Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 January 5

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Humanities desk
< January 4 << Dec | January | Feb >> January 6 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.


January 5[edit]

Quote Source[edit]

I'm trying to find a quote which I believe may be from Shakespeare and may be a king which amounts to "since I'm not a very good good guy, I'm going to be baddest bad guy". Any ideas?

89.225.227.82 (talk) 14:29, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiquote has a page of quotes related to evil here; you could check it out and see if anything rings a bell for you. More here. Matt Deres (talk) 15:44, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps Shakespeare's Richard III, from Richard's opening soliloquy in Act I scene I:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

CodeTalker (talk) 15:53, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the opening soliloquy from Richard III in a somewhat abbreviated form (beware the king is shown from behind using a urinal) as adapted for Ian McKellan's most excellent 1995 film. μηδείς (talk) 16:50, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]


89.225.227.82 -- Christopher Marlowe was fonder of ultra-villains than Shakespeare was (Tamburlaine, the Jew of Malta, etc.), but I don't know any quotes... AnonMoos (talk) 20:52, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia?[edit]

An article about this is outdated. What is the current state of Catalonia? Has the Spanish government re-instated the autonomy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by אילן שמעוני (talkcontribs) 14:34, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You mean to ask, "What is the current status of Catalonia?" Not "state", which is ambiguous. See Catalan independence referendum, 2017 for recent information here at WP. μηδείς (talk) 22:03, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose the OP meant the statute, not status, as in Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia and the application of the article 155 revoking (temporarily) such statute. --Hofhof (talk) 01:27, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Language of TV broadcast and movies in India[edit]

I want to know about the language of TV program broadcast across India. As I get from the article Television in India, most Indian households have a TV. Is there a program that's watched in the same language all around India?

Do most Indians get, at least some, exposure to Hindi (or any other language)? Do most watch non-translated movies? Bollywood movies are originally in Hindi, but would people watch these in the original version with/without subtitles? Or do they get a Tamil/Kannada/Gujarati/and so on?--Hofhof (talk) 16:47, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Of the few Bollywood movies I have watched (e.g., Yaadein) they were in Hindi with a smattering of English code switching and brief English dialog. I was not aware of any Dravidian languages being spoken. By far, the two largest groups of languages spoken in India are the Dravidian and the Indo-Aryan languages with other significant minorities I will not address.
Basically, Indo-Aryan is closer to English than it is to Tamil. In fact, most linguists who study deep relationships think Irish is closer to Japanese than Hindi is to any of the Dravidian languages. See Nostratic languages for a discussion of Dravidian in relation to Indo-European.
That being said, Hindi and Gujarati are in no way mutually intelligible, although they are as close as Danish is to English, for example. Likewise, Tamil, and Telugu are not mutually intelligible, even though they are both Dravidian. And no Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages are mutually intelligible at all, although the share many words and other features due to language contact. I don't speak any of these languages natively, but have made a basic academic and OR study. As far as I am aware, English will be the default lingua franca when two Indians who speak languages of different phyla who are not speakers of each other's mutual language communicate. μηδείς (talk) 20:41, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As our article says, Bollywood movies are naturally mostly in Hindi (or perhaps more accurately Hindustani) although given the nature of language use in India, often with some English, also called Hinglish. Bollywood cinema is the largest and most well known part of Cinema of India but still, it doesn't even represent a majority of box office revenue, our article suggests it represents 43%. Telugu cinema also know as Tollywood and Tamil cinema also know as Kollywood together represent 36%, with the rest taken by the various other languages. Some of these may be dubbed, perhaps even released simultaneously. That said, there also sometimes restrictions on dubbing although it sounds like these are possibly coming to an end [1] [2] [3]. Dubbing of non Indian movies is of course also carried out [4], and dubbing may also be carried out without the distributor/producer authorising it [5]. There are also some movies which are multilingual, which doesn't generally mean parts are in one language and parts in another but rather they are shot simultaneously in two or more languages, see List of multilingual Indian films. This doesn't directly tell us much about TV viewing habits, but it is an important reminder that things in India are generally not monolithic Hindi or Hindi-English and Bollywood. See also [6] [7] [8] [9]. BTW the above article also has numbers of movies released in 2016, however articles like [10] gives an idea of why such figures should be considered with care. Nil Einne (talk) 11:26, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, most linguists who study deep relationships think Irish is closer to Japanese than Hindi is to any of the Dravidian languages. From the linked article, I'm not sure it would be correct to say "most". It sounds like a lot of people are skeptical about that grouping, or even that its possible to trace roots back that far. Iapetus (talk) 11:03, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You can easily find programming in the major languages such as Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, and even English. Most people in India know one of these major languages. That being said, none of these languages exist in a vacuum. Often people in India will be exposed to the major languages, and are able to understand them or talk at a conversational level. They may watch programming in other major languages with subtitles, or they may not watch the programming not in the major language they know at all. It depends greatly on the individual. Many movies will have some conversations in one language, and small parts in another, so Indians are not unaccustomed to hearing different languages and not understanding every aspect of what they're watching. HarryOtter (talk) 22:08, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I get the question. There is a plethora of TV channels in India, but almost channels are usually monolingual. They are almost all broadcast nation-wide, you can watch a Malayalam channel in Delhi or an Assamese channel in Tamil Nadu. But their viewership will obvioulsy differ depending on the language-skills of the viewer. --Soman (talk) 23:29, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Saint Carpophorus[edit]

