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Why is Chile so long?

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: Why is Chile so long?

#101

Post by dheera »

lukan wrote: post #92
dheera wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate visiting touristy cities but I mind don't mind it as much in nature areas. Mainly because the nature isn't changing itself for the tourists. I visited Torres de Paine and it was refreshingly different from national parks in the US. On the upside, you can get water and basic snacks at the refugios which reduce the load you have to carry, and makes for an overall safer experience than unsupported wilderness back…

"Mainly because the nature isn't changing itself for the tourists." Yes, but some tourists change the nature by leaving their garbage etc.

Yeah I hate that, but at first glance it didn't seem to be a huge problem in TdP compared to most other national parks around the world I have been to. Most people I encountered seemed quite responsible. Chile is overall a very well-educated country though, and TdP takes significant effort to get to compared to so it is perhaps a natural filter.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#102

Post by gottorf »

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…

> Just so many different climate zones, and all in relatively close proximity.

Another place like this, perhaps lesser in scale, is the Big Island of Hawaii. Its latitude means the trade winds are blowing from the same direction year-round, bringing moisture to the windward side (e.g. Hilo, HI with 120" average annual rainfall) and leaving the leeward side dry (e.g. Kailua-Kona, HI with under 20" average annual rainfall), on the other side of massive volcanoes. And you can go from the ocean to almost 14k feet in elevation in an hour's drive; this may be one of the only places in the world where you can do that.

All of this means that as you move around Big Island, based on the precipitation, humidity, and elevation, you're going to see wildly different environments mere minutes' drive from each other. It truly has to be seen to be believed.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#103

Post by flobosg »

lukan wrote: post #92
dheera wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate visiting touristy cities but I mind don't mind it as much in nature areas. Mainly because the nature isn't changing itself for the tourists. I visited Torres de Paine and it was refreshingly different from national parks in the US. On the upside, you can get water and basic snacks at the refugios which reduce the load you have to carry, and makes for an overall safer experience than unsupported wilderness back…

"Mainly because the nature isn't changing itself for the tourists." Yes, but some tourists change the nature by leaving their garbage etc.

Or by burning it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torres_del_Paine_National_Park...

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#104

Post by mechanicalpulse »

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…

> So it looks like those have drifted further from "standard" Spanish, while Chile hasn't as much?

I think the chart is saying less about differences relative to Spanish Spanish and more about each regional dialect relative to the others.

In the table, the countries appear to be ordered (horizontally as well as vertically) by distance relative to Spain. Assuming there's nothing (like an ocean) to prevent the diffusion and evolution of language, given any cross-location in the grid, the cells nearest should theoretically have little to no gradient.

That's clearly not the case with Chile and isolation due to the Andes seems like a reasonable cause.

Colombia and Costa Rica also exhibit this effect, though, and I'm not sure why. FARC? They are separated by Panama and the PCZ; has the canal had an effect of preserving Panama's cultural ties relative to other countries at the expense of those of CO/CR?

Edit: s/Columbia/Colombia/; s/expensive/expense/

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#105

Post by gottorf »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #87
flobosg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> in every country and every continent, people are looser in the south

Fun to think about, but I'm sure there are as many counterexamples as there are examples. In the Germanic languages, for example, no one could deny that Swedish or Norwegian are much more sing-songy than stodgy German.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#107

Post by tomjakubowski »

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…

"Standard" Spanish is modern, and, like Chilean, has itself drifted from dialects which were spoken in the era of Spanish colonization.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#108

Post by prpl »

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…

It’s roughly the equivalent of British Columbia to Mazatlan, except the water is a tiny bit cooler. Santiago is the same latitude as LA, for example.

I love Chiloe and Los Lagos region. I would buy a “southern summer” house there if I didn’t have kids in school.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#109

Post by gottorf »

flobosg wrote: post #84

Trivia question: how many time zones does Chile have?

Given that Chile only covers about nine degrees of longitude, the reasonable expectation is that it only has one time zone (excluding any far-flung territories and whatnot). I'm sure you're going to surprise me with the true answer :-)

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#110

Post by servilio »

digging wrote: post #91
School-Cotton wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There literally is a standard Spanish, no? Not really. Just like English, the standard variety in each country is considered equally "standard". > I understand it to be based on Castilian. I'm not sure what you mean by this. As far as I know Castilian is just a synonym for the Spanish language (as opposed to other languages of Spain e.g. Catalan). So the variety spoken in Guatemala and the one in Tenerife are equal…

No, it's not like English. There is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Spanish . It is maintained by the: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy . In practice, I'm not sure what the impact is. I'm not a native Spanish speaker. But Spanish is not like English in regard to prescriptive norms.

Spanish native here, confirming that RSA is the institution that sets the language standard.

But, people always deviate from it, though in my experience in word meanings and pronunciation, never in grammar to a degree that it become intelligible to another Spanish speaker.

The toughest film to listen to for me was "The rose seller"[1] (1998), took me like 10m to get my ear accustomed to their pronunciation.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASrxQCuVT-U

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