Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2017 August 12

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August 12

Finding out the Map Projection

Which map projection is used at this map of the European Inland Waterway Network?

--Baltimax (talk) 01:09, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Albers projection. Barely visible Latitude lines are round instead of the straight ones resulting in Mercator projections.--Kharon (talk) 03:19, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

How are you so sure it's Albers? Hundreds of projections have round or at least curved lines of latitude (and many other than Mercator have straight lines). 78.234.66.210 (talk) 17:49, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, see Map projection#Conic. But I don't think it's any conic projection as defined on that page. If you zoom in, particularly on the right-hand side where the longitude lines are farthest from vertical, and look carefully, you can see that when they cross the latitude lines they aren't exactly perpendicular. Really the best way to get a reliable answer would be to contact the UNECE office that issued the map and ask them. --69.159.60.147 (talk) 19:58, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Language loss

How fast can one lose a language? Back when I was in high school, I learned that Native Americans were forced to assimilate into White-American society. The teacher said that if one can't practice one's own language, then one can lose it in a few months. I personally started learning Spanish in 7th grade and moved all the way up to 12th grade and took two courses in college to fulfill a general education requirement. After the two classes, I hardly practiced Spanish, and somehow I still can remember Spanish words and the Spanish songs stuck in my head. SpanishDict may have a random word of the day, and somehow I'd know them. How is this possible? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 04:16, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

"A few months" is absurdly quick. You might get "rusty", but after returning to people speaking that language you would recall it quickly. However, the age of the person does matter. If you cut very young children off from their native language before it "sets", then they might indeed forget it. StuRat (talk) 04:19, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Stu. It is more a case of falling out of the 'habit' of using ones native tongue. There are plenty of anecdotal occurrences of people who fled as refugees to America during War II who thought they had forgotten their mother's tongue only to find during a visit to their homeland (after the fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany when travel there became easier) it took only two weeks to be talking fluently once more in the language they thought they had long forgotten. The mind is quite plastic at taking off line any memory banks that are currently not required and bring them back online again when circumstances change. Entheogenist find one of the characteristics of drugs like LSD and Ketamine is that they appear to bring all memory banks online -all at once. Yet, after daily doses, the mind adapts (is plastic) and takes them off line again and further dosses have no longer any psychedelic effect. This goes for physical skills as well. One may have not played a piano for many decades but with a little practice it all come back again. Even on those instruments that don't require depressing a key to hit a felt hammer onto strings stretched on a iron frame, in a wooden enclosure , which is all we had before MIDI. And we could still play them during a brownout or complete cut ! Aspro (talk) 10:44, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Or the classic case of riding a bicycle, which comes back to you after years of not riding. StuRat (talk) 12:55, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

To echo Aspro, I spoke Spanish to age four, along with my native English, since my parents both got by in it and we lived in Puerto Rico where I had a monolingual Spanish-speaking nanny and Texas, where my best friend was Mexican. When I was four-and-a-half, we moved to a town in NJ where the population were all third generation or more Europeans (mostly Irish and Italian) and I got odd looks and no response when I spoke Spanish to people, which led to a few teary incidents. I subsequently "lost" it.

When I was 18, I worked in a kitchen with Filipinos and Mexicans as I went to college. I told them to address me only in Spanish. With the help of 201 Spanish Verbs and my HS French I was basically fluent again in non-literary level Spanish within a few months, to the point of dreaming in it, and finding myself at a loss for an English word on a few occasions. μηδείς (talk) 16:52, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

That's interesting. My first language was Chinese, I spoke it till I was four and since then have only spoken English. I don't even remember ever having spoken Chinese, it would be interesting to try and learn it again. Dmcq (talk) 17:11, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

