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Azar, a Korean Chatroulette-style dating app quietly taking over the world
- cassianoleal 5y agoFunny trivia, "azar" means "bad luck" in Portuguese. Also, gambling is generally referred to as "jogos de azar" ("games of bad luck" - at least in Brazil), which fits neatly into the Chatroulette reference.
- trotFunky 5y agoThat's really interesting to me, because in Spanish we have the exact same word, "azar", but from how I understand it it's just randomness (apparently according to the dictionary some of the other meanings have a negative take). We have the same expression too : "juegos de azar" for games of chance/gambling. It's also quite close to the french equivalent : "hasard", which also means randomess and has similar usage, with "jeux de hasard". In all cases it's an interesting fit with the Chatroulette reference. Anyway, thanks for the insight !
- sanxiyn 5y agoSpanish (ultimately Arabic) is where the name did come from. Source: I worked at Hyperconnect and heard it from the founder who picked this name.
- Majestic121 5y agoHuh, in French, 'hasard' (pronounced azar) means randomness in general. The spelling change is weird
- nicoburns 5y agoThat is far from the only word that sounds almost the same in French and Spanish, but with a lot of silent letters in the French spelling.
- Hello71 5y agoaccording to wiktionary, they both originate from Arabic اَلزَّهْر (az-zahr, “the dice”). presumably frenchmen were simply wont to add a bunch of silent letters. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hasard https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hasard https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/azar https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/azar
- ivankolev 5y agoAs another linguistic point, in Bulgarian 'зар' means dice
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoZar in Balkan languages – it exists in e.g. Romanian and Albanian as well – is an Ottoman-era loanword from Turkish, which in turn borrowed it from Perso-Arabic (i.e. possibly directly from Arabic, but more likely through Persian mediation).
- jogjayr 5y agoHuh, "azar" also means "illness" in Marathi (आजार), although that's not on the Wiktionary page. Coincidence or is it a loanword in Marathi as well?
- narag 5y agoaccording to wiktionary, they both originate from Arabic اَلزَّهْر (az-zahr, “the dice”). Just like Latin where Spanish "aleatorio" comes from: alea = dice. Caesar's famous words "alea jacta est" = "dice has been thrown".
- Rexxar 5y agoThe "h" is necessary to indicate there is no liaison with the previous word and the "d" is an indication that that derivative words use a non-silent "d" (like "hasardeux").
- asveikau 5y agoIn a Spanish accent (or most of them in Spain anyway) the z would be /θ/.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoThe Spanish pronunciation of orthographic z as /θ/ is rather late, post-16th-century. So, I would presume that French could have borrowed the word earlier than that.
- asveikau 5y agoI believe it was /ts/ and /dz/ before that, depending on if Old Spanish had ç or z. It's not like it went from [s] to [θ], which I think is what some people assume.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoYes, there were affricates originally, but in the meantime there was first deaffrication to /z̪/ (and then devoicing, etc.).
- asveikau 5y agoWikipedia for Old Spanish says there were two distinct variants of z: The affricates /t͡s̻/ and /d͡z̻/ were simplified to laminodental fricatives /s̻/ and /z̻/, which remained distinct from the apicoalveolar sounds /s̺/ and /z̺/ (a distinction also present in Basque). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Spanish#Sibilants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Spanish#Sibilants That's pretty interesting. I don't have any experience distinguishing between sounds like that but reading around I start to wonder if I might produce such differences without being aware of it.
- lowercased 5y agowhich looks like 'hazard' in english, which is (from mw dictionary) * a source of danger * the effect of unpredictable and unanalyzable forces in determining events : chance, risk * a chance event : accident * a golf-course obstacle (such as a bunker or a pond) * a game of chance like craps played with two dice i'd guess there's a connection? i'm no word historian person though...
- gpderetta 5y agoIn Italian "gioco d'azzardo" has the exact same meaning as "juego de azar". But an "azzardo" is a dangerous or risky behavior or action (the implication being that doing it would be a gamble).
- KptMarchewa 5y agoAnd in Polish 'hazard' just means gambling.
- emayljames 5y agoI wonder if that became the word for gambling, on its own, due to the strong influence of Catholicism.
- andredz 5y agoAccording to the Oxford Dictionary, the origin of hazard is as follows: Middle English (in hazard (sense 3 of the noun)): from Old French hasard, from Spanish azar, from Arabic az-zahr ‘chance, luck’, from Persian zār or Turkish zar ‘dice’ It bears mentioning, as an interesting fact that I just found about, that azzahr comes from Andalusi Arabic, and that zahr (in Arabic) means 'flower', from which the Spanish word azahar (the white flower on some trees such as orange trees) comes. Etymologies from the most official Spanish dictionary: azar: Del árabe hispánico *azzahr, y este del árabe zahr 'dado'; literalmente 'flores'. azahar: Del árabe hispánico azzahár, y este del árabe clásico zahr 'flores'.
