Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 October 2

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October 2

What was the former national anthem of Luxembourg that is based on To Anacreon in Heaven?

I have read about the current national anthem of Luxembourg and it says that a former one was based on To Anacreon in Heaven. What is the name and lyrics of that song? Czech is Cyrillized (talk) 01:20, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that Luxembourg ever had a national anthem that used the tune (for those who don't know, it's the same tune as the Star Spangled Banner). I have removed the claim from the article... if I am wrong, add it back with a citation. Blueboar (talk) 12:56, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

The John Stafford Smith article claims that the tune was used in a shortlived Luxembourg anthem up to 1895. The French version of the To Anacreon in Heaven article claims the same but has a citation needed tag. Hack (talk) 15:10, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I have added a "citation needed" tag to the John Stafford Smith article. The only results that Google could find for me were on forums and blogs probably sourced from our articles. Alansplodge (talk) 17:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Still waiting for a comment by JackofOz (see [1]). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, very strange. I have no memory of making that edit 9 years ago, and I've checked in my own reference library and obviously online as well but can find no primary or secondary source for it. I certainly didn't make it up, but must have read it somewhere. How unlike me to add facts without citations. Colour me "mystified unintentional vandal". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:23, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

CalicoCatLover added an "official English translation" of Ons Heemecht on 4 January 2011 (see [2]) that makes little sense. The official English translation published by the Luxembourg government, however, is exactly the text designated "poetic translation" in the article "Ons Heemecht". I would like to suggest to keep the translation from the Luxembourg website and call it "official translation". --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 01:08, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh my goodness, CalicoCatLover added also an "official French version" of "Ons Heemecht" on 4 January 2011 (see [3]) that makes little sense. Does a French reader understand "Prendre l'âme comme Himmelstön"? The official translations of various national anthems added by that user are indeed automated translations and have since then found their way via Wikipedia into the World Wide Web. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 01:50, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I find it cute - celestial day of mine - , there is one blog who retrained itself from copying Wikipedia: le blog bertysblog, but it's a blog. --Askedonty (talk) 10:40, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Islam in bible

What does the bible say about Islam and Propthet Muhammed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.214.48.200 (talk) 09:42, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Nothing, because the Bible predates both. StuRat (talk) 09:46, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

It's difficult, as in the various prophecies, neither is explicitly named. Depending on interpretations, there some verses which speak on the topic of denying the Doctrine given by Christ, and denying Christ Himself. A certain denomination interprets the left foot of the Nebuchadnezzarian dream as the Ottoman Empire, or a chronological amalgamation of the regional empires following the cessation of the Byzantine Empire. Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Why are you being cryptic? Who believes this? HiLo48 (talk) 11:04, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Assuming you are referring to my second comment, Seventh Day Adventists. Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:12, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I should try to be more specific: the left foot covers a period of about 1040 years, from 555 to 1595, and it covers the empires that existed in the Middle East. The left toes covers the current period, from 1595 onwards. The left leg covers the period from 117 to 555. Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:25, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Wow. That's amazing. Such detail. HiLo48 (talk) 11:39, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I should note that, the standard interpretation is much more loosely defined, and not all SDAs subscribe to this in-depth version. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:02, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

We have an article in this: Muhammad in the Bible. The current article is the cut down version. There used to be a lot more stuff - elaborate interpretations of Biblical references to places in Arabia supposed to show that the bible predicts the life of Muhammad and the emergence of Islam. Paul B (talk) 12:33, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I should add that the "Muhammad in the Bible" article is about Muslim claims that Muhammad is predicted as the coming final prophet. Plasmic Physics is referring to a completely different tradition within Dispensationalist / Adventist Christianity which holds that Muhammad is predicted as a false prophet (the Ottoman empire and other "forthcoming attractions" in history are also predicted in unmistakable form as Nebuchadnezzarian appendanges and whatnot. See Daniel 2#Nebuchadnezzar's dream). Paul B (talk) 13:07, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Which appendages are Sunni and Shia? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:31, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

The statue predicted rise and fall of nations/kingdoms/principalities, not religious movements. It is just a coincidence that the Ottoman empire was also Islamic. Plasmic Physics (talk) 21:49, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

