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Why is Chile so long?
- ferrantim 2y agoThis is super interesting. Sharing with my kids who are starting geography in school this year.
- throwup238 2y agoMy key takeaway from this article is that the best place to go see the Milky Way is deep in the Amazon rainforest… where the tree cover is nearly 100% and there isn’t a single road for a hundred miles. That’s a neat collection of graphics. I’m curious how bespoke the creation process is for each graphic or if this is something everyone just does in ArcGis or similar. That last graphic about the Western US being the only other candidate is interesting because the two sides of the Rockies weren’t connected by a highway until the I70 over Glenwood Canyon was completed in 1992. Before its completion, the western and eastern halves of Colorado were practically different states and it took the interstate highway project half a century to get there because the terrain was so challenging.
- jprete 2y agoI think the graphics have numerous sources and mostly/entirely aren't made by the post author. There are five different styles in the first six map images!
- FinnKuhn 2y agoThe problem with your takeaway is that you a) won't be able to realistically get deep into the amazon rainforest and b) the tree canopy would cover all of the sky ;)
- HPsquared 2y agoAlso, there's likely to be cloud cover and mist, etc. Rainforest!
- namenotrequired 2y agoYep. It's way easier to take a boat to the middle of the ocean - fewer roads than even in the amazon :) and the best starry sky of my life
- probably_wrong 2y agoThis is a dream of mine, to soend the night far away from land that there's nothing around but water. Did you already have sea experience, or did you just rent a boat and gave it a try?
- sandworm101 2y ago>> just rent a boat and gave it a try? As someone who once worked tangentially in search and rescue, please do not even consider this. The ocean is a serious thing, doubly so at night. Unless you are renting a boat large enough to come with its own staff, please do not just head over the horizon simply to see the stars. And fyi, the stars at sea move as the boat you stand on moves. They are brighter, but also more blurry.
- langcss 2y agoWould a simple cruise ship ticket do it? Or be too lit up at night?
- sandworm101 2y agoCruise ships dont have dark decks or other places to view the ocean directly at night. It would be like standing on your porch with the exterior lights of ypur house left on. Avoiding light pollution is not really about seeing stars through light pollution. Thats for astronomers with telescopes. For human eyes it is more about being dark enough thay your iris can relax and let in more light. Try a dark forest, even a city park, surrounded by trees but able to see up. You will see more stars even if inside an urban area.
- 2y ago
- grecy 2y agoI've been to many places around the world from the Amazon rainforest to the Atacama Desert in Chile to right around Africa. Without a shadow of a doubt, the interior of Australia is STAGGERINGLY the best for stargazing. It's not even close. This was a single 8 second exposure. [1] and I'm not a great photographer. The milky way was so bright it kept me awake in my tent. [1] https://www.instagram.com/p/CersLuLBfCz/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CersLuLBfCz/
- helpfulContrib 2y agoAustralian here, spent my youth in the deep West. I found your description inspiring. I remember feeling, once, that night time was when everything in the universe could be seen, and daytime was when we slept in the shade of the sun, away from it all.
- grecy 2y agoI grew up in rural Australia. We had Japanese exchange students in High School, and the teachers stayed in our house (Mum & Dad were teachers). Even though I was only ~15, I have a very strong memory of the 50, 60 and 70 year old Japanese people staying outside until all hours stargazing. They had never seen stars before.
- throwaway2037 2y ago> They had never seen stars before. What? Even in a large park in Tokyo, you can see stars. What a silly comment.
- helpfulContrib 2y ago[dead]
- oldmariner 2y agoCan't see the pictures due to login required :-( I've been on a dark ship in the middle of the ocean and that was pretty good for stargazing, though I guess Australia might be a tiny bit better due to less reflective surface (compared to the ocean)?
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago> the two sides of the Rockies weren’t connected by a highway until the I70 over Glenwood Canyon was completed in 1992. US 40, 6, and 50 would like a word. They weren't connected by an interstate before that. But you said "highway". US 6 was a highway, and it ran through the exact same Glenwood Canyon.
- throwup238 2y agoFair point about the exact terminology but those are tiny two lane roads with impassable grades for the majority of commercial traffic. The term highway has drifted in colloquial use (hence your use of the word “was”).
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoYes, they were two lane roads. But no, they did not have impassable grades. Neither Loveland nor Berthoud Pass were easy, especially in winter, but they did in fact carry lots of commercial traffic (though I would think twice about sending an oversized load over them). In fact, to this day the old two-lane road of US 6 over Loveland Pass is used to keep hazardous material out of the I-70 tunnels. I mean, I remember around 1968-69, before they finished building Interstate 80 up Echo Canyon, and that tiny two-lane road had to take all the commercial traffic that there was on "the main street of North America".
- kelnos 2y ago> The term highway has drifted in colloquial use No it hasn't. "Highway" encompasses a lot of levels of road. If you're referring to an interstate, say so. That's the only thing that actually means that, and only that.
- fullstop 2y ago> My key takeaway from this article is that the best place to go see the Milky Way is deep in the Amazon rainforest… where the tree cover is nearly 100% and there isn’t a single road for a hundred miles. Check out Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_Springs_State_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_Springs_State_Park
- jaggederest 2y agoPine Mountain Observatory, if you're on the West coast, has some of the darkest skies, best weather and stable atmosphere for good seeing. 24 inch telescope, too. https://pmo.uoregon.edu/ https://pmo.uoregon.edu/
- RoyalHenOil 2y agoYou can see a brighter part of the Milky Way in the Southern hemisphere than you can in the Northern hemisphere.