So it appear that the OP's teacher was just over simplifying things. Was interesting that μηδείς found herself lost for words at times. Think this was not so much 'words' as phrases. The ancient Greek's had a lovely phase that translates into English simply as potter against potter which referred to arguments that arise between two experts who both insist they are right – there is no English equivalent to express that. Also some of the French double negatives such as Je t'aime... moi non plus defeats my ability to translate in real-time. @ User talk:Dmcq. The big problem foreigners have, with learning Chines, is to developer an ear to for the tonal syllables in order to differentiate meaning. If you also have some musical training then getting up-to-speed again in Chines may be even an easier endeavour. Don't expect results over night but if that tonal pattern is still there in your brain’s neural network, then it will be easer to relearn. Aspro (talk) 18:22, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Just googled this about Chinese: Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language. Also, children who have a tonal language are also better at being pitch perfect when they become musicians like Vanessa-Mae. Aspro (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Well I still have people wondering what my accent is and where I come from so perhaps the ear is still there too :) Dmcq (talk) 21:50, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I wonder if people who are tone deaf have difficulty speaking Chinese. StuRat (talk) 18:54, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Good question. They might be viewed upon in the same way that dislektiks dieslettics dyslolectics dyslexic's are treated in the west. We need an academic of tonal languages to comment on this. Even dyslexic's who have trouble with the written words have trouble sometimes with pronouncing words write right. Yet, mother nature appears to endows them with other gifts. Albert Einstein was a rotten speller in both German and English and history is littered with dyslexics who became very influential. With tonal languages it can get even funnier. Example: truck driver arrives to deliver his load. It can come out sounding “I am about to give birth”. Aspro (talk) 20:08, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Ah yes, the Wide Berth of a Nation. :-) StuRat (talk) 20:37, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

What's called tone in tonal languages is not the same as the musical pitch of notes on a tuned instrument; it's about contour. We have this in English, but use it on a sentencial level, with normal declarations having a falling intonation, questions a rising intonation: "The book he wants is _here.." (fact) vs. "The book he wants is ^here?" (question). The word "really" Can have many different intonations:

Really? Really.

Really?!?! (doubt). Really! (exasperation) Really... (sarcasm).

These are all a matter of contour, not pitch. And notice that we do not mistake a woman's statement for a man's question just because her voice is higher pitched. μηδείς (talk) 20:44, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

That reminds me of the time when I was studying Russian at university. One day during a tutorial, the tutor was asking us to translate English sentences into Russian, viva voce. The sentence I was given was "One day I would like to marry and have a couple of children". I said whatever rubbish I said, and both the tutor and a fellow student who was a native Ukrainian speaker and understood far more Russian than I, suddenly erupted into gales of laughter. They explained that I had said the Russian for "One day I would like to give birth to twins". :) But seriously, that was 3 years of pretty intensive Russian study in the late 1970s-early 80s, followed by only very sporadic use of the language thereafter (including having never been to Russia; although I did marry into a Russian-speaking family). To this day my Russian pronunciation is still fine, but I have lost a lot of vocabulary, and I never really did get verbs of motion (mainly because we were warned before we started learning them that they were difficult and some learners never understand them, so as a dutiful student I complied, which is a pity because in most ways I rebel and do the thing I am not expected to do). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:36, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

@ Jack of Oz. As you spent so much time in learning this language why waist all that that effort. You might not know it but that there is a web-site called Википедия whom might welcome your input and thus you can improve your vocabulary. But be warned and take it from me, this is part of a org that insists that one follows unfathomable policies about what images and references one can use. No idea how this world wide international organization still exists (they don't pay their contributors anything). Yet, give it a try ;¬ ) Aspro (talk) 22:49, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

The only time my efforts are a perfect waist is when dieting. StuRat (talk) 19:01, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Ну, спасибо ... я думаю ...  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]}

спасибо Aspro (talk) 01:55, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Dmcq may find Mango Languages, a service available at my public library and may be available in his/hers, and HelloTalk, a chat app for Apple products, to learn new languages. Mango Languages may not be very useful, because it has preset sentences that require memorization and repetition. But HelloTalk may be more useful, because it is designed as a language-learning social app. The app will ask Dmcq to create a profile and set up a native language and learning language. If he/she wishes to learn Chinese, then s/he may speak with a person from China who is trying to learn English. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 22:10, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I once worked with someone from a European country who was stationed in the US for a year. As the end of the year approached, he said he was "starting to" forget some of his native language. It all came back once he went back home and was re-immersed in it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:14, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

• @Dmcq: I found the Spanish returned with immersion. I wasn't "back in the home country", but I was working two or three shifts a week with back-of-the-house bi- or tri-lingual Spanish-speakers who were using Spanish as a lingua franca, and I told them to treat me as an equal and include me in their non-anglosphere. I also befriended several Mexican families, was proposed a marriage of convenience, and lived with Mexicans for about 6 months which was when the dreaming in Spanish and hesitating in English began. If you want to recover the Chinese, get a basic primer and some roommates who speak your previous dialect, or at least socialize with them heavily, and exclude English entirely from dialog. Any using English will cripple your attempt. μηδείς (talk) 20:22, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

What do you mean by "crippling your attempt"? I learned Spanish in an Anglophone environment, and I could read, write, speak, and listen at the elementary level in Spanish. Also, it seems unrealistic that English would be forbidden. If Chinese is only used with the roommates, then the Chinese-speaking roommates may start feeling worried that their own English is not improving. I don't think living with roommates is a good option. Living in China may be better, but Dmcq may need a job to pay the bills and feed himself/herself. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 20:41, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Non speako trollo. If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools....

