Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 December 6

= December 6 =

Indonesian sounding like Dutch/German/Afrikaans
I asked an older couple in the US what language they were speaking with one another. It had many of the sounds of German, but I could not understand a word of it, although I have studied German in college. They said they were speaking Indonesian, and were amazed that it sounded at all like German, Dutch or Afrikaans. Is Indonesian at all like German or Dutch-derived languages in the speech sounds? Edison (talk) 02:52, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Compare Malay phonology and Standard German phonology. To me, they sound nothing alike. Not only do they differ in basic phonology but phonotactics are completely different.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 03:31, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Since the Dutch colonised Indonesia, perhaps the old couple was using a kind of creole, a meld of Indonesian and Dutch. I grew up speaking what I thought was "Malay" but realised later it's not like regular Malay language, it's a creole - sometimes called Baba Malay, or just "Baba" developed in Peranakan culture even before colonisation. Described here as "a song-like language influenced by Hokkien accents and contains loanwords from Malay, Indonesian, and English." Manytexts (talk) 09:02, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * See Petjo language - "...a Dutch-based creole language that originated among the Indos, people of mixed Dutch and Indonesian ancestry in the former Dutch East Indies." Alansplodge (talk) 12:57, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I also concurr that Indonesian and Germanic languages don't sound alike. However, there are many Dutch loanwords in Indonesian which retain a pronunciation quite similar to the original. --Soman (talk) 10:50, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Blank shields over fireplace
In an episode of Downton Abbey the family opened their house for the public. One visitor asked about some blank shields over a fireplace, a question that Cora couldn't answer. My question is if such shields were symbols of something, if they were sometimes filled in, or if they were only put there because someone thought they would look nice? Sjö (talk) 08:23, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * This article mentions the shields as blank moldings across the top of the fireplace, so I guess you don't mean fire screens. The review says, "Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) umm-ed and err-ed over the house’s history. Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) proved to be even less adept after only just clocking some blank shield detailing over the fireplace after one inquisitive person asked her about it." Some here will likely fill in the details Manytexts (talk) 09:15, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

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 * My guess would be that the fireplace was Victorian in the Gothic revival style. Originally, internal medieval stonework was brightly painted, so a stone shield would have been left blank by the mason so that the correct design could be painted-on later. In the case of church stonework, it was all ordered to be whitewashed-over during the English Reformation (see the Putting away of Books and Images Act 1549) and so later generations came to think of Gothic carvings being without colour. A possible analogy is classical sculpture, where the eyeballs were left blank so that the pupils could be painted, but later imitations just had eyes with no detail. Alansplodge (talk) 14:19, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * The above is correct, but I would add that these wall-mounted shields originally had a particular purpose, namely to display the coat of arms of the owner of the property. The system of English heraldry evolved in the Middle Ages, when literacy was not wide-spread, so visual symbols were widely used (as with pub signs or indeed modern logos). Victorian buildings using a pseudo-medieval style included these heraldic elements. The shields (technically escutcheons) are the shapes on which the design representing the family is painted. The elements surrounding the shield are known in totality as a heraldic achievement. I can't comment on the TV programme, except to say that someone who inherits an English country house, whether part of the British nobility or landed gentry, would be expected to know about their ancestors. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:07, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * (At risk of going too far off topic – Cora is an American who married into the family primarily because her family wanted a titled daughter (and because her future husband needed the dosh), which is presumably why she doesn't know as much about the abbey) Smurrayinchester 09:23, 7 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Downton is filmed in a real house - Highclere Castle - and that fireplace is real. According to a fireplace blog(!), that one dates from 1860 so Alansplodge's guess was correct. Smurrayinchester 09:23, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Not so much a guess, but I read in our article that the castle was "was remodelled and largely rebuilt... in 1839–1842". It's still a guess about the blank shields though. Alansplodge (talk) 09:29, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Aha, so this is the story of what the Gilded Age called "dollar princesses". (Our only article of that name goes to a satirical play.) The Cora character would be one in a long line of these mutually beneficial arrangements. I knew about the loveless union of Consuelo Vanderbilt but have only just read about her godmother and namesake Consuelo Montagu, Duchess of Manchester. There might be a clue to how to handle blank escutcheons in The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 09:57, 7 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Cartouche_(design) is highly relevant here. Search google images for /cartouche arhitecture/ for many other similar blank shield results. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:47, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Our article on Escutcheon (heraldry) distinguishes it from the cartouche.


 * Escutcheon shapes are derived from actual shields used by knights in combat.... As this shape has been regarded as a war-like device appropriate to men only, British ladies customarily bear their arms upon a lozenge, or diamond-shape, while clergymen and ladies in continental Europe bear theirs on a cartouche, or oval. Other shapes are in use...
 * Carbon Caryatid (talk) 16:38, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Good call. I've seen "cartouche" used to mean a blank shape, whether oval, shield etc. in architectural contexts, but perhaps that usage is in error. This source says they are often blank, and also shows a greater variety of shapes than is indicated in our articles. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:46, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

A question regarding Jihadi John's killing
This article explains how Jihadi John was located and targeted. I do understand that, since the mini-drones had only an 8 mile range they had to be released close to Raqqa and couldn't come from hundreds of miles away. I assume also that mini-drones had to be used in order not to alert the target. But why did the mini-drones have to be released by eight valuable SAS personnel instead of from some large drone or from an airplane? It seems everything could be done remotely. Ok, the article says the SAS team "confirmed kill". But how? They were 5 miles from Raqqa? And do you require humans to "confirm the kill" anyway? Incidentally, how can mini-drones with an 8 mile range fly a distance of 5 miles and back? And why did the mini-drones need to be retrieved anyway? How reliable are such articles? What is their source? And what's the point of revealing such details to the public? Contact Basemetal   here  08:59, 6 December 2015 (UTC)


 * As per Zero Dark Thirty and Seymour Hersh, stories of how these operations are done tend to be unreliable, or at least, widely disputed. (Hell, I remain about 60% convinced Osama bin Laden is still being entertained at Diego Garcia or some such)  I didn't enable every last script, but it looked like the video at that source is of Cameron talking, not a minidrone spying.


 * Still, it does make sense in a way that such a team would have mini drones, and would use them to go after a high profile target they found out about. And they might have found out about such a target while visiting some of the other lovely tourist hotspots in the Islamic State, like their telecomm closets, that are not easy to visit vicariously by drone.  But of course I'm guessing, totally guessing.  One thing that seems obvious enough is that flying a large visible and audible drone over Raqqa might "spook" the target. Wnt (talk) 21:30, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Just to address one of your other minor questions, in terms of remote control vehicles, "range" typically doesn't mean "how far away it can fly in one go", it usually means from how far away the vehicle can still be remote controlled. That gives a flight "envelope" within which the vehicle can operate. How far away it can actually fly is a factor of how fast it can fly and how long it can fly, those are typically called air speed and flight time. From my experience most remote control vehicles can easily fly out of their "range", so the operator has to be careful not to do so or they lose control. Of course I expect high tech military drones have special flight computers with autopilot, so they can return to base, or some other pre-determined routine, if they ever lose signal. Vespine (talk) 00:58, 9 December 2015 (UTC)