- xeromal 2y agoIt's a fantastic drive if you've never done it
- tambourine_man 2y agoIt rains almost everyday, mostly in the late evening and night. My guess is clouds would be your main concern, not light pollution.
- tylermw 2y agoSeveral of the maps were made by Twitter users @researchremora and @cstats1, using R and the rayshader package.
- w4der 2y agoNot really, that would probably be the north of Chile on the Atacama desert, there's a reason why the Extremely Large Telescope, Giant Magellan Telescope and Vera C. Rubin are being built there.
- msmitha 2y agoCan confirm, was there in 2001. The clarity of the air owing to lack of moisture and no light pollution means you get amazing views of the milky way.
- perfectstorm 2y agoi'm going to assume that commoners like us don't have access to that telescope.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- LargoLasskhyfv 2y agoIt wouldn't give you the bombastic views you are used to from press realeases. Those are all longer exposure, at different wavelengths, stitched together digitally. With your bare eye in the focal point of that thing you'd just see Jupiter and some of its moons, the Rings of Saturn, some extrasolar nebulae and some galaxies better than with common amateur telesecopes. Otherwise just more and brighter stars, with some more hints of color. You'd have more immersion by using binoculars with a wide field of view, and low magnification, like 10 to 20, maybe 30 times. But the latter with a wide field of view are rather heavy, so bring a foldable camping chair to lie down on, and some contraption to have the binoc hanging down on you, easily movable, but not shaky. Or a tripod, but they are impractical for looking straight up. (with common binocular eye-pieces)
- jerojero 2y agoPretty sure you can rent telescope time it's just booked so you might have to wait. You can still go physically, there's tours and such. But it doesn't make sense for a physicist to go there when all the imagery is captured by a computer anyway. Also, if you've been to those altitudes you know it's not a walk in the park either!
- guidoism 2y agoThe most amazing sky I’ve ever seen was when I arrived in Urubichá in Guarayos region of Bolivia in 1998 before the electricity arrived in the area. I traveled by bus to visit my friend’s childhood home. The bus only went to the big city an hour away so I road in the back of a jeep the rest of the way, at night. I remember vividly not understanding what this super-bright light was in the sky. I know now it was either Venus or Jupiter, but it looked artificial because it was so much brighter than I was used to seeing.
- eps 2y agoVenus always appears near the sun (hence the "morning star" moniker).
- usr1106 2y agoIf it's near the sun you cannot see it in the middle of the night (except in polar areas during summer). But why only morning and not evening?
- fifilura 2y agoMornings and evenings. It is because its path is closer to the Sun. So when looking towards it you are always partly looking towards the Sun.
- usr1106 2y agoSo you are saying the morning star name is technically wrong? It should be the morning and evening star? Of course star is wrong, too...
- defrost 2y agoYou'd prefer the more accurate and historic Wandering Star? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_planet
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- nine_k 2y agoRather, go to Atacama, in Chile. It's a desert with pretty transparent air and little to no clouds, far from anywhere, and easier to traverse than a forest. It's also rather closer to the South pole, so not as hot as Amazon.
- MVissers 2y agoAgree with this. It’s the most beautiful night sky I’ve ever seen. The stars seemed to shine 10x brighter than other places, even those without light pollution.
- user_7832 2y agoApparently the desert in Kashmir (I think Ladakh specifically) is also excellent for astronomy for similar reasons - a dry desert, cool due to its altitude, and also benefits from thinner air causing lesser distortion.
- pyinstallwoes 2y agoHow’s the insect situation?
- jfkfif 2y agoIn the desert? It’s the driest place in the world
- kzrdude 2y agoThere's a lot of big telescopes in north chile too
- dbacar 2y agoYou should have very dry air for the best place, which I guess with all that Amazon rainforest thing, would not be your best option. Chile has the one of the driest deserts in the world.
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoI've lived on both the eastern and western slopes of Colorado. They are still practically two different states culturally and economically.
- mapmeld 2y agoMy nomination for night sky viewing: Ölgii in western Mongolia (was there for the golden eagle festival). Clear desert sky, accessible by airplane, not a tiny town either.
- gcanyon 2y agoThe sky from the top of Mauna Kea is ridiculous, and it's pretty easy to get there: fly to the big island of Hawaii, then sign up for the tour, I think it's less than $100. The milky way is stunning.
- jameshart 2y agoJust check the lunar phase before you book. Made the mistake of being in Hawaii during the full moon, so we didn’t get much of a view of the stars on our Mauna Kea trip. Don’t get me wrong - the experience of visiting to the top and watching the telescopes opening up was worth the trip, but we missed out on a real stargazing opportunity. And we did see a fireball meteor, so that kinda made up for it. But I don’t think those are guaranteed.
- garof 2y agoThey make a map for this: https://www.darkskymap.com/nightSkyBrightness https://www.darkskymap.com/nightSkyBrightness For the North American peeps, check out the western part of the US. *edit: and forecasts https://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/ https://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/
- bradknowles 2y agoThe astrophotography communities I am a member of tend to use the Bortle scale map at https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ This one is more mobile-friendly, IMO.
- pininja 2y agoI love these maps, it’s an awesome collection! I make data vis maps for my day job and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that each of these are completely bespoke, made by different people, using a unique technique - python, hand drawing, ArcGIS, Blender, and even R can be used to make these, and I usually use deck.gl They’re fun to make combining design, data, graphics programming, and lots of fiddling to get the tools to do what you want!