As I said, the statue "predicts", for those who believe this stuff, forthcoming events including the Ottoman empire. Muhammad himself is "predicted" in other prophesies about future evil leaders, misdirectors of the people etc etc. Paul B (talk) 11:13, 3 October 2013 (UTC) Here's a an Evangelical website "proving" that there are Biblical predictions of Muhammad as a false prophet [4] Paul B (talk) 13:34, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Was it you, a while back, trying to make a connection between Isis and Jesus? Or was that someone else? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:19, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that was me, but that is the wrong connection, and it wasn't an SDA interpretation of Biblical material. Plasmic Physics (talk) 00:05, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Aha! So, other than getting the details 180 degrees off, I was right. 0:) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:32, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

If you're 180 degrees off, wouldn't you be left? Plasmic Physics (talk) 03:33, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

• To get back to the mainstream view, the last book of the Bible to be written was probably the Book of Revelation or the Gospel of John or the Second Epistle of Peter, depending on which chronology one follows. None of these is likely to have been written later than AD 100, and the latest claims for any of these doesn't extend later than AD 150. Muhammad was born in AD 570, so unless you hold to the view that some passage of the Bible presages his appearance as a prophecy of some sort, the Bible predates him by at least 420 years, and more likely by even more than that. So no, in simplest terms, the Bible does not deal with Islam in any fashion because the Bible is older than Islam. Islam does deal with the Bible, however, Wikipedia has articles on the Islamic view of the Christian Bible (follow links from there for more details) and People of the Book, an Islamic concept known as "Ahl-Al-Kitab", which is the Islamic perspective on the other Abrahamic religions. --Jayron32 02:15, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Analogy time: Religion X believe that the scriptures of Religion Y make prophecies fulfilled by person Z. Religion Y disagrees.

X	Y	scripture	Z	prophecies	Y diagrees
Christianity	Judaism	Hebrew Bible	Jesus	Jesus and messianic prophecy	Judaism's view of Jesus
Islam	Christianity	Christian Bible	Muhammad	Muhammad in the Bible	Christian view of Muhammad

jnestorius^(talk) 09:48, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Omaha World-Herald

Does anyone have access to the Omaha World-Herald of November 1976? I'm holding a photograph in which a copy of this paper's front page is visible, and I'm trying to get a date for the photo by finding which day that edition was published, but I don't have access to digital or microfilm or original copies. Above the fold on the right side is "Carter Views Slim Victory[line break]As Mandate for Change" and a picture of someone who looks like Jimmy Carter, while the left side is a mix of photos and a story "Girls Initiate Pool", with a story below that, entitled "Backpacking is Snap[line break]For Rama the Llama". The masthead looks like it says "November [single digit], 1976". All I'm looking for is the date; I don't need issue numbers or anything like that, although a one-sentence summary of Rama the Llama would be appreciated :-) 2001:18E8:2:1020:2DD4:C6E0:8CE4:DBDA (talk) 13:14, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Never mind; I just found another photo with a much closer view of the paper; it's November 5. I guess I should have waited longer before making this request. 2001:18E8:2:1020:2DD4:C6E0:8CE4:DBDA (talk) 13:20, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Obviously it would have to have been just after the election. If you need more details, and if that newspaper is still in business, you could contact them about their archives. If not, you could contact Omaha's public library, which would probably know what happened to such archives. And here's the other story: the animal in question had a tragic encounter with an out-of-control church bell. One sentence summary: "Rama Llama Ding Dong". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:29, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Of course on the date, but I thought perhaps someone here might be in Nebraska and be able to look at microfilm or a digital subscription directly. 2001:18E8:2:1020:2DD4:C6E0:8CE4:DBDA (talk) 15:04, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Japanese Wikipedia and semi-protection

