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Why is Chile so long?

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Re: Why is Chile so long?

#71

Post by dheera »

drroots23 wrote: post #65
Etheryte wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice, but unfortunately listed on nearly every tour guide of Chile, so these days it's flooded with tourists most of the time. You'll have a much better time seeing other places slightly off the beaten track.

During the summer months yeah, but I've been there last year during the end season and, although there are still lots of tourists, it's not overwhelming and some of the hikes were pretty chill. Going straight to the Torres themselves will usually be crowded (depending on the time of the day). But some of the other hikes less so. I've done the W Circuit (a multi-day trek) and during some days I barely saw another hike…

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 backpacking but still with minimal impact on nature. On the other hand I did not like that they close a lot of viewpoints long before sunset.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#72

Post by alephnerd »

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.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#73

Post by namenotrequired »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #31
throwup238 wrote: post #3

My key takeaway from this article is that the best place to go see the Milky Way is deep in the Amazon rainforest… where the tree cover is nearly 100% and there isn’t a single road for a hundred miles. That’s a neat collection of graphics. I’m curious how bespoke the creation process is for each graphic or if this is something everyone just does in ArcGis or similar. That last graphic about the Western US being the o…

The problem with your takeaway is that you a) won't be able to realistically get deep into the amazon rainforest and b) the tree canopy would cover all of the sky ;)

Yep. It's way easier to take a boat to the middle of the ocean - fewer roads than even in the amazon :) and the best starry sky of my life

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#74

Post by arachnid92 »

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.

In fact, it’s so easy to know where North is that it’s very common to use cardinal directions when describing locations or meeting points in Santiago, as opposed to using landmarks. For example, when meeting a friend you may say “I’ll meet you on the north-eastern corner of the crossing of Pedro de Valdivia and Irarrázaval Avenues”, and everyone involved will know what that means.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#75

Post by delecti »

pandalicious wrote: post #51

Am I misreading this or is that "How close is Spanish from Different Countries" graphic kind of jank? There's intersecting lines that are missing, like Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.

The intersection between Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic is the 0.42 right above the "1" in the PR column (5th from the left).

If you imagine the full graph of all countries horizontally and vertically, there would be a lot of overlap (the PR column and DR row, and the DR column and PR row). So to save that redundancy, for all countries except Spain (very top) and Argentina (far right) you have to look around a bit to see where it crosses any other given country.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#76

Post by albrewer »

prmoustache wrote: post #35
fluoridation wrote: post #10

How is the table of dialects constructed? It's obvious if two dialects are at 1, but what does it mean if they're at 0? They can't be mutually unintelligible, since that would make them different languages. I ask because the dialects spoken in Argentina and in Uruguay are practically identical, save for a few regional words. If the scale being used puts them at 0.35, then it makes me wonder about the usefulness of th…

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.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#77

Post by TremendousJudge »

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

That would require the upper class to mix with the poor. Not acceptable in Chile.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#78

Post by wageslave99 »

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.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#79

Post by arachnid92 »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #70
seu wrote: post #53

It completely ignores the influence of the indigenous languages in the "dialect" or variation of Spanish, which is actually a much better explainer than "distance from spain".

I don't think that's a good hypothesis, because in that case, other countries with a huge colonized population such as Mexico or Perú would have less intelligible dialects as well.

Not all Latin-American countries experienced the same level of mestizaje and colonization. The southern part of Chile, in particular, was never successfully colonized by the Spaniards, and mapudungún, the language of the Mapuche people who live there has had (and continues to have) a tremendous influence on Chilean Spanish.

Re: Why is Chile so long?

#80

Post by School-Cotton »

digging wrote: post #55
prmoustache wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

There literally is a standard Spanish, no? I understand it to be based on Castilian. However I understand your point that even within the country of Spain there are many dialects which diverge from "standard".

> 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 equally "Castilian".

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