- EdwardDiego 2y agoJust come to NZ, go to the Dark Sky Reserve centered around Lake Tekapo and enjoy the Milky Way in all its glory. We have zero snakes and very few dangerous spiders and you'd have to try very hard to find them, they're rather shy. Also, we make great coffee and beer.
- tomrod 2y agoNZ sounds heavenly.
- mandibeet 2y agoI thought that Hawaii is the best place to go see the Milky Way
- mFixman 2y agoIs there a name for this simple style of writing? It reminds me of the style of pop science books written in the late 19th and early 20th century. There's a nice charm in it, like it's trying not to be pretentiously complex.
- _visgean 2y agohonestly it feels like a powerpoint presentation in an article.
- keyle 2y agoHighly entertaining, keeps you surprised as you never know what's happening next, and full of images without being memes. Loved it.
- mikepurvis 2y agoThis author wrote a number of pretty influential essays during the early pandemic advocating for mask use, social distancing, and other mitigations. He's a trained educator, so the effectiveness of communication is definitely no accident: https://fortune.com/2020/08/10/the-overnight-coronavirus-expert/ https://fortune.com/2020/08/10/the-overnight-coronavirus-exp...
- talldatethrow 2y agoMy gf is a trained educator too with two masters somehow related to education. She teaches 8th grade English but has also taught highschool. She can't write or communicate at any level beyond typical hairdresser. Considering it's very hard to fail out of most upper level education unless you simply don't do the work at all, we really should stop giving people so much credit for just getting degrees. It's what you do with it that matters and how you devote yourself on your own time that makes people great. And that's what the previous commenter was doing. Trying to give credit to some education system someone went through is taking away from the person that actually made something of themselves, almost always by themselves. Side note, I graduated with a MechE degree from UC Berkeley. Decent grades. I can honestly say I learned almost nothing. I just did a ton of work they wanted. If I made something of myself in the engineering field, I promise it wasn't because of UC Berkeley.
- tumidpandora 2y agoThis is such a clear and engaging read! I wish all articles made learning this fun and accessible
- ableal 2y ago""" Peru & Bolivia went to war with Chile for that region, but they lost in the War of the Pacific. Why fight? Natural resources: guano and saltpeter. Back then, guano was the world’s main fertilizer (and this area had most of the world's guano, thanks to the climate). """ That fertilizer produced iconic advertising in mid XX Century Portugal and Spain: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/AR22G9/nitrato-de-chile-advertising-poster-obidos-portugal-AR22G9.jpg https://c8.alamy.com/comp/AR22G9/nitrato-de-chile-advertisin...
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoThis site owner is living the small-web fantasy we HN'rs keep talking about.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago[flagged]
- pvg 2y agoPlease don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoI repented. Publicly, to be an example.
- pvg 2y agoEveryone who doesn't post these is already a public example.
- renewiltord 2y agoThere are lots of substack sites like this. Probably the new blogspot. The newsletter modal is because that's a choose piece of substack.
- fluoridation 2y agoHow is the table of dialects constructed? It's obvious if two dialects are at 1, but what does it mean if they're at 0? They can't be mutually unintelligible, since that would make them different languages. I ask because the dialects spoken in Argentina and in Uruguay are practically identical, save for a few regional words. If the scale being used puts them at 0.35, then it makes me wonder about the usefulness of the scale.
- cdelsolar 2y agoYeah, I was wondering about these two countries myself. Also it was very strange to see the Peru and Cuba correlation, those two dialects are nothing alike.
- prmoustache 2y agoI have no idea. Also there is no standard spanish even in Spain. Like Andalucian spanish and Domenican spanish have a lot in common but vary greatly with other forms of spanish.
- digging 2y agoThere literally is a standard Spanish, no? I understand it to be based on Castilian. However I understand your point that even within the country of Spain there are many dialects which diverge from "standard".
- School-Cotton 2y ago> There literally is a standard Spanish, no? Not really. Just like English, the standard variety in each country is considered equally "standard". > I understand it to be based on Castilian. I'm not sure what you mean by this. As far as I know Castilian is just a synonym for the Spanish language (as opposed to other languages of Spain e.g. Catalan). So the variety spoken in Guatemala and the one in Tenerife are equally "Castilian".
- digging 2y ago
- eatonphil 2y agoThe article mentions it, but I only learned recently that Bolivia did not used to be landlocked. Chile took Bolivia's coastline somewhat recently (late 1800s/early 1900s). > The dispute began in 1879, when Chile invaded the Antofagasta port city on its northern border with Bolivia as part of a dispute over taxes. Within four years Chileans had redrawn the map of South America by taking almost 50,000 square miles of Bolivian territory, including its 250-mile coastline on the southern Pacific Ocean. Bolivia accepted this loss in 1904, when it signed a peace treaty with Chile in return for a promise of the “fullest and freest” commercial access to port. https://time.com/5413887/bolivia-chile-pacific/ https://time.com/5413887/bolivia-chile-pacific/
- sidmitra 2y agoDisclaimer: I live in Chile, but not a Chilean national(nor of similar ethnicity), and certainly not a historian. The dispute is seen differently in Chile and is not as simplistic as Chile invading a port. In general i've gotten the sense that the general populace believes that Bolivia(with its secret alliance with Peru) had other intentions. >In February 1878, Bolivia increased taxes on the Chilean mining company Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta [es] (CSFA), in violation of the Boundary Treaty of 1874 which established the border between both countries and prohibited tax increases for mining. Chile protested the violation of the treaty and requested international arbitration, but the Bolivian government, presided by Hilarión Daza, considered this an internal issue subject to the jurisdiction of the Bolivian courts. Chile insisted that the breach of the treaty would mean that the territorial borders denoted in it were no longer settled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Pacific https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Pacific >Ill-defined borders and oppressive measures allegedly taken against the Chilean migrant population in these territories furnished Chile with a pretext for invasion. https://www.britannica.com/place/Chile/The-War-of-the-Pacific-1879-83 https://www.britannica.com/place/Chile/The-War-of-the-Pacifi...
