nations, though. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:11, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The US has laws about how long military documents that are marked "Secret" may be held before they must be made available to the public upon request. I think (I could be wrong) it is something like 25 or 30 years (which would definitely make anything from WWII or before no longer secret).  Other countries have different rules... and some may well allow secrets to remain so forever. Blueboar (talk) 15:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * In the US, the law says that the document has to be reviewed after a certain amount of time. It doesn't mean they are released. There are plenty of exemptions that allow them to keep things secret if they are still dangerous (like, say, designs for the first atomic bombs, or whatever). It just means that someone has to actually look at it and give you a definite, "no, you can't have this." The goal of such laws (not really laws—it is an Executive Order, though which one is currently governing, I can't remember; every President modifies it somewhat when they take power, and Obama issued his own not long after taking office) is just to force the government to review things regularly, so that the secrets don't just get "forgotten" and stay secret on accident, rather than on purpose. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Well when I made my WWII comments I was thinking about the atomic bomb specifically, which certainly has plenty still classified.
 * Mr.98 - thanks for the info, very interesting. Just a minor point: it's good of you to clarify my vague question; it's not clear but I would like to include diplomatic secrets in this as well. Could there be a secret component to the entente cordial, for example ;)? Egg Centric (talk) 15:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I left out diplomatic secrets in part because it's not something I know as much about, to be honest. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * What kind of secrets are we talking about? The known unknowns or the Unknown unknowns?  -- Jayron  32  15:54, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course this is a problem... necessarily this is going to be speculative! Both, basically. The greek fire was interesting, I knew of it but hadn't realised it was kept secret for so long. Egg Centric (talk) 16:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

See the Ark of the Covenant. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  16:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

When Brazil won the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) and devastated Paraguay, it kept and took to Brazil the Paraguayan archives. They were kept in secret, and they still are. This is known in the Brazilian press as the "sigilo eterno" ("eternal secret") MBelgrano (talk) 16:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably the oldest military secret is which type of rock makes the best weapon... and exactly how to chip it so it will remain sharp and will not shatter when you hit Thag over the head with it. Blueboar (talk) 16:28, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Gosh, that's interesting. Have to admit it may be worth an article - I can have a go but not sure it's my place to write about something I knew nothing about 20 minutes ago! Some good stuff here on the concept of eternal secrecy. Egg Centric (talk) 16:47, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The Vatican is one of the older entities still around that (at one time) conducted wars, and may well have a store of military artifacts that nobody knows about. Probably not secret tactical knowledge, but maybe secret stuff. And you'll never go wrong with conspiracy theories about Vatican secrets. (Just don't be fooled by the Vatican Secret Archives, which aren't secret.) Staecker (talk) 21:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if KageTora intended to imply this anyway, but the last sentence of the plot summary of Raiders of the Lost Ark is relevant here (the very last scene in the film, incidentally.) Governments and military forces have kept secrets (military plans and operations, military techniques, military technologies) for thousands of years, and it's very possible that some material is kept not through a conscious process of reviewing the material once a decade and deciding "gosh, we can't possibly release this yet", but simply because the material is sitting in a storeroom alongside crates and crates of other stuff that the powers-that-be initially deemed secret, but later just forgot was there. If the paperwork decays or is just lost or burned before it's ever released to the public, does that mean that the government concerned still "kept" that secret? If so, in that category there would be secrets going back the best part of a thousand years. If the paperwork has to still exist - somewhere - for it to count, then I would guess there would be some material from between 1600AD to 1800AD that's still unwittingly possessed by a government archive or store and has never been properly reviewed so that it can be publicly released. (Samuel Pepys would be the type of bureaucrat dealing with military arrangements in the first half of that period.