Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 August 26

= August 26 =

Question about Duchy of Modena and Reggio
The article on the Duchy of Modena and Reggio lists Frignano as part of its territory. This seems implausible given how far away it is from Modena, and how it was probably part of the Kingdom of Naples/Two Sicilies. Can someone verify this? 70.175.192.217 (talk) 02:23, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a historical and geographical region, also named "Frignano", which like the historical provinces Modena and Reggio is located in what today is Emilia-Romagna. See it:Frignano (territorio). The name is preserved in the name of the town Pavullo nel Frignano, about 40 km south of the city of Modena. --Lambiam 06:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I will note that, while not true in this case, being discontiguous, often by some long distance, is NOT uncommon in medieval polities like this. Consider, for example, this map of the Holy Roman Empire, showing several states that had lands that were not contiguous.  -- Jayron 32 13:32, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * See also Enclave and exclave. MinorProphet (talk) 07:16, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Fort Snelling unorganized territory
We have an article Fort Snelling unorganized territory, which is about an unincorporated area in the Minneapolis area which is home to a military installation and Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport. The article claims, "Most people resident in the unorganized territory are service members stationed at the barracks at Fort Snelling. ... As of the census of 2000 ... The population is spread out in age with 4.5% from 25 to 44, 33.0% from 45 to 64, and 62.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 69 years. Males had a median income of $43,558 versus $0 for females." This doesn't make sense. How could a populated place where most of the population are in the military have a majority of senior citizens as its residents? And assuming that, in fact, this place is home mostly to senior citizens rather than soldiers, then how could the median income of female residents be $0? That would mean that the majority of female residents had zero income. Was Fort Snelling home to an all-male retirement community? The links to the U.S. Census website cited in the article no longer work, so I can't find the underlying data that this information comes from. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:30, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I would remove the sentence that says "Most people resident in the unorganized territory are service members stationed at the barracks at Fort Snelling." It feels like some random local wrote that based on their impressions, and they were just wrong.  It has no reference, and it's dubious based on actual cited sources, so I would remove it.  -- Jayron 32 11:46, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That would solve one problem, but it would still leave other issues open. If most of the residents were senior citizens, perhaps because a retirement home or community constitutes much of the housing there, one would expect there to be a significant female population, in fact, probably more women than men (since women live longer than men on average). And, in that case, many of the women would presumably have income from Social Security, pensions, etc. and thus the median income of women would have to be greater than zero. Compare the demographics of some places which consist entirely of retirement communities, for example, Sun City, Arizona (79.8% of the population over age 65, median age 75 ... but 100 females for every 69.8 males, and males had a median income of $35,459 versus $26,453 for females). --Metropolitan90 (talk) 13:22, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know. We can't interpret what the data means unless someone else has done it first.  We can only report what the Census Bureau has reported.  If that's what the Census Bureau says, that's what it says.  I will note the data is 20 years out-of-date at this point.  If I were you, I'd look for the same data from the 2020 census, which has recently been published, and update it.  It briefly notes that the population had dropped from 2000 to 2010 by a factor of 2/3 or so.  I don't know what 2020 looks like, but it may be worthwhile to get that data and update the article and get rid of the outdated numbers.  -- Jayron 32 13:25, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If I'm not mistaken, much of the 2000 census data for every populated place in the U.S. was added by a bot. (See WikiProject U.S. Census.) I support getting rid of the outdated numbers, but probably almost every city and town in the U.S. is going to need a data update as well. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 13:53, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * This is true; I'm not sure that there's much stomach for another census bot to mass dump the new numbers in (though it could be done, it was controversial at the time... not sure why, but some people were not happy with it). However, we can make sure that this article has good numbers.  -- Jayron 32 14:42, 26 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Here is the current census page: . It says a population of 322 in 239 households. Only 6.2% over 65, very different from the 2000 figures in the article. The income is by family, not individual. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 20:07, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

What did they pay Afghans to translate in 2001?
Did they pay languages with fewer English speakers more? Did Italy find bilinguists in Italian and an Afghan language, have someone translate an English translation for those who's English isn't good or both? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:43, 26 August 2021 (UTC)