- cdelsolar 2y agoChilenos weones
- A_D_E_P_T 2y agoOne of the most interesting drives in my life was Chile from the island of Chiloe to the Tatio Geysers in the Atacama. Just so many different climate zones, and all in relatively close proximity. Chiloe and Puerto Montt were damp, cold, and fog-shrouded in Summer (Jan-Feb), very similar to parts of the coastal pacific northwest. The area to its north, centered around the German-influenced town of Valdivia, was California-like. Very temperate in Summer, and very green. Lots of pastures and rivers. The region becomes progressively more "Mediterranean" as you move further north; one gradually sees fewer pastures and woodlands, more vineyards, olive trees, and fruit orchards. Santiago is on the far northern end of this Mediterranean zone. The great wine regions are generally to the south and west of that capital city. A few hours north of Santiago and all is desert -- but it's a fairly live desert, with all sorts of succulent plants and many types of flower. Most of the road traffic in these parts comes from copper miners and their work trucks. Continue north and you're in a dry, mostly empty, moonscape. Antofagasta and Calama are nice enough towns, though, and the interesting drive from the former to the latter takes just two hours but sees you rise from sea level to +2000m. It's such a gentle and relentless slope that you barely notice it. Nothing at all like driving in the Alps. I broke something in my rental car when I continued to the geysers at +4000m, but it was worth it.
- pfdietz 2y agoThe Atacama Desert is exceptional, the absolutely best solar energy resource on the planet.
- speed_spread 2y agoBest place to build lithium batteries _and_ charge them!
- pc86 2y agoTorres del Paine in the south is pretty brutal to get to if you're not used to long flight but it is breathtaking. Definitely a bucket list trip if you enjoy nature and wildlife, hiking, etc.
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- cassepipe 2y agoNo excuse for not building one giant high speed multi-tracks train line from North to South then :)
- fluoridation 2y agoExcept that the people are not spread that far out that it makes economical sense.
- flobosg 2y agoIn the 2000s the Chilean state railway company was involved in a huge corruption scandal as well as bad administrative practices. It’s been slowly recovering, but rail services in Chile still leave a lot to be desired.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoThat sounds like the kind of investment in the commons that a socialist would make. In 1973 the US encouraged a coup to ensure that no such investments were made (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#Foreign_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...). Instead, we applied guns to the affected area and ensured that they would part with their resources as "fair free-market prices" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Boys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Boys). They've started the process of removing those policies, but only in the last few years. If I had to come up with an excuse for not having trains, I'd chose that.
- golergka 2y agoThat's why Chile is the most successful economy on the continent.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI won't try to speak for the Chileans, but while I was there I did not get the feeling that they are happy about the intervention. The more I learned about my country's role in their history, the more surprised I was that they were being so nice to me. (I was there, along with my naiveté, to see a solar eclipse, so the cultural stuff I picked up along the way was a bit of a surprise).
- 29athrowaway 2y agoAnother interesting fact about Chile is: no compass is needed. The mountains show where the East is. If the East is to your right you are facing North, otherwise you are facing South.
- the__alchemist 2y agoI had a similar feel driving through Croatia, although not as extreme: If you don't hit the sea or a border crossing, you are going in the right direction! (With a tau/2 ambiguity you can resolve using the sun)
- arachnid92 2y agoIn fact, it’s so easy to know where North is that it’s very common to use cardinal directions when describing locations or meeting points in Santiago, as opposed to using landmarks. For example, when meeting a friend you may say “I’ll meet you on the north-eastern corner of the crossing of Pedro de Valdivia and Irarrázaval Avenues”, and everyone involved will know what that means.
- desas 2y agoRelatedly, one of the claims made about the Pirahã people is that they have no words for left and right in their language, instead they orient themselves relative to the river bank.
- School-Cotton 2y agoSame thing I use the Empire State Building for when in lower Manhattan. Granted that works over a much smaller area...
- KineticLensman 2y agoThis is also true of long linear coastlines, such as the South Coast of England, where (ignoring small bays and harbours), if the sea is to your left (right) then you are facing west (east). I was briefly disoriented when I stayed on the North coast of Cyprus where the situation is the opposite.
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- throw4847285 2y agoWhen I went to Chile I was about to undertake a cross-country move across the US. Everybody I spoke to in Santiago couldn't imagine a country where you can drive a massive distance like that and move from one major metropolis to another. At the time, I thought they were just reflecting on the fact that Chile is a country where 40% of all people live in one metro area, so there isn't another huge metro area to move to. Looking at those maps, I understand their incredulity. Because of the shape of Chile, you can drive a similar distance and basically cover the entire country, rural, urban, and suburban. It's both a large country and a small one at the same time.
- aeyes 2y agoThe Concepción metro area is 1 million people, Valparaíso/Viña as well. Chileans love to point out that there isn't much outside of Santiago but it's not really true.
- flobosg 2y agoWhile that might be true, Chile is a very centralized country, unfortunately.
- throw4847285 2y agoI was talking to Santiaguinos, so I took it with a grain of salt.