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:47, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * There's a really big difference between something which is "secret" because nobody was told it, and something being classified as "SECRET" or "TOP SECRET" according to military regulations (and thus falling under laws like the Espionage Act). The former have really no regulations regarding them, and may or may not exist to this day, and may or may not be purposefully kept, and what have you. They have no legal authority, either. The latter are a legal category which requires, technically, that they are kept under certain conditions ("TOP SECRET" requires significant safes and armed guards and things like that, and keeping track of every copy of every page in a big ledger), and carry with them all sorts of penalties for mis-use (technically if you "mutilate" a piece of Restricted Data, you can go to jail for decades! You used to be able to be executed, but they repealed that part of the Atomic Energy Act some time ago...). The up-side of this from the perspective of an historian or concerned citizen is that they go missing a whole lot less than other documents, and they are usually not too hard for the powers that be to find. Now all of this is relative, of course — when you have billions of pages of documents, there's no way you know where they are all of the time. But it's a considerable difference regarding these documents as compared to other documents. They don't get burned before being released to the public, for example, because by law they have to be stored in a facility that is very secure! This is, of course, all in the United States context. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, indeed - secrets were around a long time before the USA existed. The USA didn't invent "ULTRA SECRET" as the ranking above "TOP SECRET", after all, and the original poster's question didn't specify USA or a specific legal term. For anything before the late 1700's, a USA legal definition of "SECRET" or "TOP SECRET" is irrelevant to this anyway. Maybe the term "state secrets" is relevant here somewhere. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * For any time before even 1911 or so, "SECRET" had no legal meaning. You could stamp it on something, but it didn't carry any real weight — it wasn't a form of regulation at that point, it was just instructions to whomever had it that the contents were considered sensitive. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:50, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd expect that lots of info from the WW2 Manhattan project is still classified, for obvious and practical reasons. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 22:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Less than you'd think, actually! Most of the basic info regarding HEU and Plutonium was declassified as part of Atoms for Peace (because it is vital for reactor work as well). Reactors were classified during WWII but released in the 1950s. Centrifuges were considered inefficient and declassified early on; it was only in the 1960s that it became clear they were a major proliferation issue. Electromagnetic separation was declassified in the 1950s because it was considered inefficient. Gaseous diffusion is still largely classified. Specifics about weapons designs are usually but not always classified. Exact dimensions of weapons designs are classified. Specific equations of state regarding plutonium and HEU in bombs are classified. But that stuff makes up a tiny, tiny part of the overall Manhattan Project. I would estimate that maybe 90% of what was considered secret about the bomb during WWII has since been declassified and released. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

external link change on semi-protected page
I have had an external link on the Samuel de Champlain page for the past 2 years (A complete map of the exploration routes of Samuel de Champlain: Map of Samuel de Champlain voyages http://www.travel-vermont.net/2008/09/map-samuel-de-champlain-voyages-travels/

As you can see by following the link, I have recently moved that map. I'd love to update the external link on Wikipedia but don't seem to be able to do it because the page is semi-protected. How am I supposed to do this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carrousel (talk • contribs) 14:22, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The accepted procedure is to go to Talk:Samuel de Champlain and use Template:editprotected... AnonMoos (talk) 15:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Children's Book: Orphan Girl in Ursuline Convent, New Orleans
I have the distinct memory of reading in childhood a book about a little orphaned girl who was taken in by the Ursuline nuns in 19th-century New Orleans. I believe she made friends with pigeons who would come to visit her up in her rooms and gave them bread. The book was illustrated with what appeared to be pen-and-ink drawings or engravings which I think were in two colors (black and pink or purple) and I think the girl had golden hair in the story. It was written no later than the mid-20th century and was probably from between the 30s and 50s, since it had a marked fascination with the time period it was depicting and the illustrations were very realist in style. I never finished the book and it was likely later destroyed with the library containing it, so finding the copy I read again would be impossible. I realize it's a bit of a long shot, but if anyone can help, that would be wonderful. 193.55.52.3 (talk) 17:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Could it be Lottie's Valentine by Katherine W. Eyre, seemingly first published around 1940? According to a thumbnail review in the journal Child Study it describes "How eight-year-old Lottie, orphan in a New Orleans convent, tenderly nurses a wounded pigeon, and thereby finds a loving home.  Beautifully illustrated."  It was published by Oxford University Press, and though it's long out of print there are cheap second-hand copies available from both the British and American branches of Amazon. --Antiquary (talk) 20:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Click here to see the title page, which might jog your memory. --Antiquary (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Cemetery lot brain teaser
A sexton told me he recently measured off Lot E-41 and found the four corner "cement markers", THEN discovered that the gravestones were at the feet end NOT at the head end (west end) as "headstones" as they should be. Here is a plot map to help you out!
