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| Thread: Facts about smaller countries |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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keldorn
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posted January 06, 2009 05:29 PM |
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Facts about smaller countries
In this topic, I'd like to introduce some interesting information about my home, Hungary, which is not quite well-known because of small area.
It would be great to hear about other countries as well, so if you have something interesting about your home, please let us know.
OK, so I'd begin with the history of Hungary. In the middle ages, Hungary was feared of its cavalry archers, as they could shoot with perfect accuarcy during riding, and even backwards. It took the mongols quite a lot of effort to bring us down.
Saftey match was invented in Hungary as well. Altough we don't know the inventor's name, that's why the match is known to be an american invention. But the first prototype of it was hungarian.
Vitamin C was discovered by Albert Szent-Györgyi, a famous hungarian chemist. The extracted the pure vitamin from paprika, and recieced a Nobel-prize for doing so.
The hungarian language is considered to be one of the world's 5 most difficult language to learn for a foreigner. Our alphabet contains 48 letters including doubled and even tripled ones (dzs, pronounced 'g' without the '-ee' ending, like in the word 'average') Our rules of grammar are really annoying even for us. There are 2 tipes of the letter 'j', a doubled one, 'ly' being the other. Deciding which one to use is difficult in some words.
We also have a famous wine, the so-called 'Tokaji' (yes, with j not ly  ) being considered equally good as a French wine.
We have a chess player, Péter Lékó, who holds the record of the top rated player in the world according to the scale used by FIDE.
That's enough I think, now let's hear your stories 
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antipaladin
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posted January 06, 2009 05:33 PM |
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Hungry is by all means not small.. i've been there. Only Buda-pesht (2 citys connected) is like half of israel. It has more then 5 metro lines only in the city. It was once between Hunic and Vandel hands during the dark ages. it lenguage is most confusing.
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DagothGares
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posted January 06, 2009 06:29 PM |
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Belgium is an incredibly small nation, but it has one of the highest population densities in the world. It has five gvernments, three of which are created to appease the language regions. There are 90,000 people who speak German, 6,000,000 Dutch (we call them flemish, they live in the north) 4,000,000 speak french (which we call the walloons).
Americans consider Belgium the center of the Western-European metropolis (the cornerstones are Paris, London and I think Berlin or Amsterdam). Also, we have the most scattered construction polacies and because of that we are also considered small architects in other countries like America (who are way more structured, thanks to systematic colonisation)
We are still a monarchy, despite the fact that the king is near to useless.
We enslaved congo and it was private property of our king.
We still feel guilty over that whole affair and most of our charity organisations go to that region.
We are a socialist nation and what we consider liberal might be called sociaistic in the eyes of Americans.
Our most known monuments are a peeing little boy, an atom and Jean-Claude Van Damme.
We are a catholic nation and I think that's part of why there's a huge difference in mentality with our northern neighbours who are also dutch-speaking monarchy...
The chairman of the olympics was Belgian... Is he still?
Tintin is a Belgian invention. (Or French?)
French Fries originated probably from our southern regions. Buy our lovely chocolates, as well.
We can be described as 'the place where Germans and Englishmen meet' if you want to make a witty, insensitive remark...
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enamelity
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posted January 08, 2009 01:40 AM |
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I live in America, but I know a lot about Israel:
Israel was the only Roman Empire province to successfully rebel, remaining independant for only a few years.
One day after Israeli independance from British rule, Israel was attacked by 7 other countries in the region - Israel won the war in six days.
I hate to be proud of Israel's military accomplishments, but apparently Israel's really good at war.
Of course, Jesus was Israeli (I'm Jewish, and even I know that) and he was a devout Jew.
And a mechanical aid that lets paralyzed people walk, while concepted in Japan, is produced in Israel.
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doomnezeu
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posted January 08, 2009 06:05 AM |
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Quote:
The hungarian language is considered to be one of the world's 5 most difficult language to learn for a foreigner.
I disagree. Your grammar is incredibly easy. No masculine, no feminine, etc. Try a Latin language for a change, Romanian or French to be more precise, you will kick your teacher's arse in no time 
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Doomforge
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posted January 08, 2009 10:28 AM |
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I think he knows what he is saying, Hungarian is hard. Well, not as hard as Polish (I believe that it's considered the most difficult in the world ) but its still very nasty.
I gotta search for that chart again.
Well, anyway. Poland.. It used to be a huge, powerful country with a bright and shiny future, but those days are long gone and forgotten, succeeded by ages of humiliation. Most likely because of degeneration that the Polish nobles brought themselves to. Poles aren't well liked in the world, considered either car thieves, pickpockets or alcoholics. And the third epithet is somewhat accurate. Yeah, Poles drink a lot.
I won't be writing about famous Poles because you can check their inventions yourself at wikipedia or smth. The only thing I need to mention is that POLES broke the code of enigma (Nazi Germany's scrambler), not the English
Poland is well known for its sucky football team. Damn. But at least we have an awesome volleyball team. 
The best ToH player, Betruger, now retired, is from Poland
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lexxaN
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posted January 08, 2009 12:06 PM |
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Quote:
dutch-speaking monarchy...