--Rudyard Crippling

μηδείς (talk) 21:04, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

@ User talk:50.4.236.254) Think what μηδείς was alluding to, was that by not talking in one's mother language at all, it removes the temptation to translate what one has heard into ones mother's tongue of what has been said and then have to converts ones reply back into the language one is attempting to learn. Fluency is quicker to come, by the processes of total immersion. Aspro (talk) 21:36, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I specifically addressed Dmcq's wondering whether he could "recall" the Chinese of his youth, not learn a new language de novo by taking classes. Fitty's response was simple contrarianism. I did not learn Spanish by taking classes, although I did buy the book on verbs (to better master the spoken preterite), did have an explicit knowledge of French, and did buy a dictionary. That lead to some laughs when I used highfalutin terms like vecindario for neighborhood when barrio was the informal standard. I asked the super of a building I wanted to move into in a Dominican area about the "vecindario", with the answer that "We cannot afford the luxury of vecindarios around here, we have only barrios. Perhaps your mercy should consider a skyscraper downtown?" (This was said jokingly, and I never used the term in speech again.) μηδείς (talk) 22:08, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I know immersion helps with language fluency. Speaking like a native is a different matter. But Medeis also suggested that one could get roommates and only speak the roommates' language. I don't think this is a practical suggestion, because the roommates in an Anglophone environment may want to practice more English. One way is to tutor each other. The Chinese native speaker teaches conversational Chinese, and the English speaker teaches English. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 21:58, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

But plenty of Chinese speakers already have good English and so won't feel the need to practice English with their room-mate of flat mate. Note that the flat mate situation is fairly different since frankly the Chinese speaking flat mate may prefer to practice with someone who is not trying to speak Chinese to them and if they are in an Anglophone environment this is not going to be difficult to find. (It's not uncommon for example that someone attending an English language class may ask to be in a class or school which has no one who speaks their own native tongue.) This is fairly different from a mutual exchange Skype type situation since in those cases you need to somehow find someone who is willing to do this for you so a mutual exchange may be one method. By comparison, flat mates do often speak to each other, and you may be able to find one who speaks Chinese who is willing to speak Chinese instead of English. Nil Einne (talk) 14:40, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

@Aspro: Yes, the OP's teacher's comment seems overblown, but I doubt I was actively using any Spanish at five after six months of pure English. Of course, my parents spoke English at home, not the language that was to be "lost". I know that I also lost my strong Southern accent very fast at that time, because I did not get picked on for it at school.

I wish I could remember some of the terms I hesitated with in English at this time. I 'remember' that they were nouns, but this was three decades ago, and it may very well have been idiomatic expressions. I also had more difficulty when the French and Spanish conflicted, such as the lack of a spoken preterite in French, while Spanish makes huge use of the preterite/imperfect contrast, such as the past forms supe/sabia que (preterite/imperfect) which mean "I knew", but specifically I discovered that vs. I was aware that. I also often "made up" pseudospanish, like asking Donde esta la fontana? (which was understood, but responded to with Hay una fuente aqui) by assuming that French fontaine had a direct cognate, but Spanish uses fuente from Latin fons with no additional suffix. μηδείς (talk) 20:22, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Uhmm. Now having some hours to think about it, I did have problems with nouns when they applied to parts of the human body and bodily functions to a greater extent than with verbs and adjectives etc. which described those functions. Some words where OK in the school-yard but not OK at home.... and beyond. Which was a problem, since in one language some were OK yet, in other they where considered not OK which lead to adults to sometimes ask has the cat got your tongue? when I was not sure of the polite explanation in that language. But I can't remember any problems with very common nouns. You can bet though, I made up for that deficiency when I became a teenager and was never lost for something to say. Even, if I had to concatenate Latin, Greek and French into something that sounded impressive because I couldn’t think of anything better. Which might be the same reason μηδείς resorted to pseudospanish. The most important thing is to be able to communicate rather than be grammatically perfect – like wot I is now! Anyway the OP seems to have his question answered now. Aspro (talk) 00:16, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