 * http://www.flickr.com/photos/22738816@N07/5339246227/in/set-72157619909680727/

Please give me your BEST interpretation you can. If you don't know, then take your BEST guess or say how you interpret the answer given to me below by the sexton. ''As the sexton’s job, he goes to the cemetery map that shows all lot numbers, which is at the township hall. Then he goes to the cemetery, and looks for the cement markers, that are buried in the ground, which were placed there by a surveyor. The cement markers are placed on the four corners of each lot (not each grave space). Each grave space is four feet, you start from the north, and grave space #5 is to the south. So, when measuring off lot E41, the grave stones are on the east end of the lot instead of the west end.''
 * 1 - What would the dimensions of the Lot be then?
 * Assuming that each grave is 4 feet wide, and 8 feet long (a guess) a two person plot would be 8 feet on a side (a six person would be 12 X 8). Some cemeteries may require a foot or two extra on each side however.  You will have to contact the sexton to ask.
 * Each Lot has 5 grave spaces. Therefore I see it as 20 feet by 10 feet.--Doug Coldwell talk 19:58, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * 2 - Where are the "cemetery markers" located exactly?
 * At the four corners of the plot, as you said.
 * 3 - Can one see these "cemetery markers" with the naked eye?
 * Yes and no. In reality they are often semi-buried by overgrown grass... so you may have to dig around a bit with your toe to actually find them. But once you do, they will be visible.
 * 4 - Could one take a picture of these "cemetery markers" with a digital camera?
 * Yes, but all you would see is a small square of stone in the ground... with perhaps a letter or number carved in it. A picture would not be that informative
 * 5 - Are there "cemetery markers" for other Lots throughout the cemetery other than Lot E-41?
 * Yes, all the plots should have markers in their corners
 * 6 - How far would the tops of these "cemetery markers" be buried into the ground?
 * They are supposed to be at ground level... at the most they will be buried by a few inches.
 * 7 - Would the "cemetery markers" for Lot E-41 be visible NOW?
 * That depends on how long ago they were placed... and how well maintained the cemetery is. In some cemeteries a grounds keeper may periodically clean out any accumulated dirt and grass so the markers stay visible, in others they don't.
 * The sexton told me he recently measured off Lot E-41 and found the four corner "cement markers", THEN wouldn't they be visible NOW since there should be dirt distubances that cleared the tops?--Doug Coldwell talk 20:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * 8 - Would there be any dirt distubances on the tops of the "cemetery markers" for Lot E-41?
 * Again this will depend on the cemetery. Looking at the pictures, I think it likely in your case.
 * 9 - IF the existing Caldwell gravestones are at the feet end (east end), then are the Blackford's plaques in the background at the far west end as "headstones" or also at the east end?
 * I would say the Blackford's plaques are also "foot stones", but that is a guess.
 * Yes, that is the way I see it also - otherwise IF the Blackford's were at the head end, THEN so is the Caldwells.--Doug Coldwell talk 19:56, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Also there seems to be about 9 feet (+/- 1 foot) between the Caldwell gravestones and the Blackford's plaques. I see it as WHATEVER one is the otherone is. IF the Caldwell's were "footstones" THEN that would be the far east end of the Lot. The Blackford's can NOT then be at their head ends.--Doug Coldwell talk 20:10, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * http://www.flickr.com/photos/22738816@N07/5229499205/in/set-72157619909680727/
 * http://www.flickr.com/photos/22738816@N07/3644032684/in/set-72157619909680727/
 * Frank Caldwell is on the north side in space # 2.