I'm a frequent visitor to the Japanese Wikipedia, and I've noticed something. There seems to be a high proportion of semi-protected articles over there compared to the English Wikipedia, especially when it came to BLPs and media-related articles. The difference is that , in general, periods of semi-protection there are longer than here; for example, a page being locked for a month or more over here can be considered extreme, especially for first protections, but that appears to be the norm over there, although protection activity over there is actually quite inactive (only about one or two protections per day). Also, in many of these cases, the long-term protections were applied on the first protection, with certain articles being indefinitely semi-protected or semi-protected for months on the second or sometimes even first protection. I have read our article on the Japanese Wikipedia, and while it does mention this (our article explains that the Japanese Wikipedia does indeed have a fairly large proportion of long-term semi-protected articles, at least in 2005, and also states this is mainly due to edit wars, of which the Japanese Wikipedia has a low tolerance for), our article does not elaborate on the reasons. So my question is: why is semi-protection in Japanese Wikipedia like this? What are the reasons (based on Japanese culture and society) why Japanese Wikipedia tolerance for edit wars is much lower compared to other Wikipedias? I'm asking this in the Humanities reference desk instead of the Computing one because this question would involve Japanese society, and I would want to know more relevant information regarding this. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 14:25, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Japanese (corporate) culture is strongly based around consensus, and it is considered appropriate before taking decisions to individually consult every person concerned, make sure they are okay with the change, make adjustments, then go ahead and make the changes. By the time a business meeting is held to discuss a decision, all appropriate discussions have already taken place behind closed doors and the meeting is a formality. This concept, called Nemawashi, is kind of the anti-thesis of Wikipedia:Bold - and while I doubt there are any references that would discuss the Japanese Wikipedia in particular, that seems likely to be the answer to your question. Effovex (talk) 17:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

How many semi-protected pages are there on the Japanese wikipedia? I see 2911 in the English Category:Wikipedia semi-protected pages, but I don't read Japanese, so... Ssscienccce (talk) 21:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

There are 1497 semi-protected pages on ja:WP. I found this vandal with many socks. S/he used these names and the s/he vandalized these articles. See also this page at Commons. Probably the vandal is one of the reasons that there are so many semi-protected pages there. Oda Mari (talk) 08:51, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

muhurtham ceremony

I have seen some films being described as having a "muhurtham ceremony," such as Legend (2014 film), Sukumar, Ramayya Vasthavayya, 1 (2014 film), but I can find no article explaining what a muhurtham ceremony is. Should there be such an article? And what is a muhurtham ceremony? Thanks. -WPGA2345-^Talk 18:50, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

From what I can tell from some searching, muhurtham comes from Muhurta, basically a time when something is done because it's seen as auspicious for whatever you're doing. That's why you get a lot of weird stuff like results saying the muhurtham is the actual wedding ceremony [5] [6] yet other stuff using it in completely different contexts relating to weddings Iyer wedding and some just referring to it as a time [7] (references to muhurtham and weddings seem the most common particularly when you chuck in ceremony). But you also get non wedding related muhurtham [8] [9]. I gather therefore that in this case, a muhurtham ceremony is when something is done for the movie because it's suggested to be auspicious, although I don't know if there's anything in particular that is done during the muhurtham ceremony, or if there is even specific time in the production of the movie when it's done, this [10] suggests that possibly multiple muhurtham could be held (depending I guess on the beliefs of those involved, PR plans, and various other things). Nil Einne (talk) 22:27, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Muhurat means "auspicious moment" in Hindi, and in the context of films (and shops, businesses etc) the "muhurat ceremony" refers to the formal inauguration of its production. The exact ceremony will depend upon the denomination of Hinduism that the film producers, financiers etc belong to, as well as their regional and cultural background, but will typically consist of rituals such as lighting (oil) lamps, breaking coconuts, distributing prasad, and offering prayer and seeking blessings from Ganesha and/or the denominational deities for a successful venture (see Puja)... and for a film production it is likely to be accompanied or followed by general partying and schmoozing with colleagues and the media. And as Nil Einne has indicated, the ceremony is a mix of religious tradition, PR and partying, which is the reason that one can have multiple "inaugurations" (cf, "grand openings", "film releases" etc). Abecedare (talk) 22:40, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

And on Youtube you can view the variety of forms the film muhurat can take: from nods towards religious rituals to a catered dinner to cake and champagne at the airport. Abecedare (talk) 23:16, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks. So, redirect muhurtham ceremony to Muhurta? Also, any opinion on capitalization? -WPGA2345-^Talk 23:51, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

The two terms are linked by etymology but not really by meaning. A rough history based on my reading of Apte (Sanskrit), Chaturvedi (Hindi) and Dasa (Hindi) dictionaries:

Muhurata (or Muhuratam), started as a Sanskrit word meaning

1. "an instant of time" from which the meanings branched into

2. "a period of time", which further evolved into:

2a. "a period of time equal to 48 minutes"

3. "an auspicious moment", which developed into

3a. "an inauguration or opening (held at an auspicious moment)" and in particular,

3b. "an inauguration or opening for a film".