LOL. The Von Sachsen Coburg-Gotha's (Royal Family) are Francophone, lol!
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JoonasTo
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posted January 08, 2009 12:09 PM |
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kipshasz
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posted January 08, 2009 01:20 PM |
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My country... I can tell a lot about it. I'll share some facts about it.
Lithuania was the last pagan country in medieval Europe untill 1387.
My country had only one king whom ruled from 1236 till 1263. During his ruling the baltic tribes were united,and he connected some slavic lands which leaders were afraid of mongol invasion. During these times one of the baltic tribes(Prussians) were attacked by teutonic order. A rebellion occoured and fought bravely for a decade.(there's even a black&white movie made about it) After prussians were defeated Marienburgh was founded.
The founding of the Great Duchery was a struggle for power that lasted for seven years. After minor dukes were pushed away and in 1316 Gediminas took the throne. He founded the cities of Trakai and Vilnius and started the feodal system in Lithuania. He is most famous for his letters to pope and western Europe's citizens. After his death in 1341 his youngest son Jaunutis took the throne. He only ruled for 4 years and was overthrown by his older brothers Algirdas ir Kestutis. They now serve as a rolemodel for brotherly cooperation. Algirdas took the throne as he was older but both brothers had equal rights as great dukes. They ruled for 32 years. Algirdas almost took Moscow by siege. He tryed three times. Back then Lithuania was the biggest country in Europe, and russian were afraid of us(can you believe that?).
In 1392 Vytautas also called the Great took the throne. During his rule totorians were enlisted in lithuanian army(there still are totorian villages in southern Lithuania) in 1410 the Teuton order was destroyed near Grunvald and Tanenbergh. Better known as the Battle of Zalgiris. The united polish and lithuanian(also full of russian,totorian and chzech mercenaries) army defeated and killed many of the orders' leaders including the great magister. This victory granted 5 centuries with no fear of german invasion.
Later Zhcecpospolita was founded and it was divided in 1772, 1793, and 1795 by Prussia, Russia and Austria. Lithuania was given to Russia. In 1864 the forbidment of lithuanian press in latin letters started. The era of book smuggling began. Underground newspapers were founded and our national rebirth took root. The press forbidment lasted untill 1904.
During World War one Lithuania was occupied by germans. In Febuary 16, 1918 we regained our independance. During these independant years we had to fight very often. In 1920 our capital and the whole south eastern part were captured by polish forces and held it for 19 years. In 1940 Lithuania was reoccupied by the USSR. In June 14, 1941 mass banishments to Siberia began. Many men, women and children were taken away only with their clothes on their back. The main goal of this was to destroy our best farmers and the whole capitalistic system. During the first culling there were over 35000 people banished. They were banished just because they were lithuanians. A week later we were occupied by nacistic Germany. In July 1944 USSR again reoccupied Lithuania. Eventually a guerilla war broke out. To fight the guerilla's a group called "protector of the folk" commonly called stribai(comes from russsian word istrebitel which means destroyer). The rebellion was crushed and we become a part of the USSR untill March 11, 1990.
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mvassilev
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posted January 08, 2009 02:27 PM |
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I'd say that Hungarian would be harder to learn than Polish. Polish has only 8 cases, but Hungarian has something like 20.
But Hungarian phonology is easier.
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Lexxan
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posted January 08, 2009 02:44 PM |
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Quote:
I'd say that Hungarian would be harder to learn than Polish. Polish has only 8 cases, but Hungarian has something like 20.
But Hungarian phonology is easier.
Dutch is easier
Try learning that and you get a +1.
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Coincidence? I think not!!!!
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baklava
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posted January 08, 2009 02:45 PM |
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Right, Serbia...
Well, you can check this out on Wikipedia, but I'll tell it as short as I can - if you're really interested you can always look it all up in more detail.
Serbs inhabited the Balkan in the seventh century, during all those Slavic migrations and whatnot. There was this great dynasty of Nemanjic, under which Serbia grew into a large and powerful empire. The last Nemanjic was a sissy though, and the empire was torn apart by nobles. One of them arose and united them in a strong family alliance (prince Lazar). Then the Turks came and were like "Surrender or we'll grind you" and we were like "THIS IS SPARTAAA" and there was this huge battle of Kosovo in 1389. (which is the most important medieval event for most Serbs) which ended up like a draw but since more or less every male Serb died there and Turks had more manpower, we ended up conquered.
A few centuries later we're like "Screw this" and we make a large revolt (lead by a badass dude called Karadjordje - Black George) in alliance with the Russians. But the Russians are like "Well, Napoleon's coming, so we'll be kinda busy for a while. You guys better enter peace with the Turks in the meantime" but again we're like "SPARTAAA" and the Turks grind us again.
So we make another revolt and that one's kinda more diplomatic (under this Milos Obrenovic guy) and we regain our freedom and stuff.
So Austrian-Hungarians annex Bosnia. Then a Bosnian terrorist dude assassinates the Austrian prince and Austria's like "Serbs did it". We're like "nuh-uh", and they're like "uh-huh" and war happens.