@OP, while personal anecdotes may be interesting, they are no substitute for scientific study. This phenomenon has been studied and there are plenty of references available. The Psycholinguistics pioneer Wallace Lambert devoted his entire career to topics such as this. He called it "subtractive bilingualism" and if I recall correctly, "Bilingualism and language acquisition" is a good read. The book First Language Attrition (Seliger & Vago, editors) is also a good read and contains chapters that deal directly with your question. I can recommend others if you are interested in reading for yourself what the experts have to say.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 22:57, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

You're the only person who has answered the actual question instead of commenting on the personal anecdote in the OP with more personal anecdotes. This makes me happy. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 23:09, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome back, User:Russell.mo. Thanks for the smiley. I remembered the Dublin IP address, but the "makes me happy meme" is strong with you. Here's a discussion of your antics a while back. μηδείς (talk) 04:29, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't know who in the world is User: Russell.mo. Next time, please ask for a CheckUser report. Also, I have read your discussions on the Reference Desk Talk Pages, and you repeatedly misidentify editors. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 04:37, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Well since you now have had your question answered, perhaps you could tell us how fast one can lose a language? Dmcq (talk) 09:40, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I was referring to the sources. William Thweatt provides me the sources, which seem interesting and may lead me to the answer, 50.4.236.254 (talk) 11:05, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Well since you don't actually have an answer yet, how about expanding on the question. Why do you want to know this or what will it do for you? Dmcq (talk) 12:25, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Because learning new stuff is cool. Knowing the right terminology to search for is helpful. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 16:45, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

That's a bit of a non-answer. This would just be another random fact rather than anything cool. I don't see it entitles you to any extent whatsoever to start complaining about people not giving you a reference to a scholarly work. If you had some decent reason it would enable people to tailor an answer, for instance a question about what isthe height of all the trees in a field with a reason, oh it's cool to know doesn't exactly excite. A reason like I want to know if any could fall on the house would give an entirely different answer. Another saying one is a botanist and are seeing how high beech trees grow would give another again. Dmcq (talk) 20:18, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

It is only a non-answer, because you reject the answer. I did answer, but you rejected it, probably because you didn't find the reason to be acceptable. I just like answers with links. Down below, I provided a link to high rising terminal, and I expect everyone to do the same. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 11:50, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

In Britain, amongst younger speakers, there is frequently rising intonation at the end of a sentence even when a question is not being asked. I believe this spread from the United States. 82.14.24.95 (talk) 14:53, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

You must be referring to high rising terminal. The article says British people blame the youngsters' habit on watching too much Australian TV. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 16:45, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

High rising terminal is also a feature of Canadians' and New Zealanders' speech. Akld guy (talk) 21:56, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

It has also been a feature of the Scouse and Northern Irish accents for longer then television has been around. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.221.81.30 (talk) 12:20, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

I saw a horrible scene in the US. A Caucasian man was the adoptive father of a Chinese girl of perhaps 5 years. In a store, she was pointing to things like newspapers and umbrellas and saying what seemed to be the Chinese words for them. He scolded her for daring to speak Chinese. Some adoptive parents take the other view and take their adopted Asian children to weekly classes in the culture and language of their birth nation. Edison (talk) 02:54, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

I suspect that being beaten and forced to eat soap for speaking your language would have accelerated the loss. Some of the kids were taken for a full school year and had a bad time of it on return to their home communities. Canadian Indian residential school system#Loss of language and culture. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 13:47, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Is this recent or a while ago? Nil Einne (talk) 14:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

About 1960. My sister-in-law was one of the last to go. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 14:50, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Mottaphobia