The Muhurta article is currently about meaning 2a, while the "muhurat ceremony" discussed above is about meaning 3b, which really doesn't derive from 2a! (Confused yet? :)) So we can either redirect muhurtham ceremony to Muhurta (to which a short section can be added explaining these alternate meanings) or use a interwiki link to wiktionary:Mahurat. Any preferences? Abecedare (talk) 00:45, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

My opinion would be to redirect both muhurtham ceremony and muhurtham to Muhurta and add the information to that article explaining how all of these things are related. It makes the article more informative. That link to Wiktionary could be added to Muhurta too. Strangely, Wiktionary doesn't seem have an article on the word Muhurta itself. - WPGA2345 - ☛ 03:12, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

lombards and native italians.

What happened to the native roman population when the lombards invaded italy?Joey13952 (talk) 19:51, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Most of the Germanic "barbarian" conquerors of Roman regions were a fairly small warrior class ruling over predominantly non-Germanic populations, as seen from the fact that the area where Germanic languages were spoken expanded very little over the long term as the result of such invasions (except in England). Some conquering tribes tried to maintain their distinctiveness over the conquered "Romans" by embracing the Arian form of Christianity. As for the Lombards, the Byzantines expended enormous military resources (which probably would have been better spent elsewhere) eliminating the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy, but this opened the way to the Lombards more than to any permanent Byzantine domination over the whole of Italy, and after the Lombard invasions, Italy remained divided for over 1200 years... AnonMoos (talk) 20:19, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

It's very important to note that the various Germanic groups that took over Italy (and indeed, other parts of the Roman Empire), including Odoacer, Theodoric the Great and the Ostrogothic Kingdom, and the Lombard Kingdom all basically kept the local Roman culture and institutions intact. The local administration and language and culture were not supplanted by the Germanic peoples, indeed many of them spoke Latin and had been fairly well "Romanized" themselves. These invading groups were also fairly small compared to the native populations they were taking over. They didn't drive out the local population. They largely only replaced the ruling class with themselves, and intermarried into the local population, which was MUCH larger than the "invaders" were. It's why Italy and France and Spain all speak a form of Latin today rather than a form of German: places that had long been part of the Roman Empire retained their Romanness under their Germanic invaders; indeed even these invaders became Romanized. --Jayron32 04:59, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Scotland's population density

The Highlands I can understand, but what's the reason for the band of very low population density in the southernmost part of Scotland? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 20:07, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

The lowland clearances were probably a significant factor. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:15, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

It does look odd, I agree, and Andy's reason may well be significant, but much of this area is moorland and forest with only small towns in the fertile spots. The population density is similar to that of corresponding moorland area in England, but the latter are surrounded by lowland areas of higher population, so don't feature on the map at that scale. Dbfirs 21:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Not a good place to start an industrial city.

Agreed; there are some pretty barren landscapes in the areas to the north of the border, while the towns are not very big. Perhaps because there are no big natural harbours like Tyneside or Clydeside to be a catalyst for development. Alansplodge (talk) 07:42, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

The area is the Southern Uplands. It is not lowland - it is essentially hill country used for pasture - not as high altitude as the Scottish Highlands, but of a similar character in many ways to much of Wales, and to the Pennines in England. There are some significant towns, like Dumfries, Hawick and Stranraer, but they are widely scattered. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:01, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I've been to Dumfries, it's not very big - population 43,000 according to our article. Alansplodge (talk) 08:11, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

These things are relative. It's by some way the biggest town in the region. I've been to Dumfries too. And to Stranraer, Newton Stewart, Kirkcudbright, Castle Douglas, Dalbeattie, Gretna, Lockerbie, Moffat, Hawick, Selkirk, Jedburgh, Galashiels, Kelso, and Eyemouth. They're all smaller. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:38, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Very true - I meant in comparison to Newcastle upon Tyne which makes the neighbouring English region look more densely populated. BTW Dumfries is the place to go if you're a fan of Robert Burns. You can see Robert Burns's house, Robert Burns's pub and even Robert Burns's car park. Alansplodge (talk) 12:16, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see that Tyneside (which includes Newcastle) is shown separately. I can't link it directly (blacklisted?) but the top result here brings up a UK Population Concentration Map which shows the story with towns - neighbouring Northumberland has two towns (Blyth and Alnwick?) in the same category as Dumfries, and several in the next bracket down. Alansplodge (talk) 16:49, 3 October 2013 (UTC)