- jkaptur 2y ago"View of the World from Ruta 70"
- nox101 2y agois 1 million people a lot? I lived most of my life in metro areas of 15-30 million. when I finally ventured out and saw so many famous places at 1.5 million or less and how I could drive in and then back out of their downtowns in just a few blocks I was kind of shocked on how small most places are
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- maxlin 2y agoOriginally posted on X: https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1807380049605091537 https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1807380049605091537
- maxlin 2y agoWhoever downvoted this deserves to be straight out banned. My linked source is from the same guy and is older!
- Yawrehto 2y agoThe Atacama Desert is so dry NASA uses it to stimulate Mars. Wikipedia also lists five (!) observatories (one under construction, to be home to the Extremely Large Telescope), including the Very Large Telescope (built), ALMA (built), and others.[1] It's basically as close as you can get to space while being on the ground on Earth. [1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert#Astronomical_observatories
- HPsquared 2y ago[flagged]
- prmoustache 2y agoIs there a single chilean dialect? Surely in such a long country there must be a huge difference between northern, center and southern chilean.
- digging 2y agoDialect and language are sort of a "coastline problem". You can find variation between two neighboring villages if you like, but at some point you have to draw a boundary around a group of speakers and call it a dialect. I'd assume the common dialect of Santiago, where most people live in Chile, is considered "the Chilean dialect," but it almost certainly sounds different in rural areas.
- flobosg 2y agoThere are regional variations, but the difference is less than what you would probably expect, applying mostly to intonation/cadence (more marked and melodic in the south, less so in the north) and some vocabulary. Most of the variation in Chilean Spanish is based on socioeconomic status, since Chile's income inequality is rather high.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago> [...] intonation (more marked and melodic in the south, less so in the north) Oddly enough, albeit anecdotal, this is true everywhere; in every country and every continent, people are looser in the south. That said, if it's also true for Chile then it means it's not related to the climate.
- flobosg 2y ago> people are looser in the south What does “loose” mean in this context? My first impression would be that the accent in northern Chile is “looser” than the south.
- gottorf 2y ago> in every country and every continent, people are looser in the south Fun to think about, but I'm sure there are as many counterexamples as there are examples. In the Germanic languages, for example, no one could deny that Swedish or Norwegian are much more sing-songy than stodgy German.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- anothername12 2y agoI’m gonna round trip motorcycle that later starting with Colombia
- gottorf 2y agoSounds beautiful. Good luck with your trip.
- pandalicious 2y agoAm I misreading this or is that "How close is Spanish from Different Countries" graphic kind of jank? There's intersecting lines that are missing, like Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.
- delecti 2y agoThe intersection between Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic is the 0.42 right above the "1" in the PR column (5th from the left). If you imagine the full graph of all countries horizontally and vertically, there would be a lot of overlap (the PR column and DR row, and the DR column and PR row). So to save that redundancy, for all countries except Spain (very top) and Argentina (far right) you have to look around a bit to see where it crosses any other given country.
- k1ns 2y agoThis article is awesome. I've always wondered why Chile is that shape and I didn't know about the Chilean dialect of Spanish being so far off from the others. Super cool.
- seu 2y agoIt completely ignores the influence of the indigenous languages in the "dialect" or variation of Spanish, which is actually a much better explainer than "distance from spain".
- TremendousJudge 2y agoI don't think that's a good hypothesis, because in that case, other countries with a huge colonized population such as Mexico or Perú would have less intelligible dialects as well.
- arachnid92 2y agoNot all Latin-American countries experienced the same level of mestizaje and colonization. The southern part of Chile, in particular, was never successfully colonized by the Spaniards, and mapudungún, the language of the Mapuche people who live there has had (and continues to have) a tremendous influence on Chilean Spanish.
- novok 2y agoHuge mountain ranges separating people that are close in distance is a pretty classic mechanism of creating linguistic diversity / dialects in places that are physically close to each other. You see this with villages in various parts of Asia historically. Indigenous language effecting Spanish is something that would effect everyone in South America, so even if you remove Spain from the table, Colombia, Chile, the Caribbean and Costa Rica will all stand out about how "different" they are from the rest of South America, probably from their physical barriers separating them from the rest of the continent.
- yieldcrv 2y ago[flagged]
- ShaggyStyle 2y agoAll of this is just because Chile is the best country of Chile... if you know what I mean ;-)
- arachnid92 2y agoSomo el mejor país de Chile hmno. As a Chilean living in the US, seeing this on HN made my day - it’s not often the rest of the world (outside of South America) remembers we exist.
- elzbardico 2y agoBelieve me, not being remembered by the rest of the world is sometimes a blessing.
- novok 2y agoChile feels like the Canada of South America in some ways. Even has a special work visa category with the USA!
- alganet 2y agoCool article. TIL I learned that Atacama has flower blooms. I miss the Inca though. Talking about Chile without mentioning the Inca Empire is like talking about Italy without mentioning the Roman Empire.
- flobosg 2y agoEnter the Mapuche (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche), whom the Inca tried (and failed) to conquer.
- rob74 2y agoOn the difference of Chilean Spanish to other "dialects": > It’s the farthest region from Spain, so the least communicated to the rest of the empire, and hence the one that drifted the most from the homeland. Er... if you look at the table (https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F856b5618-ae2c-4e01-a24a-085144fd9ab5_1456x1009.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_...), Chile has quite a lot of red, but actually its Spanish is closer to the Spanish from Spain than that of other South American countries. So it looks like those have drifted further from "standard" Spanish, while Chile hasn't as much?
