I’m gonna round trip motorcycle that later starting with Colombia
Sounds beautiful. Good luck with your trip.
Why is Chile so long?
111–120 of 468 posts
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#112One 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…
The bus system is very cheap though, it’s very hard to compete with that
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#113On 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.
My opinion as Spaniard and having a chilean close, is that Chilean Spanish is the closest to mine in terms of pronunciation. And to me what makes the biggest difference is not European migration but native words.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dialects can mean very different things hence the old joke "a language is a dialect with its own army and navy", recognizing that the issue is really political rather than linguistic. Many Chinese dialects (like Mandarin and Cantonese) are considered dialects of the same "Chinese language" for political reasons but are mutually unintelligible, whereas Danish and Norwegian (the majority bokmal dialect anyway) are cons…
Okay, so the article is wrong for using that bit of data for the argument. It doesn't tell you much about how well two people from two different places will understand each other. If two people are in the same place and one says to the other "¿me das la veleta?", but the other would have called the object "molinete", chances are they could probably understand what the other person is saying. What makes different dial…
I agree with you, differences in pronunciation, cadence, etc. should be taken in account as well. Though measuring those could take longer, if possible.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#115On 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…
New Mexican Spanish is similarly isolated, but the number of speakers is tiny.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#116Another 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.
This is also true of long linear coastlines, such as the South Coast of England, where (ignoring small bays and harbours), if the sea is to your left (right) then you are facing west (east).
I was briefly disoriented when I stayed on the North coast of Cyprus where the situation is the opposite.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#117Trivia question: how many time zones does Chile have?
I had to google, I'm surprised that it's 3, I would have assumed that it was just one since it's so narrow.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#118Trivia question: how many time zones does Chile have?
I had to google, I'm surprised that it's 3, I would have assumed that it was just one since it's so narrow.
Everybody forgets Easter Island! (And the other one in the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica region was added not long ago, 2017 IIRC.)
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#119Off topic, but that correlation matrix of "Spanish similarity" seems a bit odd. I'm from Argentina, and the spanish in Uruguay sounds practically the same. At least A LOT MORE similar than Cuban or Paraguay as it shows there.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no idea. Also there is no standard spanish even in Spain. Like Andalucian spanish and Domenican spanish have a lot in common but vary greatly with other forms of spanish.
When I was getting my degree, two of my classmates spoke Spanish as a first language. One was a transfer student from Madrid, and the other was an immigrant from northern Mexico. I was in the room the first time they met and tried speaking Spanish to one another. They couldn't understand each other and communicated solely in English after about 10 minutes.
The funny thing is that both Spaniards and Mexicans claim to use the most neutral spanish, but you'd find their idiosyncrasies rather quickly - spaniards' 'f' sound of the letter S, and the infinite modisms and particular mexican accent on the other hand.
As the Spanish empire extended its spread so widely the language grew pretty complex (as english did!) so not even the most "neutral" spanish speaking countries do it as the RAE intends.
On the other hand, Chileans really do speak their very own language.