That thing kinda spread around and became known as the First World War. Whoops.
A notable example of the general SPARTAAA attitude was the speech of major Gavrilovic to his troops left to defend Belgrade and cover the retreat of the main army:
"The main command has erased our unit from its numbers. Our unit has been sacrificed for the honour of the fatherland and Belgrade. You may no longer fear for your lives, for they no longer exist. So onward, to glory!"
IMO that's as SPARTAAA as it can get
Anyhow, we manage to come out of all that as victors (though more or less half of Serbia got killed... again), and our king creates Yugoslavia as a land where all South Slavs would live. But Germans decide to try to conquer the world (again), though this time they're like "Why don't you join us". Most inhabitants, like Croatians, are like "Mkay, cool" except Serbs who are like "Up yours". So - naturally - Croatia is granted independence by the Germans, and us Serbs are grinded into paste, especially by the hands of our former South Slavic brethren who built concentration camps even for children (between 300 000 and 700 000 Serbs were exterminated - according to different sources).
After the war, the communist partisan rebel movement gains power and they recreate Yugoslavia as a communist entity. There's some 50 years of peace under this commie dude called Tito... We played basketball, had a great rock'n'roll scene, made yugos, and - if you forget about the fact that the regime sent people to prison every once in a while for stuff like writing anti-government graffiti - life actually seemed good for a while. But actually Tito kinda screwed us in the long run and when he died some f-ed up nationalists came to power in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia and they all started shooting each other.
The dumb pricks.
After that, the entire Kosovo crap happened and Americans bombed us and the rest are recent events.
Phew.
Anyway, Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest scientists of all time, who is pretty much responsible for the fact that we all use electricity in our homes today, but who is probably more known among kids for all that soviet Tesla technology in Red Alert, was a Serb. So was Ivo Andric, a great writer who won the Nobel Prize, and some others, but they're less famous cause soviets didn't use their ideas in Red Alert.
We have awesome national cuisine and some cool music festivals. Also, we currently have no gas and are freezing our arses off because Russia and Ukraine are pissed at each other and won't send gas to Europe. Aaaand that's about it, in short.
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Doomforge
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posted January 08, 2009 02:59 PM |
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Quote:
Poland is a large country.
used to be three times larger. But Poles lost it.
We should be glad we got ANYTHING back. Looked pretty dire when US and England abandoned the Polish cause in Yalta and agreed to everything Stalin had wanted.
Fortunately, for some weird reason, Stalin wanted Poland to be strong and independant. He wasn't too generous about the territory, though.
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JoonasTo
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posted January 08, 2009 03:03 PM |
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He wanted a buffer state and he was pretty generous actually. He just thought you should take the german land instead of russian and polish ones.
US and (especially)Britain couldn't afford another war and they wanted to keep the happy imago on. Besides, CCCP would have steamrolled europe had they disagreed.
How do you get three times larger btw.
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TheDeath
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posted January 08, 2009 03:05 PM |
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Quote:
I think he knows what he is saying, Hungarian is hard. Well, not as hard as Polish (I believe that it's considered the most difficult in the world ) but its still very nasty.
I dunno. What about languages which have the same words but depends how you pronounce them (that is, 'rising', 'whispering' etc...) and mean totally different things? (e.g: thai). Seems a lot harder to me. Especially for 'foreigners' because it has also a weird alphabet. (not used by anything else AFAIK )
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Asheera
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posted January 08, 2009 03:07 PM |
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Edited by Asheera at 15:07, 08 Jan 2009.
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Like in Romanian there aren't words that are written and even pronounced the same, but mean completely different things
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TheDeath
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posted January 08, 2009 03:14 PM |
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I'm not sure you get it. No in romanian, it doesn't matter if you 'whisper' saying "Da" or saying it loud. It's still the same 
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Asheera
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posted January 08, 2009 03:20 PM |
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But there are words (not only in Romanian, also in English) that mean multiple things and they are written and pronounced the same, which is even more difficult than having a word pronounced different, because you have to figure out the meaning from the context. At least saying it differently (whisper or not) gives a sign.
For example, even in English we have read and read (present and past), which are pronounced differently but have different meanings. Now, which is more complicated? To have them pronounced differently so that you can figure out what it is, or to have them pronounced the same so you'll have to figure out from the context? There are some words like that (that are both written and pronounced the same and have different meanings) in both English and Romanian.
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TheDeath
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posted January 08, 2009 03:23 PM |
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Edited by TheDeath at 16:14, 08 Jan 2009.
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In english, that's more of an exception (i.e FEW words have it). In thai, it's more likely the rule
I don't know, who said that it doesn't have 'context' either?
I'm just saying, for example, stuff like saying "xyz" which means either "no" or "dog" (just an example I have no idea), depending on the tone used.
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Doomforge
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posted January 08, 2009 04:20 PM |
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Hey, in Polish, we have words that can't be distinguished by pronunciation. They sound absolutely the same It doesn't bother anybody since their meanings obviously differ a lot, tho. You can't really confuse a lock with a castle, even though they are both called "zamek"
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