- alephnerd 2y agoChilean Spanish is heavily influenced by Spanish, German, Italian, and Croat immigrants from a pronunciation and colloquialism standpoint because those were the 4 main immigrant communities to Chile. Also, Spain Spanish is not necessarily "Standard" (Castilian) Spanish.
- rob74 2y agoThat's why I put it in quotes :)
- alephnerd 2y agoSpain Spanish isn't "Standard" Spanish though. The closest thing to "Standard" Spanish is what the RAE prescribes, but no one listens to them. Insurgencies and protests were fought over this fact in Spain during the Francoist and Post-Francoist era (eg. Andalusian, Murcian, Canarian, Leonese)
- melenaboija 2y agoMy opinion as Spaniard and having a chilean close, is that Chilean Spanish is the closest to mine in terms of pronunciation. And to me what makes the biggest difference is not European migration but native words.
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- flobosg 2y agoTrivia question: how many time zones does Chile have?
- gottorf 2y agoGiven that Chile only covers about nine degrees of longitude, the reasonable expectation is that it only has one time zone (excluding any far-flung territories and whatnot). I'm sure you're going to surprise me with the true answer :-)
- Suppafly 2y agoI had to google, I'm surprised that it's 3, I would have assumed that it was just one since it's so narrow.
- flobosg 2y agoEverybody forgets Easter Island! (And the other one in the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica region was added not long ago, 2017 IIRC.)
- Suppafly 2y agoI assume maybe the other one is to align more closely with Argentina or something? If you look at the time zone map, they just as easily could have had the whole mainland country on one timezone. Bolivia, Paraguay, and parts of Brazil share the same timezone as the northern part of Chili and are just as far east as the southern parts of Chili. Easter Island makes sense, you don't necessarily expect islands that are far away to share the mainlands timezone. Antarctica is one that probably catches a lot of people since most time zone maps don't even bother to include it and there is no real population there.
- flobosg 2y ago> I assume maybe the other one is to align more closely with Argentina or something? It has to do with differences in latitude. In winter, the southernmost region of Chile[1] was completely dark at around 4 PM with the old time zone. Staying on summer time for the whole year gives its inhabitants an additional hour of sunlight. [1]: Which includes, but is not equivalent to, Antarctica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magallanes_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magallanes_Region
- notachatbot1234 2y ago90% of the content is stolen from other people without appropriate or any attribution.
- syngrog66 2y agomany nation shapes don't make any sense. add in the wildly disconnected/schizophrenic sovereign territory of some countries (US and Russia among exemplars) and I've learned one must simply turn one's brain off when analyzing them. Its a circus.
- mcmoor 2y agoIt starts to make sense once I see nations as collections of big cities holding arbitrary (terrain may matter here) amount of "wastelands" between them. In general, no country would generate from those wastelands so it make sense that it's arbitrarily exchange between big cities surrounding them.
- syngrog66 2y agogood mental model, agreed
- pulketo 2y agoThis Chile is too long too...
- TheBlight 2y agoIsn't this the covid "Hammer and Dance" article author? Not getting another click from me for the rest of my life.
- rieg3c 2y agoChile is a great country, greetings from Saint Bernard
- santiagobasulto 2y agoOff topic, but that correlation matrix of "Spanish similarity" seems a bit odd. I'm from Argentina, and the spanish in Uruguay sounds practically the same. At least A LOT MORE similar than Cuban or Paraguay as it shows there.
- DavidAdams 2y agoI'm sure that has a lot to do with the close physical proximity of the capitals of Argentina and Uruguay.
- afh1 2y agoIf all articles were written like this, straight to the point and only the important bits, I would read a lot more and skim a lot less...
- danhau 2y agoI love how effective the article is at communicating. A digestible idea followed by visual example. Rinse and repeat. I think we could learn something from this for our documentations, or even Jira comments.
- racl101 2y agoThe Chilean Spanish portion of the article made me laugh. I'm a Spanish speaker and the Spanish I speak is closer to Mexican Spanish. I could not for the life of me understand Chileans I met in Canada. Brings back funny memories of 2001 for me.
- lucideer 2y agoReading the title, my initial expectation was that this was going to be a Croatia/Bosnia-Herzegovina situation. Refreshing to read that most of the reasons here are geological/meteorological in nature.
- bwanab 2y agoThat is a really nice bit of information communication. Hat's off! I feel like I learned a lot and that always makes me happy. One quibble. At the end it mentions why Mexico's west was of interest to the Spanish, but neglects possibly the most important part - it was where the Spanish galleons from the Philippines first landed after the grueling trip across the Pacific as detailed beautifully in Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle".
- idontwantthis 2y agoAnd the real history in 1493 by Charles C. Mann. Samurai were documented as guards on galleons brought to Mexico. It needs to be a movie.
- piuantiderp 2y agoIf I recall there were also some Aztecs or Mayans brought to fight in Phillipines and SEA
- kragen 2y agoi'm pretty sure there are aztecs and mayas who go to the philippines and southeast asia to fight today (to fight drug lords and the dictatorship of myanmar, respectively)
- asveikau 2y agoI was recently watching some YouTube videos about early contact between Europeans and Japanese. A lot of that was contact with Portugal, and from there they had contact with Spain and Italy, so they did go to Iberian colonies in the new world.
- fuzztester 2y agoThe novel called Taipan, by James Clavell, is quite interesting, IMO. He also wrote the novel Shogun, which I didn't enjoy as much. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai-Pan_(novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai-Pan_(novel) Shogun is about Japan in the Samurai period and Taipan is about Hong Kong a few centuries ago. Both novels are about those periods and about Westerners interacting with those countries at that time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clavell https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clavell [ Clavell wanted to write a second novel because "that separates the men from the boys".[21] The money from King Rat enabled him to spend two years researching and then writing what became Tai-Pan (1966). It was a huge best-seller, and Clavell sold the film rights for a sizeable amount (although the film would not be made until 1986).[22] ]
- wruza 2y agoBecause Andes? See also “chilean empire map” (it’s not serious).