 * 10) - Can you see any "cement markers" in these two pictures above?
 * --Doug Coldwell talk 17:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds like homework to me. Blueboar (talk) 17:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * NOT homework - its a real live problem from an old retiree! These are my grandparents and my father's gravestones.--Doug Coldwell talk 17:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * OK... my apologies. I have answered above. Blueboar (talk) 17:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Blueboar - great answers. It helps me alot with my problem!--Doug Coldwell talk 19:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * 6 - How far would the tops of these "cemetery markers" be buried into the ground? 
 * As it was laid out originally by a surveyor, could one presume he did a professional job and included an iron rod or pipe below the corner markers. Cheap domestic DIY pipe/metal detectors would quickly find these (well, my wall stud detector can often find buried metal). In some places I've seen shorts posts and things around the perimeter of the grounds to provide sight-lines, to  give staff a good approximate idea where they are and so make it easier for them to find the exact spot from anywhere.  You might be able to spot them if you know the lot size.  Try finding out the grave spaces size by inquiring about purchasing a new grave. They  normally state the exact dimensions on  the contract information.  If you are after a photographic representation of the surface placements, maybe you could borrow a surveyors tape measure and some short sticks and coloured tape/ribbon and mark the lot out. Then photograph that and draw up a scale map.  Even complain to the Bureau of Commercial Services if there are in the wrong place. Lastly. The surveyor's original plans may have been deposited  in a place of safety somewhere. After all, the plots figure in a legal contract and I would imagine the Michigan state cemetery legislation and licensing  requires this info to be separately recorded (plus the possible need to exhume in criminal investigations).   If so, it might be available for inspection. --Aspro (talk) 21:18, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This is the cemetaries fault for putting them in the wrong place (if they are the wrong place) in the first place. Its their responsibility to move them if they are in the wrong place. I cannot see how it really matters where the stones are. In the UK I would just scatter the relatives ashes over the plot, but practice may differ where you are. You could get a spade, a lever, and something like a sledge or rollers, and move the stones yourself. I would be inclined to just leave things as they are. 92.29.122.203 (talk) 11:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Did Lysenko believe in genes? Was there an alternative term?
What was the unit of inheritance for characteristics according to Lyenkoism? Having read some studies and Lysenko's speeches, it seems like the main difference between Lysenko and Mendel/Morgan was whether there could be acquired traits. So did Lysenko accept the existence of genes, and simply add that they could be modified? Or did Lysenko entirely reject the existence of the gene? If so, was there any other unit he used, what was the name of his "gene-like" carrier of information? From reading his works, it seems like genetics itself was not a "bad word" but "reactionary genetics".

To clarify my main question is did Lysenko and Lysenkoist influenced Soviet biology completely reject the gene, or did they have a different concept of what the gene was and how it functioned? --Gary123 (talk) 17:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't have my Lysenko books at hand, but the best one for getting a sense of what Lysenko was really arguing for (which was a horrible muddle of ideas, hence not what most people really focus on when they talk about Lysenkoism) is, if I recall, David Joravsky, The Lysenko Affair (1970). My understanding, and glancing over the "Searching Inside This Book" results that comes up for said volume (searching for "genes" is instructive), is that in the beginning, Lysenko following Michurin, said genes existed but didn't operate in the way that the Mendelians said, but by the late 1930s he was saying that they did not exist. Here is a wonderful passage from this period which illustrates some of the real impossibility of trying to figure out what the heck Lysenko really thought:
 * "In our conception the entire organism consists only of the ordinary body that everyone knows. There is in an organism no special substance [veshchestvo] apart from the ordinary body. But any little particle [chastichla], figuratively speaking, any granule [krupinka], any droplet [kapel'ka] of a living body, once it is alive, necessarily possesses the property of heredity, that is, the requirement of appropriate conditions for its life, growth, and development."
