Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 July 31

= July 31 =

Restrictions on which passport a person with multiple citizenships can use
It's illegal for an American citizen to enter or exit the US using a foreign passport they might hold. I imagine other countries might have the same policy as well. Where can I find a list of such countries?

I wondering whether Turkey has such a law, in particular, due to this recent story. Crudiv1 (talk) 02:27, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Well our Turkish nationality law does say "Dual nationals are not compelled to use a Turkish passport to enter and leave Turkey; it is permitted to travel with a valid foreign passport and the Turkish National ID card" so it seems to me there's less reason to wonder, although it is unsourced. Note that the article you linked to is unclear whether they just had their foreign passports cancelled or they were also forbidden to travel. If it's the later, the legalities of travelling on a foreign passport would seem to be a moot point since leaving Turkey while forbidden would surely already be illegal. (Whether they catch it or not will generally depend more on the efficiency of their data matching and not legalities.) Nil Einne (talk) 04:41, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

You can check the US Department of States travel information pages for a general overview on a country by country basis. For example the Brazil guide says "Special Entry/Exit Requirements for Dual Nationals: U.S. citizens who also have Brazilian nationality cannot be issued Brazilian visas and must obtain a Brazilian passport from the Brazilian Embassy or Consulate nearest to their place of residence to enter and depart Brazil. In addition to being subject to all Brazilian laws affecting U.S. citizens, dual nationals may also be subject to other laws that impose special obligations on Brazilian citizens." You can find the countries Here. 06:42, 31 July 2016 (UTC)Gradvmedusa (talk)


 * A Cuban friend with double citizenship told me that, when she enters Cuba she must use her Cuban passport. --Error (talk) 00:45, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Philippines v China in the South China Sea: PCA in the Hague instead of ITLOS in Hamburg
In June the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague ruled China's actions illegal and claims invalid to the contentious South China Sea.

My current understanding is that according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows for states to choose among three options for dispute settlement, among them the PCA in The Hague, The International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea in Hamburg (ITLOS), and the International Criminal Court (ICJ).

Now the Philippines v. China case took place in the PCA at The Hague, among news articles the terms the PCA and "The Tribunal" are used interchangeably. Now I've read some reasons why the Philippines would choose the PCA, if it did indeed choose it, namely because the PCA has dealt with such matters before and it predates the UN and ITLOS. I'm not sure those are the real reasons. Also according to some news articles ITLOS choose many of the Judges at the PCA case.

I'm wondering, considering the PCA is "a bureaucracy" not a court, does that mean that the PCA was merely a location for ITLOS to judge the case, or the PCA was taking the case independent of ITLOS?

I'm having trouble organizing whats really going on and why the case took place in the PCA rather than ITLOS, am I on the right track? What information or UNCLOS articles am I missing? I've done considerable research on the issue but a lot of points are made more confusing by research and conflicting testimony.

All in all my current understanding says that PCA was simply the host for an ITLOS trial, and thus it was just ITLOS but in The Hague, using the resources of the PCA to bolster the case. However I think I might be wrong about this. —Aiden 09:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * You may want to check the Permanent Court of Arbitration article which was recently updated and seems to deal with the general concept. I presume and a check of one of the linked sources confirms the tribunal was set up according to annex VII. The linked UNCLOS text says what this entails  (page 190 of the document, 184 of the PDF). The constitution of such a tribunal seems quite different from International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Nil Einne (talk) 18:14, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Reports refer to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in The Hague.
 * China argues


 * the dispute predates UNCLOS
 * there is no agreement to take a dispute to arbitration
 * the tribunal only has jurisdiction to rule on maritime rights ancillary to an adjudication on "competing territorial claims" (see last link) which there are not
 * the construction of artificial islands creates maritime rights (they don't - Article 121 defines an island as a "naturally formed area of land"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.49.155 (talk) 20:13, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Fed . US Treasury Securities
>> I should have pointed out earlier that there's no reason for a government with monetary sovereignty, like the U.S., to default.

Can you explain please how will actually Fed give money to Treasury (how many ways exist)? If this will be as during QE, when Fed bought Treasuries, then public debt will not reduce, but just will be refinanced on new 30-year period. And what is the reason of buying Treasuries by Fed? Surplus of Fed in any case comes back to budget. Or Fed will eliminate returning dollars?

