Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is Chile so long?

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 468 posts

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#81

Post by alephnerd »

wageslave99 wrote: post #78
rob74 wrote: post #66

On the difference of Chilean Spanish to other "dialects": > It’s the farthest region from Spain, so the least communicated to the rest of the empire, and hence the one that drifted the most from the homeland. Er... if you look at the table ( https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_... ), Chile has quite a lot of red, but actually its Spanish is closer to the Spanish from Spain than that of other S…

Please note that there is no "standard" Spanish. In the Spain there are multitude of dialects and different variants. Even in the same region (e.g. Andalusia) you can find a ton of different variants. All of them are valid, as the RAE and the AAL make it clear.

RAE is supposed to be the prescriptive source for Spanish, but no one cares about it outside of a subset of Academics in Spain.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#82

Post by flobosg »

alganet wrote: post #60

Cool article. TIL I learned that Atacama has flower blooms. I miss the Inca though. Talking about Chile without mentioning the Inca Empire is like talking about Italy without mentioning the Roman Empire.

Enter the Mapuche (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche), whom the Inca tried (and failed) to conquer.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#83

Post by School-Cotton »

29athrowaway wrote: post #21

Another interesting fact about Chile is: no compass is needed. The mountains show where the East is. If the East is to your right you are facing North, otherwise you are facing South.

Same thing I use the Empire State Building for when in lower Manhattan. Granted that works over a much smaller area...

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#85

Post by elzbardico »

arachnid92 wrote: post #62
ShaggyStyle wrote: post #58

All of this is just because Chile is the best country of Chile... if you know what I mean ;-)

Somo el mejor país de Chile hmno. As a Chilean living in the US, seeing this on HN made my day - it’s not often the rest of the world (outside of South America) remembers we exist.

Believe me, not being remembered by the rest of the world is sometimes a blessing.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#87

Post by Cthulhu_ »

flobosg wrote: post #59
prmoustache wrote: post #33

Is there a single chilean dialect? Surely in such a long country there must be a huge difference between northern, center and southern chilean.

There are regional variations, but the difference is less than what you would probably expect, applying mostly to intonation/cadence (more marked and melodic in the south, less so in the north) and some vocabulary. Most of the variation in Chilean Spanish is based on socioeconomic status, since Chile's income inequality is rather high.

> [...] intonation (more marked and melodic in the south, less so in the north)

Oddly enough, albeit anecdotal, this is true everywhere; in every country and every continent, people are looser in the south. That said, if it's also true for Chile then it means it's not related to the climate.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#88

Post by rob74 »

alephnerd wrote: post #72
rob74 wrote: post #66

On the difference of Chilean Spanish to other "dialects": > It’s the farthest region from Spain, so the least communicated to the rest of the empire, and hence the one that drifted the most from the homeland. Er... if you look at the table ( https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_... ), Chile has quite a lot of red, but actually its Spanish is closer to the Spanish from Spain than that of other S…

Chilean Spanish is heavily influenced by Spanish, German, Italian, and Croat immigrants from a pronunciation and colloquialism standpoint because those were the 4 main immigrant communities to Chile. Also, Spain Spanish is not necessarily "Standard" (Castilian) Spanish.

That's why I put it in quotes :)

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#89

Post by syngrog66 »

many nation shapes don't make any sense. add in the wildly disconnected/schizophrenic sovereign territory of some countries (US and Russia among exemplars) and I've learned one must simply turn one's brain off when analyzing them. Its a circus.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#90

Post by flobosg »

dheera wrote: post #68
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #12

One of the most interesting drives in my life was Chile from the island of Chiloe to the Tatio Geysers in the Atacama. Just so many different climate zones, and all in relatively close proximity. Chiloe and Puerto Montt were damp, cold, and fog-shrouded in Summer (Jan-Feb), very similar to parts of the coastal pacific northwest. The area to its north, centered around the German-influenced town of Valdivia, was Califo…

I travelled to Chile earlier this year and visited Atacama and Torres de Paine. The thing that boggled my mind was that you can't drive between the two without a very long detour through Argentina. Chile has literally no road linking the northern part with the southernmost part without going outside the country. It is also mind boggling that rail is not more popular there. A long, slim country is ideal for high speed…

> It is also mind boggling that rail is not more popular there. A long, slim country is ideal for high speed rail.

See one of my other comments in this post regarding the rail in Chile.

Post reply on HN