- Phrodo_00 2y ago> Far south: too cold for another country Chile has an Antarctic claim going all the way to the pole. If you consider that, it's impossible to go further south If you don't, then we still just run out of land in the Continent. Note that the neighbour competition also applies to Tierra del Fuego, as we've had tensions with Argentina through history over the control of Magallanes Channel.
- buzzerbetrayed 2y agoChileans also believe they own the moon. Source: I lived there Better source: https://www.marcachile.cl/en/interesting-facts-about-chile-and-the-moon/ https://www.marcachile.cl/en/interesting-facts-about-chile-a...
- Phrodo_00 2y agoNot a lot of people actually believe that Chile owns it, but it's true that our national registry allowed a guy to register it as his land (he needed to be a land owner to enter a club). It's used as a fun fact by most. The Antarctic claim is taken seriously, though. It comes from The Treaty of Tordesillas
- cryptonector 2y agoThat map of Spanish dialect difficulty... I can confirm.
- goda90 2y agoI'm a native English speaker. I learned Spanish pretty fluently in Chile, interacting with native Spanish speakers from several countries, and my personal experience doesn't entirely match the map. Chilean and Argentine are definitely harder. I don't think I've met a Venezuelan or Panamanian to compare. Colombian was the clearest, most comprehensible accent of any I encountered. Easier than Mexican and Peruvian that are both marked as easy on that map.
- silisili 2y agoI'd assume there to be regional variations like most countries, right? Hard to blanket one way or another. For example, my wife learned English later in life and can understand neutral/midwestern American fine, but has tons of trouble with southern and northeastern regional accents.
- goda90 2y agoI know Chilean accents get harder to understand the further south you go. More idioms and slang and more dropped letters in speech.
- carabiner 2y agoThey should make it longer.
- golergka 2y agoBolivians and Peruvians might disagree, violently.
- Perroboc 2y agoWow, it's wonderful to see my country mentioned here! And the article has a lot of content I didn't know about, too.
- matreyes 2y agoWena weon!!!
- diego_sandoval 2y agoAs a Valdiviano, I find the Santiago climate too hot and dry. I prefer the south.
- mqefjh 2y ago[dead]
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- nojvek 2y agoIf we were superb at building ships and living on the seas, Chilean Empire would have been a thing.
- br1 2y agoBecause Chile renounced Patagonia to keep Argentina out of the war with Bolivia and Peru. Argentina is the bully around here.
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- nikolay 2y agoI've always concluded entirely based on maps, not historic facts, that it was conquered with a strong fleet and not enough infantry.
- flobosg 2y agoWhat made you reach that conclusion? I’m just curious.
- phaser 2y agoChilean dialect of spanish is wild. Only a chilean can understand this: "el weon weon, weon."
- onionisafruit 2y agoCare to translate it for us? gpt says “The dude, dude dude”
- flobosg 2y agoThat guy is an asshole, man.
- phaser 2y agoI'll do my best: "That guy is pretty dumb, man."
- lynguist 2y agoGpt4o says “the dude is an idiot, dude”
- pvaldes 2y ago"weon" is a corruption of the word "huevón", that means literally "big egg". Is a polysemic word, but when used as adjective means "somebody with big balls"; by extension "somebody that spends the day sitting on their own testicles, unable to carry them" So a huevón is "a lazy lad", "a douchebad" or simply "a dude" (colloquially and vulgar, but also playful if applied to a close friend). The word is a minefield, some people will feel amused, other insulted, and is a faux pas with women. Better avoid it unless you know what you are doing.
- khazhoux 2y agoI think the most similar word/phrase in English is "son of a bitch" It can be an angry insult, a demeaning adjective, a term of endearment, an expression of surprise or bewilderment, ...
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- stickfigure 2y agoHmmm. From my travels through Latin America, I would rate Colombian accents as by far the easiest to understand. Without exception, everyone spoke with clear diction and enunciation. I would definitely not rate it "very hard" - that would be reserved for the Honduran accent, which I found incomprehensible even spoken s-l-o-w-l-y. Looks like they're rating "difficulty" as "difference from Spanish in Spain". Considering that Spaniards only represent about 10% of the total Spanish-speaking population, I'm not sure that's fair.
- tuckerconnelly 2y agoYeah based on my in-laws, Chilean seems understandable, though they tend to speak fast. Argentine Spanish is the strange one, due to the heavy Italian influence.
- asveikau 2y agoI saw an interesting video showing Argentines in the 90s vs Argentines today, both in BA with more or less the same age and status, and the former group had way more of that "Italian" sounding accent. I think it's going away or softening over time. A shame, because I like it.
- asveikau 2y agoA lot of Spanish speaking memes and videos I see have this running joke that Chileans are hard to understand. I don't think it's a literal truth or meant to be taken seriously. They just hand pick a few examples of people who talk very fast, which exist in most Spanish speaking countries (in Spain, Andalusia would be it). There are similar videos in the same circles talking about how hard English is based on a drunk American redneck fisherman or Adele's working class London speech. It's just a meme. These memes are popular in Latin America, it's definitely not just a Spain thing.
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- loeg 2y agoI don't think the cross-comparison chart is based on Spanish from Spain: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F856b5618-ae2c-4e01-a24a-085144fd9ab5_1456x1009.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...