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

I am looking since ages for a picture (or icon) of Saint Carpophorus. I was wondering whether some of you know where I could find such a Picture (maybe you are aware of a website or book)?

Thank you for your answers I wish you all the very best--2A02:120B:2C79:D630:E468:6FDE:D759:4B77 (talk) 20:49, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Saint Carpophorus redirects to Carpophorus, which lists a handful of people who were significant religious figures for one reason or another. Carpophorus, Exanthus, Cassius, Severinus, Secundus, and Licinius were martyred and they have feast days and our article refers to them as saints, but doesn't give a lot of detail. If you can read Italian, this site (Google translation here) has more detail. It's not clear to me if any of the images on the right are meant to represent Carpoforo (note alternate spelling). Matt Deres (talk) 21:41, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Alternately, this site lists three saints with similar names. At the very least, we'll need to know which (if any) of these you mean. Matt Deres (talk) 21:43, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • (ec)You will have to clarify which "Saint Carpophorus" you are looking for... we have articles on:
  1. one martyred at Como
  2. one martyred at Capua
  3. one martyred at either Spoleto or Seville
And there may be others. Blueboar (talk) 21:53, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Blueboar! Thank you very, very much for your links and informations. Thanks to your help I was able to find a picture of Saint Carpophorus (https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JqhXzH8TDGg/WipVb0NJf-I/AAAAAAAADmk/JMI1LDa6FE4jpflPHrvzBz9wpgIVxvWLgCLcBGAs/s1600/san%2Bcarpoforo.jpg)!

I wish you all the very best!

With kind regards--2A02:120B:2C79:D630:54EC:F65:8C21:749A (talk) 20:33, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Impacts of Preventing Cancer for a Country as a Whole[edit]

Hi. I am writing about how preventing affects the nation as a whole. I need help coming up with something along the lines of

1. Less health care costs
2. Less premature deaths.. increased productivity?

I don't think I'm explaining this well, but I need to think of a few, well fleshed out impacts and I can't really form them. HarryOtter (talk) 22:10, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It is also possible that you would have increased health care costs overall as those that would have died due to cancer would now real old age and gain the associated ailments. Depending on the country, the government would now have to find money to provide for those people's pensions or other benefits. This may lead to the statuatory retirement age increasing to alleviate the costs of an aging population. You would also have the impact to the healthcare industry itself. Hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and research organisations would have to find alternative revenue streams. See also (for example, there are many many many studies and articles on where the money currently goes and a handful on what could happen when that stops) [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20] (obviously some of these articles may have been written by dirt-eating crystal-wearing anti-vaxxers, buyer beware etc). Nanonic (talk) 22:32, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much! Those are definitely impacts I hadn't thought about. HarryOtter (talk) 22:36, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]