- anonymfus 5y agoIn Russian the word азарт means the feeling of being high on gambling or on risk in general.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- soneca 5y agoYes, I would guess that in Brazilian portuguese the expression "jogos de azar" comes from this original meaning of the word "azar", as randomness. But the isolated word "azar" took on the specific meaning of "bad luck", which kind of leaked to how one would interpret "jogos de azar" around here.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Clewza313 5y ago"hazard" in English is also a cognate.
- devy 5y agoAzar is also the last name of former Department of Health and Human Services Secretary (Alex. M. Azar II) under President Trump during the height of COVID-19 pandemic[1]. That last name's origin is Lebanese[2]. [1]: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/01/31/secretary-azar-declares-public-health-emergency-us-2019-novel-coronavirus.html https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/01/31/secretary-azar-dec... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Azar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Azar
- manquer 5y agoIt is fairly common Persian/Hebrew name.
- fastball 5y agoReminds me of this (mildly NSFW) Silicon Valley scene[1] (though in that case he was making things up). Also reminds me of this urban legend[2] about poor sales of the Chevy Nova in Spanish-speaking countries because "no va" means "doesn't go". [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVoFzu-vH4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVoFzu-vH4o [2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanish/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanis...
- graeme 5y agoWhat do you know, I looked it up and the English word hazard has the same root.
- chrisweekly 5y agooh yeah -- as in the idiom "hazard a guess"
- emayljames 5y agoDukes of hazard
- sikim 5y agoIf I remember correctly, the founder was just a huge fan of a footballer named Eden Hazard, hence the name
- ojosilva 5y agoMore funny trivia, "azarar", as a verb, means to flirt or to successfully match up in Brazilian portuguese. https://dicionario.priberam.org/azarar https://dicionario.priberam.org/azarar
- intricatedetail 5y agoI wonder how these realtime content sharing services will be compatible with new EU terreg regulation. How such content is going to be moderated?
- bouncycastle 5y agoI don't think terrorists use dating apps...
- eloff 5y agoAlthough if we could get them laid and married off they probably wouldn't be terrorists anymore. Not really a family man career.
- NullPrefix 5y agoDid you just implied that only men could be terrorists? I thought that terrorism was a gender include activity.
- eloff 5y agoYeah, who are we kidding. It's almost exclusively men doing that. Like 95% or more.
- capableweb 5y ago> Like 95% or more Interesting accuracy, I'm curious about the source. Fascinating topic in general. Here's a good starting point for more as well: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08974454.2019.1633612 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08974454.2019.1... Outlines a bunch of interesting factoids. If you look at "terrorism" more as a whole than just the people going and doing the bombings and similar, like the ones raising children, taking care of the villages and such, I think you'll find that they pretty much end up like any other society.
- deleted 5y ago
- langitbiru 5y agoFrom the article: In February, Match Group agreed to buy Azar’s parent company for $1.7 billion.
- indigochill 5y agoSo we're still letting monopolies blatantly buy out all their competition, I see (also see: Facebook's purchases of Instagram + Whatsapp).
- 3rly 5y agoHow do you know that this outcome was not the desired endgame for the creators. It wasn't as if they were harassed to sell. Lastly, which "we" are you referring to?
- langitbiru 5y ago> It wasn't as if they were harassed to sell. Bumble founder disagreed. https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/17141308/bumble-match-group-new-york-times-ad-lawsuit-acquisition https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/17141308/bumble-match-group-ne... From the article above: "Match, which owns another popular dating app and Bumble competitor, Tinder, is suing Bumble for violating two patents and for allegedly stealing trade secrets. It was a lawsuit made all the more intriguing considering Match wants to acquire Bumble;"
- swiley 5y agoSoftware patents should require the source of the implementation to be published. That's the whole idea behind patents in the first place.
- joycian 5y agoExactly, you give the government a way to replicate your insight, in return you get x years of monopoly. With the first part being non-existent (didn't inventors even have to supply physical prototypes etc.?) the patent system is easy to abuse.
- simbas 5y ago"Do you want to develop an app?"
- imtringued 5y agoIt's interesting that you actually conduct the "date" through the app itself, which makes it a true dating app, rather than a match making app.
- kowlo 5y ago"Azar" means Fire in Persian... sounds fitting, and related to "Tinder"!
