Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 November 19

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November 19

Statutes at Large

Why were the series of the United States Statutes at Large continued up until the present day, while other compendiums of laws were not?—azuki (talk · contribs · email) 01:25, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Your question is unanswerable, because you have not established that "other compendiums of law were not". What is your evidence that none of the other 200ish legal systems maintains no records of laws passed? On the face, it seems unlikely that the United States is the only country in the world that records its laws. The Canada Gazette, for example, serves as an official record of Acts of the Canadian Parliament. If your question is built on false premeses, it cannot be answered. --Jayron32 12:09, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

What I mean is why the Congress decided to order an entirely new edition of the laws in 1845 instead of a continuation of the existing Bioren and Duane edition.—azuki (talk · contribs · email) 10:04, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Female politicians of American Samoa

Are there currently any incumbent/formerly incumbent female politicians of American Samoa without articles [key word]? --KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:20, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Florence Saulo was in the house district 16, elected in 2012. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 14:47, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Anglo Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury

After the death of Stigand who was the next Englishman of Anglo Saxon ancestry to become Archbishop of Canterbury? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:7CF0:3070:598E:8B39:B062:E641 (talk) 02:23, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Are you counting the maternal line as ancestry? If so, it might have been Baldwin of Forde, as we don't know who his mother was. Given what little I (think I) know about the demographics of 12th-century Devon, she might have been Anglo-Saxon or even Celtic (Cornish or Welsh) – note that he later spent some time preaching in Wales, which might suggest a grasp of the language, perhaps learned from his mother (thin, I agree). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.0.37.45 (talk) 10:24, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

The trouble is that very few of the post-Conquest Archbishops of Canterbury came from the higher aristocracy, the secular class for which most records exist, so we mostly know very little about their ancestry. Knowing that the father's name is a Norman one doesn't tell you much since the mother might have been Anglo-Saxon, or of course might not. In such a case even the father could, if he were English, have been of Anglo-Saxon ancestry since Norman names were fashionable in ambitious families, for obvious reasons. In some 19th-century histories, and in Jean Anouilh's play Becket, you might have found it claimed that Thomas Becket was an Anglo-Saxon; not so, as our article shows. But once you get into the 13th century, or even before, it becomes increasingly likely that a man born to English parents could have claimed both Norman (or other continental) and Anglo-Saxon ancestors, if only you could prove it. The earliest I can find who provably had some Anglo-Saxon ancestry, however slight, is William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1381 to 1396, who was great-grandson of Edward I, and therefore remotely descended from Henry I and from his mother-in-law Saint Margaret of Scotland, one of the last representatives of the House of Wessex. --Antiquary (talk) 13:16, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

One of the problems with answering the question directly is that after some time, there is no more meaningful "Anglo-Saxon" ethnicity, as it become subsumed into what we might consider the English ethnicity. Certainly at the time of the Conquest and for some centuries later, the conflict between the invading Norman French people and the native Anglo-Saxon people was a real thing, but by the middle-14th century, we run into two problems with answering the question 1) As a unified English national identity developed as an amalgam of Anglo-Saxon and Norman identities, it made less and less sense to think of Anglo Saxon as a meaningful way to think of ethnicity and 2) As that happened over 300+ years, people on the island intermarried in such a way that by 14th or 15th century, nearly everyone would have had Ancestors who were Anglo-Saxon at the time of the conquest, in so far as it could have been deduced from known records. --Jayron32 14:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, and indeed I'd go further. Even as early as the reign of Henry II the writer Richard FitzNeal could say that

Nowadays, when English and Normans live close together and marry and give in marriage to each other, the nations are so mixed that it can scarcely be decided (I mean in the case of the freemen) who is of English birth and who of Norman.

So to sum up for the OP, the answer to your question "who was the next Englishman of Anglo Saxon ancestry to become Archbishop of Canterbury?" is that almost certainly no Archbishop of Canterbury after Stigand was of full Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and that after a few generations (precisely how many it would be impossible to say) all of them were of partial Anglo-Saxon ancestry, which is to say they were English as we now understand the word. --Antiquary (talk) 16:35, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

court language(s) in either Sicily

Sicilian language and Neapolitan language are said to lack standard forms because neither was ever an official language. So, what were the court languages in the various Kingdoms of Sicily? French and Catalan?

