Countries games

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Iversen
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Re: Countries games

Postby Iversen » Wed Oct 28, 2015 8:29 pm

Il n'y a que UN seul pays au monde qui commence avec Q, et nous avons déjà visité ce pays: Qatar. Donc il faut chercher quelque chose de plus modeste, et là on trouve heureusement une province canadienne nommée Québec, et là il y a même une ville nommée Québec.

Un capitaine français nommé Jacques Cartier a visité cet endroit déjà en 1534 et 1535, et selon la Wikipédia francophone "Jacques Cartier avait entendu deux jeunes autochtones utiliser le mot kanata, qui signifie « village » en langue iroquoienne. Cartier l’a noté dans son journal avec la graphie Canada. ". Voilà le nom de tout le pays moderne (qui est beaucoup plus grand), mais puisque le centre des activité françaises était la ville fortifiée de Québec, la province a eu le même nom que la ville principale.

Les expéditions de Cartier n'ont pas eu un effet immédiat, mais le roi Henri IV de France a demandé à on certain monsieur Champlain de fonder une ville là, ce qui a lieu le 3 juillet 1608, et sous le nom de "Québec" cette ville est devenue "la capitale de la Nouvelle-France et de l'ensemble de ses régions qui, alors, regroupaient l'Acadie, le Canada et Placentia à Terre-Neuve". Le roi Louis XIV (photo ci-dessus) a continue cette entreprise coloniale, mais dans les années 1750 il y a eu une guerre avec les Anglais, et le 15 septembre 1762, au lever du jour, des forces Britanniques sous le Lieutenant Colonel William Amherst ont gravi la colline au nord de la ville ("Signal Hill") sans que les troupes Français se soient aperçu de rien, et dans la bataille suivante sur les Plaines d'Abraham ils ont totalement abattu la garnison quebecqoise - et c'est là que les français ont perdu non seulement la ville, mais toute leur colonie canadienne.

Aujourd'hui la ville plus grande de la province est Montréal (prononcée /Mong-ré-al/ - pas de /t/ là !), et elle a une grande minorité Anglophone, mais Québec reste presque exclusivement francophone, et il y a des populations populations francophones jusqu'à la la Province Nouvelle Brunswick. Pourtant une grande partie de la population française de Nouvelle Brunswick fut déportée, et pour cette raison New Brunswick est aujourd'hui principalement une province anglophone, pas francophone. Mais j'ai visité la partie au nord, et là on parle toujours français.

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Re: Countries games

Postby Chmury » Mon Nov 02, 2015 3:46 am

Un país que empieza con la letra 'R' es Romania.

De hecho, no sé ni jota de Romania, a pesar de que se halla en el suroeste de Europa, tiene una frontera con Bulgaria, su capital es Bucarest, es bastante grande y tiene montañas y bosques todavía poco tocados (creo), y es el país de donde "Drácula" proviene, según Bram Stoker (pienso que el personaje fue basado en 'Vlad El Empalador'). Sólo he conocido una persona de Romania hasta ahora, y era muy amable, hermosa, trabajadora, tenía mucha chispa y le encantaba bromear y charlar con la gente. Así que aparte de ella, no tengo ni idea cómo es la gente de Romania por lo general.
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Re: Countries games

Postby Iversen » Sun Nov 08, 2015 10:04 pm

Several small countries in the Caribbean are called St. something - like St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I have visited both, but let me take St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

These Grenadines are a chain of small islands which lie South of the main island St. Vincent. Some of those are owned by ultrarich private people, others (like Moustique) have been converted into resorts with so exorbitant price tages that the rich can stay there without running into the riff-raff (= the rest of us) at any time. I visited the country in 2004, but only the main island and the biggest one of the Grenadines, Bequia, which could be reached by boat in one hour for a quite reasonable price: 28 EC$ (approximately 7-8 US$ at the time). Bequia is not very big, and its biggest town Port Elizabeth is definitely not in the megaton league - but it was a decent place which even had a bookstore. I could walk across the whole Island from the harbour to Friendship Bay and back without getting tired. On the picture you see the ferry to Bequia with St.Vincent in the background. By the way: Bequia means "island of the clouds" in the ancient Arawak, but who cares? The Arawak were defeated and eaten by the much more warlike Caribs.