- asiachick 5y agoShould match.com get the anti-trust treatment? They seem to buy most new dating sites/apps. Match Group owns Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, PlentyOfFish, Ship, OurTime, Azar, and another 35+ dating sites it bought.
- langitbiru 5y agoI'm thinking of building a decentralized dating app (without crypto). It's something like WordPress but for dating. People can host it on-premise. You can say it's like white-labelling dating app. So each community (church, gym, yoga studio, etc) can have their own dating app and don't have to live on the mercy of Match.com. This way, we can keep Match.com in check.
- capableweb 5y agoSame though popped up in my head, but rather than self-host, use P2P technology like SSB. Easier to use (see Manyverse), doesn't require installing servers yourself and you could easily build those communities as pub servers if needed. Otherwise just match people at random.
- chrisin2d 5y agoThat still sounds technically out of reach for most non-technical people, so you’ll just end up with dating nodes filled with (mostly male) techies.
- azar1 5y agohuh…
- rchaud 5y agoSo they can use AI to block video of users flashing or harrassing others, yet my OK Cupid profile (same parent company) continues to be full of women from the Phillippines that set their location to my city because "they're planning to move there next year" or are "just looking to make friends outside my country". As if it wasn't bad enough that online dating was already this dehumanizing "swipe to accept/reject" rigamarole.
- the_arun 5y agoDo these sites run background checks? Because people could use these apps to brainwash others to get them do what they want. Am I missing something?
- desmosxxx 5y agocan't they do that in any app? or do you mean face to face is more dangerous or something?
- the_arun 5y agoNot really. May be this is applicable to any app that lets anonymous people communicate in private. Dating context is more sensitive. Eg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26513413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26513413
- oblak 5y agoSince my other comment got flagged, I am going to try again. Looks like you have some very strong, yet suspiciously unclear, opinions on the matter. Do you mind articulating the point that you're trying to make?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- meesterdude 5y agoMatch is a plague and needs to be stopped. They homogenize all their assets and thus break dating in the same poorly thought out, woke signaling, profit driven kind of way. All dating apps are broken in the same ways because Match has broken them. It was not always this way.
- ibrahimsow1 5y agoWoke signalling? How?
- clydethefrog 5y agoFor anyone wondering why there is a random confetti effect opening the article — the publication is 1 year old.
- imhoguy 5y agoNo, it is anniversary Rest of the World https://restofworld.org/one-year/ https://restofworld.org/one-year/
- permo-w 5y ago> Prince, who asked to be identified by only his first name for privacy reasons > A professional football player originally from Ghana, Prince immigrated to Turkey two years ago to join a local team https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin-Prince_Boateng https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin-Prince_Boateng
- phreeza 5y agoSo immediately obvious to anyone following German (and probably also Turkish) football, this has to be a joke or diversion? It's not exactly a common name.
- permo-w 5y agoor at least anyone halfway paying attention. Maybe Prince is a common name in Ghana? Even then, the odds are really low that it's real and not him You're probably right. Maybe it's an reference or an in-joke of some kind that we're not getting
- rchaud 5y agoKPB was born and raised in Germany. He has a Ghanaian passport and has represented Ghana in international competition. He's had a long career at some top clubs and definitely wouldn't need to be in Turkey for economic reasons.
- EMM_386 5y agoI could see this as very useful for digital nomads and others who live similar lifestyles. Want to move to Santiago, Chile next but know nobody? Assuming this has filters, you can do "show me anyone who is interested in snowboarding around my age in Santiago" and be able to connect with people before you even land there. Great for dating worldwide too for a variety of reasons. Sure, it's Chatroulette, but it seems like it has a lot more potential. It's interesting that it is a South Korean company but they have clearly focused on a global concept (most of the users are not in Korea).
- tmpz22 5y agoThe more granularity and internationalization the higher likelihood it'll be used for grooming, sex trafficking, and fraud. Tinder, Snapchat, TikTok, and other mediums are already rife with it.
- EMM_386 5y agoI agree with you, but at what point does this become "this is why we can't have nice things"? One of the reasons dating sites like Match don't work easily worldwide is because there are too many variables. Local customs, society judging online dating, personal information that may work in one area but not another ("do you attend church on Sunday?", etc). With the added fact it's essentially live FaceTime, you also get rid of people pretending to be a 17 year old girl when they are really a 40 year old man, or claiming they are are a US military veteran who needs some quick help when they are actually a Nigerian prince.
- lucaspolo 5y agoIn portuguese Azar can be translated to "bad luck", so here in Brazil I don't think it will be something catchy