 * It's probably nonsense; it's definitely not science. To quote Joravsky's take on the above paragraph, and the attempt to make real scientific sense of Lysenko's approach in general: "If scientific content has to be read into such pronouncements, Lysenko can be interpreted as dissolving genetics into physiology, identifying the function of self-replication with all other life functions. But such a paraphrase is misleading in its precision, for his understanding of the other life functions was almost as vague and evasive as his understanding of self-replication. The simple truth must be faced. Any part of biological science that Lysenko touched was turned into a vague, personal dogmatism. To attempt a coherent outline of Lysenkoite 'genetics' is thus a self-contradiction: it began and ended with opposition to clearcut thought and rational experimentation. What is more, Lysenko and especially his disciples shifted their stance as their political influence waxed and waned." (210)
 * In other words, Lysenko was a shuck, and like all shucks, he really resisted actually putting forward a theory that made any sense or could be tested (and thus found wrong) in any concrete manner. Trying to articulate his theory in precise terms is not going to be fruitful or self-consistent. I don't recall him having an alternative to genes. He definitely denied genes at some times, but not at others. His alternatives are muddle-headed, vague descriptions of acquired characteristics. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:22, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Looking for a quote
I read a quote somewhere that expressed the rough sentiment that in looking for the subtle or non-obvious 'goods' or 'virtues' or 'benefits' of a situation when making a decision, we shouldn't overlook the obvious ones. The context I read it in was on a site where it was quoted to refute the idea that you should always do what you want to do and not concern yourself too much with money; for example if your lifelong dream is to be a street sweeper making $2 per hour you probably shouldn't do that (here the non-obvious good to being a street sweeper is doing what you like, and the obvious good to not being a street sweeper is making more money). THis site was not the original source; I need to know where the original quote came from. Thanks. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 18:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Some of these may serve: http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/obvious/ 92.29.122.203 (talk) 11:48, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

the many daughters of Robert Arden
Reading around a few related articles here and elsewhere, as far as I can tell Mary Shakespeare had seven sisters and her father is recorded as having four step-daughters from his second wife. However, does anyone know any of their names, other than one Abigail Webb?

148.197.121.205 (talk) 20:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * According to Kate Pogue Shakespeare's Family (2008), p. 101, Mary Shakespeare (née Arden)'s sisters were Agnes, Joan, Katherine, Margaret, Elizabeth, Joyce and Alice. Abigail Webb was Mary Arden's aunt and mother-in-law (the Ardens and Shakespeares having intermarried at least twice), but not her sister. --Antiquary (talk) 21:54, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, of course, must have gotten mixed up with so many names everywhere. A very useful outline of the family, that. I have managed to piece together much of the family tree now, but there are still a few gaps. If, even though the question has been answered now, anyone feels like supplying any more names, I will be grateful. 148.197.121.205 (talk) 11:43, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Afro-Arabs
Which Arab nations has black population who came as slaves? like how USA, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Cuba have black population from the times of slavery? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.107.109 (talk) 20:39, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * African slave trade gives an overview. For your second question, Atlantic slave trade gives some actual percentages (subsection "Slave market regions and participation") and rankings ("Ethnic groups"). Clarityfiend (talk) 21:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Take a look at Arab slave trade. I would imagine that all modern Arab nations have a percentage of their population who are of African slave heritage.  The African slave trade of the 17th and 18th centuries went in two directions... captives from East and Central Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, etc.) were sold to Arab slavers (and taken to Arabia and the Ottoman Empire), while captives from West Africa (Congo, Niger, Ghana, etc.) ended up being sold to European slavers (and taken to the Americas).  The Arab trade stared earlier and lasted longer than the European trade... but the European trade dwarfed it in scale.  We tend to forget the Arab slave trade because the European slave trade had a lager impact on history. But cities like Dar es Salaam were famous as Arab slave markets. Blueboar (talk) 21:18, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought Dar es Salaam was too new to be an important part of the slave trade. Zanzibar, on the other hand... Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That could be true. I may be mistaking Dar es Salaam for Zanzibar or one of several other Arab trade towns along the east coast of Africa that were known as slave ports. Blueboar (talk) 02:58, 16 January 2011 (UTC)