- timonoko 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGFR86yIyyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGFR86yIyyA
- wigster 2y agooddly, why was this also at the top of my twitter feed?
- kortilla 2y agoBecause the author tweeted it? It’s a new article
- ubermonkey 2y agoIt's important to note that, in some interpretations, it could be much, much longer: https://craigcalcaterra.com/blog/long-chile-ohio2-and-the-snack-rack/ https://craigcalcaterra.com/blog/long-chile-ohio2-and-the-sn...
- dudeinjapan 2y agoIsn’t the answer obvious? They were trying to make it look like a Chile pepper.
- p3rls 2y agoI don't know but a Peruvian once told me that when God created South America he gave the Peruvians the titties from lake Titicaca and Bolivia got the shit left over. I never quite figured out what it meant.
- polterguy1000 2y ago[flagged]
- refactorguy 2y agoReport this account, it's copying comments.
- gosukiwi 2y agoThat spanish similarity thing can't be right. Argentina and Uruguay speak basically the same spanish (unless you count dialects like Cordoba)
- diego_moita 2y agoIt is just bullshit. From my experience, (Portuguese native speaker who learned Spanish) Colombian Spanish is much easier than Mexican. And the worst Spanish, by far, is from the Dominican Republic. Chile is not that bad, it is quite close to Argentinian, actually.
- grosswait 2y agoSpanish my second language and I concur
- dysoco 2y agoArgentinian here; yeah it's bullshit, also there's no single "Argentina spanish" or "Spain spanish", Andalusian is very different from Madrilean etc. I have to say though that Chilean spanish is commonly considered quite hard to understand, they speak really fast with lots of mannerisms and "can't understand a single thing of a Chilean speaking" is a common meme in Argentina at the very least.
- felideon 2y agoAbsolute bullshit. Though, I guess it doesn't measure accents idioms. The referenced paper seems to be using this database: https://www.hcias.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research-at-the-hcias/ongoing-projects-at-the-hcias/variacion-lexica-en-espanol-del-mundo-varilex-r https://www.hcias.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research-at-the-hcias... And even that data is kind of suspect, based on a simple glimpse at the screenshot, which shows idioms for "ISN'T IT?". Colombians definitely would say all of the following, unlike shown in the table: A cada quien le va según quiere Dios, ____ - cierto? - no? - o no? - si o no? And actually would probably not say "si?" as shown. "Verdad?" might be heard, but maybe an older generation.
- eps 2y agoMinor nitpick (for the Spanish language table) - Chile's ISO code is CL, not CH. CH is Switzerland.
- elif 2y agoThe andes
- jaimex2 2y agoAndes mountain range. simple.
- sma3in 2y agoA really good read! Chile's position in the map always had me ask lots of questions and found most answers in this article. Thank you!
- sidcool 2y agoI was in Santiago for a month last year. It's a beautiful city and people are very friendly. I could not visit the desert in the north, but have heard wonderful stories about it. I really wish I am able to go there again. Also, I had no idea Chile is sooo long.
- dudinax 2y agoI've never been to Chile, but the few Chileans I know have the clearest Spanish I've heard.
- a_c 2y agoI'm surprised no one mentioned Indonesia, which is about 5k km west to east, compared to Chile about 4k north to south
- larodi 2y agoAbsolutely amazing example of data journalism. Perhaps not all maps are created by the author originally, but such articles show very well how text paired with maps can greatly enhance the overall amount of knowledge transferred. ESRI have some similar articles in their Living Atlas using maps from it also. Not sure whether there is another like... easy/standard alternative, but the potential for such articles is huge. It is very possible that each serious article can benefit from some maps.
- cassepipe 2y agoFrom the same author, somehow related to the topics and maybe a bit more interesting : https:/unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/the-rain-shadow-effect
- EdwardDiego 2y ago> But in this part of the world, the mountain chains start from deep under the sea, which generates archipelagos rather than a continental sliver. Technically New Zealand is the exposed portion of a continental sliver.
- javier_e06 2y agoWhen it comes to dialects and accents I find Chileans to be very easy to understand. I believe Don Francisco from the famous show Sabado Gigante con Don Francisco is Chilean. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1bado_gigante https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1bado_gigante It was aired in Univision and they ensure that the Spanish covers the Americas. Another of my favorite shows that should be part of the article for culture sake is the Chilean show: 31 minutos. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/31_minutos https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/31_minutos where the Spanish super clear. Maybe is because is an educational show. Anyhow great Chile article. Thanks. Go Chile! Next time. (They are out of Copa America).
- jviotti 2y agoFrom the post: "You see how red Chilean Spanish is? It means it’s quite different. In the beginning of Grad School, I could understand all my Hispanic classmates, but I had a hard time understanding the Chileans!" As a native Spanish speaker, I find this quite interesting. For me, Chileans are within the category of "easy to understand" while I might struggle a bit understanding some accents that the article qualifies as easy or normal.
- borjaMarti 2y agoWhat I find even more amusing is that one of the hypotheses for why Chilean is so different is that "It’s the farthest region from Spain, so the least communicated to the rest of the empire, and hence the one that drifted the most from the homeland.", and when you check the graph it's one of the closest Spanishes to Spanish Spanish ^^
- technol0gic 2y agosoooo, purely topographically, Chile is the Hoboken of Sud America?
- mandibeet 2y agoWhen I was a kid, I had a fascination with maps. Among all the shapes and borders, one country always stood out to me: Chile. It seemed to me like a magical land that was different from all the others.