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Re: Countries games

Postby Iversen » Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:00 pm

When I write my contributions to this topic I tend to stick to places I have visited, because I know them and because I can illustrate them with my own photos.

Today's country with a T will therefore be Trinidad and Tobago which I visited in the year 2010. And in deference to Vogeltje, who started this thread (but who apparently is taking a leave from the forum for the moment) I'll illustrate my visit with a true vogeltje, namely a hummingbird photographed at Asa Wright's Nature Centre in Northern Trinidad. "Asa" is actually the Icelandic name "Ása" (= "Åse" in the other Scandinavian languages). This lady from the far North settled here in 1947 with her husband, and soon began feeding the local birds from her veranda. And the birds truly liked this, so they still flock around the verandah to the delight of the visitors. Now the place has become a non-profit trust, which take both day visitors and resident visitors. I stayed there for one night - in a a room the size of a barn (which may be what it originally was), but despite my short stay I got home with scores of photos of bright birds, including half a dozen species of hummingbirds.

I should however be said that of the two main islands that make up this country the more 'nature like' is usually said to be Tobago, but I didn't visit that one. I did check out the ferry times, but they left the harbour in the capital Port-of-Spain very early in the morning, and I didn't feel like getting up so early. Instead my landlady suggested a stay at Asa Wright's place, and I didn't regret that for a moment.

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Re: Countries games

Postby Iversen » Sat Nov 21, 2015 8:29 am

Uzbekistan became an independent country in August 1991 after the collapse of the Sovjet Union, and Islam Karimov became its first and so far also its only president (but I guess he can't be expected to last forever). My mother and I visited the place during Gorbatschov while all tourism for foreigners still was firmly in the hands of Inturist. There was one official tourist hotel in each major town, and I remember that when we arrived in the Samarkand airport from Moscow early in morning the our guide told us to run to the bus and leave the luggage at the airport - in that way we might get some day rooms. And the luggage actually came to the hotel later in the day. A group of Americans arrived with the same plane, but stayed to fetch their luggage, and there were no day rooms for them - which made one elderly American so angry that he died of a heart attack in the lobby. I haven't been there since, but I'm told that tourism now still mainly is geared towards groups. There was a period after independence where the monuments decayed (one of the towers of Tjor Minor actually collapsed, cfr. the image below), but I have also read that major restoration works have been carried out since the independence. In spite of all its treasures the country has remained somewhat outside the main tourist streams. I hope to get back one day to see some of the places my mother and I didn't visit in 1988, like the Fergana Valley. But not the Aral Lake - that would be too sad. It was once a big lake with lots of fish, but has now almost dried out because the water in the tributary rivers has been diverted away to cotton fields and other kinds of farming. The photos below were taken by my mother, because the photo shop somehow managed to switch my photos with those of somebody else, and I never saw them again.

The area has got a long history, but it was rudely divided into two parts by Djengis Khan, who razed all towns to the ground and murdered a large part of the population. The Ismail Samani in Bukhara (from the 9. century) only survived, because it was buried at the time. And then I think one minaret (Kaljan?) survived because even Djenghis Khan was impressed by its size. The pretty blueglazed buildings you see now were erected by later rulers, first and foremost Timur Lenk (also known as Tamerlan). Bukhara and Samarkand still has got a lot of historical buildings, whereas the capital Tashkent was devastated by an 7,5 earthquake in 1966. It was however rebuilt, and in one part of the town you will find several buildings rebuilt in the old old style. The rest of the town is more modern in style. As for Samarkand it had one modern 'Russian' quarter and another with lots of traditional buildings, like the famous Registan complex. The same applied to Buchara (also written Buchoro), which however generally looked more traditional and less flashy.

The Uzbek language is related to Turkish. During my visit it was written with Cyrillic letters, but since 1992 it is written with Latin ones (as it was between 1926 and 1940).

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Re: Countries games

Postby Iversen » Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:48 pm

OK, nobody came up with a country with V- so I'll take the opportunity to mention Vietnam, a very long country which was divided into a Northern and a Southern part for many years. The French had occupied the country in the 19. century, then the Japanese occupied it during the second World war and ruled it with a puppet emperor named Bao Dai to keep up appearences. After the war the French fought a communist government which had been installed in Hanoi, and this lead to a division of the country into two parts. When the French left after the battle at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the Americans became involved, but they also had to retire in 1975, and then the country was reunited under the communist rulers who were based in Hanoi - and one of the first things they did was to rename the Southern capital Saigon to Ho Chi Minh after the national hero of Northern Vietnam. His body has been embalmed like the one of Lenin, and you can see it in a mausoleum in Hanoi.