72.19.61.71 (talk) 10:13, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Here's the QE version: Step 1: Congress authorizes the Treasury to issue a debt instrument (T-bill). Step 2: The Federal Reserve gives the Treasury money in exchange for the T-bill. Another version is payment of dividends from state-owned assets to the Treasury. DOR (HK) (talk) 14:33, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Olympic Games
In the Olympics, if you're a competitor in a sport that requires equipment, for instance badminton or archery, can you supply your own equipment, so long as it conforms with the IOC's requirements, or are you issued with Olympic approved equipment. In the latter scenario, I can see that it gives everybody parity, but that it also gives a disadvantage because you're using unfamiliar equipment? Thanks in advance --14:37, 31 July 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrandrewnohome (talk • contribs)
 * I'm fairly sure such things are largely up to the sport with little regulation at the IOC level. That said, most sports do expect the competitor to supply their own equipment e.g.     . That's why you often get stories of people from desperately poor country and the like (no ref as all I found were mostly referring to training although I'm sure I've seen some before), people who suffer some sort of misfortune   and Australians  needing to borrow equipment to compete, even if it doesn't always end well  (well possibly that wasn't the end). BTW, it's perhaps worth remembering even sports like running (shoes, clothes), and swimming (swimgear, goggles) have equipment (or whatever you want to call it) which can have sufficient performance difference to be relevant especially when you're talking about close competitions. P.S. I assume it's understood we're only talking about individual or team equipment. Equipment that are used by both competitors e.g. footballs, shuttlecocks, are normally provided by some official supplier for the entire sport that year. Nil Einne (talk) 17:35, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Origin of American English
When did American English accents begin to distinguish themselves from British pronunciation?Larry Melvin (talk) 20:16, 31 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Define "British". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:41, 31 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Do you mean English, Scottish English, Welsh English or Hiberno English? If English, do you mean Cockney, Geordie or West Country? Brummie, Bristolian or Mancunian? If Scottish English, do you mean Morningside? Or Glaswegian? Or Insular? If Welsh English, do you mean North Wales, Cardiff, Valleys, South West? If Hiberno English, do you mean Ulster? Dub? Cork? Each of those separate dialects will probably have more variation between them than in the entirety of American English. Fgf10 (talk) 21:55, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * So how different are these US accents by UK standards? A, and B Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:49, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * These things are presumably quantifiable, but, subjectively, that's about the same as the difference between Manchester and Burnley, or Bristol and Taunton - strong and weak versions of what's basically the same accent. Tevildo (talk) 15:20, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well the Fargo clip is not the strongest version of the "north of midland accents" but when the other clip says 2 liters of Mountain Dew that's about as southern as it gets. UK accents sure are diverse..


 * This map of US dialects has 7 major dialect areas and 43 subdialects. Imagine how many the UK would have if "basically the same accent" is 4 dialects apart by US standards! Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:33, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I would expect the divergence began immediately upon the first colonists settling in America. After all, in those days there was no radio or TV or movies to expose the colonists to the mother-tongue, and there weren't many people who went back-and-forth between the colonies and Britain to "cross-pollinate" changes occurring on either side of the ocean.  However, in the early days most colonists would have been born in Britain, so would have some memory of how English was spoken there.  As the years progressed, however, and particularly after US independence, that was no longer the case.  Also, people who moved to the interior of the US would have less exposure to British English than those on the coast, and particularly on the East Coast points nearest to the UK, such as Boston, which had more contact with British people, and hence remained a bit closer to the British tongue.  Another effect of US independence was that many no longer wished to emulate Britain at that point. StuRat (talk) 22:07, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Even in the east coastal south, there are trace remnants of British pronunciation. I've heard stories of deep-south types having trouble understanding residents of Brooklyn. But even with the many variations of accents and idioms across the land, I think as Fgf said they are nowhere near as different as the various British Isles accents and idioms. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:18, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * See especially Older Southern American English, including the High Tider dialect, known especially in insular (meaning "island based", and not merely isolated) communities up and down the Mid Atlantic region. That dialect is well attested in islands in the Chesapeake Bay, Tidewater, and Outer Banks regions.  It's important to note that these dialects are most likely to be closest to the original British dialects of the first settlers in these areas; rate of language change is known to be closely related to contact with other dialects and languages; that is the more isolated a group of speakers are the more the group will preserve original forms and resist changes in languages.  The more contact groups of speakers have with other groups of speakers the more the language changes.  -- Jayron 32 17:17, 1 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has an interesting article on North American English regional phonology.--Shantavira|feed me 06:33, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Also bear in mind that [|pronouncing the -r at the ends of words] is a trait shared by most Americans and some Britons. Iapetus (talk) 10:13, 1 August 2016 (UTC)


 * This may be interesting. -- Jayron 32 13:55, 1 August 2016 (UTC)