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Interesting factoid

France – which has Europe’s largest Muslim population

Roland fought in vain perhaps?

39 thoughts on “Interesting factoid”

  1. It shows that our political class is not uniquely reckless. (Or in the case of Toni Blair, evil.) Take a bow, France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden.

    Did you see yesterday’s Mail? Denmark’s new government was described as being centre-left and tough on immigration. So perhaps they at least talk about it.

  2. Funny how the Guardian is desperate to label opponents of this as “rightwing” or even “far right” but we never get to find out the orientation of the groups supporting it.

  3. Talking of which, does anyone know how the French pronounce ‘Roncesvalles’? I’ve long wondered and never been altogether sure.

  4. Mr Lud, an even better question is how do the English pronounce Roncesvalles. I have heard some amazing attempts. For some reason, we haven’t given our own name to the place, as we have for Sevilla, Wien, Praha, Moskova, Kobnhav’n, Roma, München

  5. @Dearieme

    The Danish left were being hammered by the “far-right” anti-immigration policies, so they neutered it by adopting an inti-immigration (& anti-hijab) polices of their own.

    No one is sure that they’ll actually implement these polices.

    BTW, outside Copenhagen, the Danes are still pretty insular.

  6. And, given that we have our own names for these cities, why are we now obliged to change our names for Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Peking?

  7. Because it’s OK to rename places inhabited (historically) by white people, but utterly offensive to do the same with places inhabited by brown or yellow people. According to the totally non-racist SJWs.

  8. Dunno, didn’t France used to have Europe’s largest Muslim population in 732? Or maybe Spain. What cannot persist, won’t.

    The late 20th century and early 21st are a real-time grand experiment in disproving the blank slate theory of human nature. Turns out our ancestors invented borders and nation-states for good reasons.

  9. ” Roland fought in vain perhaps?”

    Oh dear Tim, don’t you know it’s 2019 not 732. We welcome our new overlords peace-loving muslim brothers now.

  10. Regarding Peking/Beijing. Peking is using the Wade-Giles Romanisation of 北佬 and Beijing the Pinyin Romanisation. Like Mao Tse-Tung or Mao Ze Dong. The pinyin does a better job of getting closer to the proper pronunciation for those who don’t know. Taiwan still uses Wade-Giles eg Taipei is properly pronounced Taibei. Both the bei in Beijing and the pei in Taipei are the same word meaning ‘north’.

  11. Dongguan, John

    All true, and interesting, but I don’t think we were ever interested in using a name for a place so that an English speaker could say an approximation of how the word is pronounced by the locals.

    Whichever way you look at it, it’s hard to get Livorno from Leghorn, Naples from Napoli, or The Hague from Den ‘Haag

  12. If foreigners cannot spell the names of their own cities and countries correctly, it is hardly a concern for we English.

  13. The Guardian have an opinion piece about how the Tories are being shamed by Islamophobia in their ranks.

    They don’t have a piece about how Islam is being shamed by homophobia, misogyny and antisemitism it its ranks

  14. Since Roland lost ….
    As I was given to understand it, he actually got beaten by some Basques who weren’t too happy about the French choosing their home territory to fight a war against the Moors and wrecking their homes and harvests instead of those of the combatants.

  15. “… outside Copenhagen, the Danes are still pretty insular.”

    OK, I’m drawing on a relatively small & selected sample but the Scandies & Finns I know seem to have undergone some sort of sea change. Back at the time of the London riots, observing the plundering of Tottenham High Street on the bar TV was primarily being performed by those of a duskier hue was reason for accusations of racism. Whether that of noticing or the TV cameramen selectively filming was unclear but there was a great deal of all-one-happy-rainbow-familyness abundant. Now you don’t have to be chatting very long with our Baltic cousins to get told harrowing tales of Nordic towns being overrun by tinted hordes.
    They changed their minds, or is it the UK phenomenon? The liberal, metropolitan, PC mindset that influenced discourse has lost its power & people are starting to say publicly what they’ve thought all along? Of course, it’s always easy to be woke-right-on about immigration when you don’t personally get any…

  16. @Jimmers – I’ve always thought we ought be be helping British jihadis to achieve the martyrdom they deserve. If MI6 wasn’t full of Arabist bum-boys it would be organising some sort of false flag war and then smuggling the unwanted populations of Luton, Oldham etc there to get slaughtered.

  17. Thanks, learned repondees. I think I’ll go with Roncevaux, that seems plausible and I think I’ve heard it before.

  18. Bloke in North Dorset

    If you think French pronunciation is hard, ask a Yorkshireman how to get to Slathwaite, he’ll pretend he hasn’t got a clue where you’re talking about.

  19. We had a well educated young French guy working with us for a few months, and he had no idea who Charles Martel was. Patriotism was expressed via footeh and the EU. Cultural suicide. Death by elite.

  20. @Rob June 29, 2019 at 9:32 am

    BBC R4 Sunday 1200hrs “Sorry I Haven’t A Clue” saw your post – Translations

    :wink

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