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Completely silly fact: knowing 0 about the guy except that he gave his name to the famous algorithm, I had somehow assumed he was Indian. Weird to see a white D
by torben-friis 1y ago
Completely silly fact: knowing 0 about the guy except that he gave his name to the famous algorithm, I had somehow assumed he was Indian. Weird to see a white Dutchman in the picture.
- porridgeraisin 1y ago(Curious) How did Edsger Dijkstra sound like an indian name to you?
- torben-friis 1y agoI knew an Indian woman named Divya, perhaps my mind thought it looked similar in print? I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision. It’s similar to how I always pictured Jane Austen as a sarcastic woman in her forties while reading her books, but she wrote her most famous works being borderline a teenager. Your mind just fills things up I guess.
- wowczarek 1y agoAll comes down to some degree of "linguistic intuition", that one acquires from not necessarily speaking foreign languages, but some exposure and proximity to them. My bet is that most Europeans, faced with "Edsger Dijkstra" would have instinctively pointed towards the general direction of Holland and upwards.
- torben-friis 1y agoFunnily enough, I’m western European, have visited the Netherlands several times and I’m friends with some Dutch people. No idea how this slipped by for so long.
- Scarblac 1y agoDutch is the only language I know that uses the "ij" digraph, where other languages write "ei", "ay", maybe "y".