(In the thirteenth century the Kingdom of Sicily – then under a French dynasty – grew to cover most of southern Italy, but then lost the island to a price of Aragon; the rump state is generally called the Kingdom of Naples but, I gather, went on calling itself "Sicily".) —Tamfang (talk) 09:35, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

The Kingdom of Sicily was famously founded and for a while governed by the Normans under members of the Hauteville family, who are only "French" in a very loose sense. According John Julius Norwich's "The Normans in the South" and "The Kingdom in the Sun", during the heyday of the Kingdom of Sicily, the "official" (more likely "administrative") languages were Norman French, Arabic, and Greek (Sicily used to be a core part of Magna Graecia, and, with a short Germanic Interregnum, stayed part of the Greek Eastern Roman Empire up to the Arab conquest during the 9th century). Sorry for just picking nits - I don't know what happened to the language usage after the Hohenstaufen lost control of the region. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:01, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

See also this previous question: Primary language of Capetian Angevins in Naples, Hungary and Poland?. Alansplodge (talk) 12:24, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I just found Sicilian_language#Catalan_influence, which claims "Catalan and Sicilian were the official languages of the royal court. Sicilian was also used to record the proceedings of the parliament of Sicily...", which would contradict your above assumption. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:18, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

That refers to the later Spanish kingdom of Sicily, not the earlier Norman kingdom of Sicily. Lingering effects of Byzantine and Arabic rule were more prominent in the Norman period... AnonMoos (talk) 16:54, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

We also have the awkwardly titled article Norman-Arab-Byzantine culture, which talks a bit about the use of various languages in Norman Sicily. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:58, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Zimbabweans

Just noticed a considerable number of white folks on these pictures during marches against Mugabe (and in the background). Per Zimbabwe#Demographics, "the majority people, the Shona, comprise 70%" and "the Ndebele are the second most populous with 20%", so wonder where do those folks come from. Tourists? Brandmeister^talk 12:53, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Like any capital city, I suspect that Harare is going to be much more ethnically diverse than the county at large. Although we currently don't seem to have any figures for ethnic composition in that article. Martinevans123 (talk)

Zimbabwe was a formerly a British Colony called Southern Rhodesia which had a large population of white settlers. In 1965, the white minority issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) rather than submit to majority rule proposed by the UK. There followed international sanctions and a rather nasty war white v black Rhodesian Bush War. A peace deal was eventually brokered in which the country returned to British administration before elections and full independence in 1980. A lot of white settlers emigrated to the UK at that stage, but many more some stayed to become White Zimbabweans. These have been a favourite target of Mugabe, see Mugabe to kick out all remaining white farmers, says Zimbabweans need land. Alansplodge (talk) 13:22, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Yep, just didn't know many are still there. For 2012 in Harare Province, this stats gave only 0,8% Europeans against 98,3% blacks. Brandmeister^talk 13:28, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Maybe I was overstating the case; Zimbabwe#Demographics says "The white population dropped from a peak of around 278,000 or 4.3% of the population in 1975 to possibly 120,000 in 1999, and was estimated to be no more than 50,000 in 2002, and possibly much less. The 2012 census lists the total white population at 28,782 (roughly 0.22% of the population), one-tenth of its 1975 estimated size. Most emigration has been to the United Kingdom..." Alansplodge (talk) 14:23, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

All eight of Zimbabwe's Olympic medals have been won by whites (most recently in 2008)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:49, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

And still three white faces in the Zimbabwe cricket squad. Alansplodge (talk) 19:28, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

How did the Nazis finance their public works projects?