 * The US government has a concept of "strategic languages", among which Pashto and Dari (the main languages of Afghanistan) are likely to be included. I had an acquaintance who the Department of Defense gave a graduate stipend to, because he was studying literature in another one of those languages, because they wanted to have more people available who they could call on for translations if they had to.  They never really asked for much work from him.  Once a year or so they would send him a short newspaper article or such to translate, which he duly did, but it seemed like they mostly did that to make sure he was still responsive.  I know someone else who was in the Army during the VN era and they sent her to the Defense Language Institute and got her speaking and reading pretty good Vietnamese. It wouldn't surprise me in the present and future if a lot of translation workload is shifted from humans to machines.  Even mass-consumption stuff like Google Translate is quite usable now, and the bleeding edge stuff is supposed to be a lot better. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:2B99 (talk) 03:47, 28 August 2021 (UTC)


 * A big advantage of using an Afghan interpreter is that they are also likely to understand the cultural nuances of Afghan society, which outside of big cities has a strong tribal hierarchy. A look at YouTube shows any number of videos by US expats in the UK and vice-versa, who made gaffes because they misread social signals that are different from their home country, and that in two nations that have numerous historic links. Also, there are at least nine languages spoken in Afghanistan.
 * In answer to your other question, this video apparently shows Afghan interpreters speaking Italian. I suspect that they might have used English to start with and picked-up Italian on the job. Alansplodge (talk) 13:22, 28 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Good point, certainly for interpreters and others working in-country. My friend who studied Vietnamese in the Army never actually went to Vietnam.  She worked on a base in the US (or maybe it was Germany or something), handling and translating intelligence info that had been sent from VN.  I don't know whether that meant military comms or stuff like press reports.  I do remember she told me her unit had a special incinerator and procedures to burn all their sensitive papers if they thought they were about to be captured, lol. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:2B99 (talk) 00:16, 29 August 2021 (UTC)


 * The Army taught my uncle Czech, and during the late 1960s and/or early 1970s, he spent time on a base in Germany translating Czech military radio transmissions -- a large part of which were apparently informal communications between low-level reservists temporarily stationed near the border. This may have contributed to someone assembling miscellaneous info into a larger picture, but I don't think my uncle ever knew the higher-level analysis. AnonMoos (talk) 22:07, 29 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I read that the military prefers to not have to teach a whole language to an American who wants a translating/interpreting job. But sometimes they can't attract enough bilinguists I guess, even with a draft. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:20, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

"Postes afghanes"
Why did Afghanistan postage stamps have the French inscription "Postes afghanes" for some period, e.g. here? Postage stamps and postal history of Afghanistan says it appeared in 1928, but doesn't explain why. I suspect because French language is relevant to the Universal Postal Union, but not sure. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 21:38, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * You suspect rightDOR (HK) (talk) 05:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Any sources supporting this judgement? --Lambiam 08:26, 27 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't know if it is a coincidence, but 1928 was the year the Afghan Civil War broke out, which to a certain extent was also a conflict between a Dari-speaking majority and Pashto-speaking Tajiks. The choice of French may have avoided an otherwise unavoidable appearance of linguistic preference. --Lambiam 08:26, 27 August 2021 (UTC)


 * "French was the language of diplomacy from the 17th century until the mid-20th century", see List of lingua francas. Neither Dari nor Pashtu would be widely understood in the west, and history might have swayed them away from using English (see Anglo-Afghan War). Alansplodge (talk) 14:43, 27 August 2021 (UTC)


 * At least now, under the Universal Postal Convention, section 6.3.1, postage stamps are required to include the name or abbreviation of the member country or territory of issue, in roman letters. (The UK is exempt from this requirement.) Using only Dari or Pashto or both on stamps might have resulted in delays to the country's international mail because neither of those languages uses the roman alphabet and other countries might have refused to accept the stamps as valid postage. Admittedly, that doesn't explain the choice of French as opposed to any other language using the roman alphabet. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:39, 28 August 2021 (UTC)