When I arrived in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh on an afternoon in February 1998 I got my key, dropped my luggage in my room, changed money in a clothes shop (12800 dong per US$) and hurried to the local Zoo, which I visited around sunset. But this didn't bother the Vietnamese - they just continued trotting along in utter darkness while discussing among themselves. From there we flow to DaNang, drove in a bus down to Hué and Hoi An, and still later we flew up to Hanoi, which was quiter and more sedate than Saigon - in Saigon people had cars and motorbikes, whereas they still used bicycles in Hanoi in 1998. However I suspect that Hanoi has become more noisy since my trip there. And I walked out to the local zoo in a Western suburb and back again.

On the picture below (from Saigon/Ho Chi Minh) you see the words "Chúc Mừng Năm Mới", which means something like 'happy new year" - obviously not according to the Western calender, but instead referring to the Chinese New year, which moves around according to the whims of the Moon. I did learn how to say this correctly while I was there, but now I have forgotten how to do it. You can however see the tones in the writing - the small diacritical signs at the Latin letters indicate how to pronounce each syllable.

Saigon_f1405b01.jpg
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Re: Countries games

Postby Iversen » Sat Dec 05, 2015 5:37 pm

There is no country in today's world that starts with a W- in English so once again I'll have to go back in history to find one, and lo and behold there is an excellent choice: WESSEX! As the Ænglisc Wikipedia writes: "Þæt Westseaxena Rīce wæs cynedōm þāra Westseaxena on sūþwesternum Englalande þe stōd fram þǣm 6. hundgēare oþ þone tōcyme Englalandes tō ānum rīce on þǣm 10. hundgēare, þe gelomp under þǣm Westseaxena rīce. " Unfortunately I haven't learnt to write in Anglosaxon myself, but I have read a few things in and about that language, and one thing I did notice is that Beowulf allegedly was written in the dialect of Wessex, and also that cyning Ælfrēd Micela ('Alfred the Great') was born and ruled in that same area, which he defended against the marauding Danish invaders, with the result that he ended up as king of all Englaland.

In the Danish Wikipedia article there is a funny information about the rulers of Wessex: the oldest royal house was founded by Cerdic, who died in 552, and all the following kings had names that started with a C: Cynric, Ceawlin, Ceolric, Ceolwulf, Cynegisl, Cwichelm, Coenwealh, Centwine. In 802 a new dynasty toke over, and they all had names that started with a vocal, mostly E or Æ: Ecgbeort, Æthelwulf, Æthelbeald, Æthelbeorth all the way up to Eadweard (= Edward the Confessor. After the Norman invasion Wessex was abolished as an administrative unit, but it seemed that the Brits have dug up the name again when a prince named Edward suddenly married and they had to come up with a suitable title for him. So now they have an earl of Wessex again after a lapse of almost 1000 years.

Image

And the next letters are X and Y. Those letters are a nuisance - let's skip over them and go directly to Z.
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Re: Countries games

Postby Adam » Sun Dec 06, 2015 7:53 am

現在没有国家的明字開始X字.

但是有一天有一个大亚洲的帝國叫匈奴 (“XiongNu” in PinYin).

匈奴帝國是一个联盟的中亚牧民了两千两百年前.
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Re: Countries games

Postby Adam » Sun Dec 06, 2015 8:02 am

OK, I've managed an "X".

I think we could manage a "Y", too.

My Arabic hasn't got to the stage where I can compose even a rudimentary sentence, but ممكن there is an Arabist in the forum who could tell us about اليمن ?
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Re: Countries games

Postby LMAshton » Thu Dec 17, 2015 3:35 am

Yellowknife ist ein Stadt im Norden von Canada. Es ist ein klein Stadt und es ist in ein Fernbereich. Es gibt Diamantenminen in der Nähe. Es gibt viele Inuit in Yellowknife.

Ich war in Yellowknife nur auf dem Weg zu Norman Wells, North West Territories.
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