(Inspired by the arachnophobia question above) A few questions about mottaphobia, to help me shed some light on this condition: (1) Does it tend to run in families? (2) Does it usually occur as a generalized phobia (fear of all butterflies and moths), or as a fear of 1 or more particular species thereof -- and if the latter, which species are the most likely to trigger this response? (Speaking for me personally, I'm perfectly OK with most butterfly species, but swallowtail butterflies totally creep me out!) And (3): How much comorbidity is there with other anxiety disorders (particularly with other animal phobias)? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:21B1:8CA4:6F9F:6132 (talk) 08:41, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I wonder of the trailing wing parts of a swallowtail butterfly such as a Protographium marcellus remind you of the trailing legs of a wasp in flight: [1]. That might cause the reaction, especially if you've been stung. StuRat (talk) 13:03, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I think it has to do with their large size (up to 8 inches or more!) more than anything else (although their shape and coloration does play a reinforcing role) -- their juveniles don't scare me as long as they're less than 4 inches or so in size. So, should I take this as evidence that swallowtails are more likely to cause this reaction than most other species? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:21B1:8CA4:6F9F:6132 (talk) 05:05, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

You do realize that a juvenile butterfly is a caterpillar? The butterfly is the last instar of the organism, it does not molt or grow after appearing from the chrysalis: there are no little butterflies growing into bigger butterflies; it is an impossibility. μηδείς (talk) 15:32, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

No, I didn't know that! So what explains the wide variation in size, from 3-4 inches to 8 or more? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:21B1:8CA4:6F9F:6132 (talk) 04:51, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Different species, different sizes. Size variation within the same species would depend on how well the catterpillar ate. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:11, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Also some species have a marked difference in size between males and females. Don't know if this applies to this species of swallowtails, though. See sexual dimorphism. StuRat (talk) 17:57, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

• Nearly all <randomgreekword>phobias are not recognized as distinct psychological conditions. They are instead all considered to be specific phobias, the diagnosis of and treatment of are basically the same protocols (i.e. a specific phobia against spiders does not have a different diagnosis or treatment protocol than one against snakes or clowns or the color teal). This article delves some into the genetics of specific phobias. --Jayron32 18:10, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

• One difference is that some phobias need to be treated to live a normal life, like a fear of going outside, while others aren't debilitating and the object of fear can just be avoided, like a fear of snakes. In fact, if you aren't a snake expert, avoiding all snakes is quite sensible. StuRat (talk) 18:28, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

• As explained in the phobia article, clinicians only recognize 3 types of phobias: specific phobia, social phobia, and agoraphobia. Therefore there are three different diagnostic protocols, and three different sets of treatment protocols, for phobias. There is not, however, a special diagnostic or treatment protocol for "fear of snakes.", and there certainly is no specific reference in clinical manuals to "ophidiophobia". It's merely a type of specific phobia, and all such phobias are treated similarly. --Jayron32 19:07, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Eye color and light absorption

Eye_color#Brown says that due to high melanin concentration in the iris this color absorbs both shorter and longer wavelengths. Does it mean that brown and dark brown eyes are less protected against direct sunlight, compared to other eye colors, similar to sun glasses and UV filter? I read that in case of hair color the black absorps absorbs more heat than blonde so that the former becomes warmer after 5 minutes of direct sunlight. Brandmeister^talk 21:43, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

No, not if you mean light hitting the retina, because the eye color is not in the path of light that hits the cornea. That's a bit like saying the paint color on your car affects how much light makes it through the windshield (although in that case at least some light is reflected off the paint into the windows, unlike with eyes).

Now, if you are asking if the pigment itself is more likely to be damaged by UV light, that's possible. I don't know the answer to that. StuRat (talk) 21:45, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

• You have the reasoning backwards. Like pale skin, blue eyes are more sensitive to sunlight. The dark iris protects the sensitive retina by keeping out more light. μηδείς (talk) 02:29, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Yep, that makes sense. But I also wonder whether due to absorption of both shorter and longer wavelengths dark eyes have somewhat better vision than other colors? Brandmeister^talk 07:39, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
• Does a significant amount of light reach the retina after passing through the iris? It's the light passing through the pupil that focuses on the retina. Dbfirs 06:14, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

That's the whole reason the iris is pigmented; to allow a variable aperture, the closure of which blocks more light. The pigment does the blocking. If brown irises were to let only 1% of light to pass, while blue irises allowed 2% (I'm making those numbers up) then people with blue irises would still be getting twice the amount of extra light. Studies vary in their conclusions, but the overall picture is that blue-eyed people get much more UV damage overall. Unexpectedly, one Y2K study did show brown-eyed people got more cataracts, but the explanations offered for this are speculative. μηδείς (talk) 15:55, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

And just to clarify, it is the lens, not the iris which does the focusing. The purpose of the iris is to regulate light incidence on the retina, not to focus it. μηδείς (talk) 01:22, 14 August 2017 (UTC)