WP:DENY
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
VW logo during the 1930s, initials surrounded by a stylized cogwheel and swastika wings How did they get the money in order to finance them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Renaissance Man (talk • contribs) 22:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC) One way they rearmed was by requiring all German workers to have money deducted from their paychecks toward future purchase of a Volkswagon. Although Germans had been contributing to this plan since 1932, taken over directly by Hitler in 1934, our article says The construction of the new factory started in May 1938 in the new town of "Stadt des KdF-Wagens" (modern-day Wolfsburg), which had been purpose-built for the factory workers.[14] This factory had only produced a handful of cars by the time war started in 1939. None were actually delivered to any holder of the completed saving stamp books, though one Type 1 Cabriolet was presented to Hitler on 20 April 1944 (his 55th birthday). See also Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for this, although I don't have the pages in front of me. μηδείς (talk) 01:41, 20 November 2017 (UTC) A Nazi layaway plan? (Not to be confused with Hitler's other layaway plan, which laid away well over 10 million customers.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:25, 20 November 2017 (UTC) For one thing, public works projects originated in the pre-Nazi Schleicher government. For another, they were not as substantial as the propaganda touted. And, the most prominent project was the autobahn (Reichsautobahn) which was partly a thinly-disguised military project to enhance mobility for the pending "blitzkrieg". More info: Bendersky, Joseph W. (2007). "Eight: 1934-1938". A Concise History of Nazi Germany. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 111. ISBN 9780742553637. 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:4DAA:30DE:5ABC:A09C (talk) 04:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC) Eisenhower was so impressed by the German Autobahn that he wanted one for us also. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:29, 20 November 2017 (UTC) See also: Reichsarbeitsdienst —2606:A000:4C0C:E200:E958:86E3:541F:E7F1 (talk) 07:52, 20 November 2017 (UTC) See also Economy of Nazi Germany. (section Pre-war economy: 1933–1939): 'Following a policy dependent upon heavy borrowing of “gigantic sums of money”, Nazi Germany’s national debt by 1939 “had reached 37.4 billion Reichmarks,” [= USD 15.6 bn] where even “Goebbels, who otherwise mocked the government’s financial experts as narrow-minded misers, expressed concern in his diary about the exploding deficit.”' Alansplodge (talk) 11:09, 20 November 2017 (UTC) Not that surprising that the Nazi Party's economic policies had negative side-effects. Adolf Hitler was apparently proud that they had no concrete policies: "He clearly believed that the lack of a precise economic programme was one of the Nazi Party's strengths, saying: "The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all." " But I think you are overlooking that the Nazi government depended on revenue from taxes to finance its policies: "It is estimated that in the mid-1930s, German workers paid 15-35% of their income to taxes, social programs, and (due to government pressure) charities." They also raised fines on businesses, in a supposed effort to combat tax fraud: "In other cases, National Socialist officials were levying harsh fines of millions of marks for a “single bookkeeping error.” " Some sources compared the Nazi taxmen to vampires, and we have a nice book called "The Vampire Economy" (1939) by Günter Reimann which was analyzing their policies. The Nazis also earned revenue by privatizing properties of the state: "Between the fiscal years 1934/35 and 1937/38, privatization represented 1.4 percent of the German government's revenues. Among companies that were privatized, were the four major commercial banks in Germany that had all come under public ownership during the prior years; Commerz– und Privatbank, Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft, Golddiskontbank and Dresdner Bank. ... Also privatized were the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Railways), at the time the largest single public enterprise in the world, the Vereinigte Stahlwerke A.G. (United Steelworks), the second largest joint-stock company in Germany (the largest was IG Farben) and Vereinigte Oberschlesische Hüttenwerke AG, a company controlling all of the metal production in the Upper Silesian coal and steel industry. The government also sold a number of shipbuilding companies, and enhanced private utilities at the expense of municipally owned utilities companies." Dimadick (talk) 15:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

How could it be if cameras didn't exist until the 1820s?

Thomas Wedgwood died in 1805, so it must've been some sort of painting if the picture was legitimately of Thomas Wedgwood, unless he used some sort of technique to take it. -- MrHumanPersonGuy (talk) 22:49, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

In your link it is written: "From a chalk drawing belonging to Miss Wedgwood, of Leith Hill Place. Artist unknown." (p6 above publication)" ---Sluzzelin talk 23:01, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

• Also in your link, farther down, it says “deurrogotype”, which I assume is intended as daguerreotype. And in Photography#Invention of photography it says “Around the year 1800, British inventor Thomas Wedgwood made the first known attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive substance.” Loraof (talk) 23:29, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

1805 would be too early for a daguerreotype. Or any form of camera photography. The photography article makes it clear that the earliest photographs were taken in the 1820s and the oldest surviving one is from 1826. (And it's pretty crude, requiring an exposure time of days. Obviously not suitable for portraits. )

It may be a daguerreotype of a chalk drawing, I suppose. ApLundell (talk) 02:11, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

What it says on the Commons file page (where you're reading "deurrogotype") doesn't matter except for the source of the image, [1], where the illustration note for the Frontispiece simply says "Tom Wedgwood. From a chalk drawing belonging to Miss Wedgwood, of Leith Hill Place. Artist unknown." That's all we know about this illustration. That a Wikipedian has written "deurrogotype" somewhere else isn't really evidence of anything we need be concerned about. - Nunh-huh 02:36, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

But note that the camera obscura was known since antiquity (possibly since prehistoric times), and in the 18th century was used as a drawing aid. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:36, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Maybe the photosensitive properties of silver salts or other chemicals was already known and he was trying to invent photography by discovering a way to remove the unexposed photosensitive substance or turn it insensitive to light? Failed experiments are still experiments. As someone needing camera obscuras for this work it isn't surprising that he'd be interested in using them to imitate the futuristic technology he hoped to invent (especially if the problem had already started to look so hard he thought it wouldn't be solved for years or decades). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:53, 20 November 2017 (UTC)