Layth Alkhaer I would change up your vocabulary there mate. Some people may get quite angry at you calling them “foreigners” Or don’t whatever. I don’t really care.
Liked the Input on Switzerland :) Altough... Innerrhoden and Ausserrhoden could roughly be translated to Inner-Rhoden and Outer-Rhoden. So it's "Rhoden" instead of "Hoden". What makes this funny is that "Hoden" actually means testicles in German ;)
I think Sipaliwini in Suriname should get an honourable mention. It’s covered in Amazon rainforest and pretty much nobody lives there. The thing is that it’s actually much bigger than all other provinces in Suriname combined, so a Surinamese map looks like a WIP map of a country where the southern states are yet to be drawn.
Leningrad maintains its name because of WW2. Most of the civilian deaths that occurred during the war were during the siege of Leningrad, they keep the name to honor those that lost their lives.
Also a lot of people like the USSR and want it back. St.Peterburg was the name during Tsarist time - which were the worse times in the history of Russia.
*Canadian here* i do believe you're correct. i live in Ontario. my license is Ontarian (each province differs and has different graduated licensing) my health card is OHIP (ontario health insurance program i think it's called?) alcohol laws are set provincially (i.e you can have an open alcoholic drink in public in Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec each have their drinking age at 18) but all of these can be overruled by the Federal governmant (i.e if they were to make alcohol illegal all together, or how with the legalization of marijuana, the provinces will be dictating how old you need to be to purchase it - the provincal government wont allow provinces to go below 18 i believe it is)
@@Terrus_38 They're autonomous okrugs, if it helps. I'm Russian, and I'm not quite sure how they're different from other subjects. The division is mostly ethnical and historical. From my point of view, there are oblasts, and there's different regions with different levels of special rights. And there are Big Important Cities. Which is kinda redundant, since every city has its own goverment anyway. They just mostly wanted to separate Moscow and St. Petersburg from their oblasts legally (which pisses a lot of people living there, cause they feel cheated from benifits Moscow gets, but Moscow's special treatment is kinda a problem on itself). I personally felt how federation structure works only when Covid hit, cause every subject got to deal with it mostly on its own terms, so policies did vary from place to place. But mostly it's little things, I didn't get to live in an autonomous region, it's probably different there
@@cherries_and_wine autonomous regions aren't that different. I have a lot of friends from Komi, but when they moved to live in some other area they didn't claim it feels different in terms of political rights. So the way I see it there are some cultural differences in republics but politically it's mostly the same
The Netherlands is pretty weird too though, we literally made a new state out of sea (called Flevoland) well state, it's called province here, same kinda thing.
Do The Netherlands' Constitient Countries also have provinces within them? Is The Netherlands mainland a Constituent Country of itself? How does that work? Is it more like The UK's or Russian Federation's Constituent Countries? Russia may call them another name but is essence/spirit thats what they are. Like Chechnya or Scotland you know?
@@shonenjumpmagneto Like a 3rd level government? Below the 12 provinces are 342 municipalities. (all of which are in the country of the Netherlands, but there are 3 other countries, which are in the Carribean) Which isn't too weird. The US have 50 states (plus other territories), divided into 3142 counties divided into 35930 municipal bodies. Germany has 16 states, some of which have administrative districts or boroughs (40 in total) which are divided into rural districts, cities, neighborhoods, quarters and boroughs (608 in total) some of which are divided into 12514 4th level municipalities, quarters and neighborhoods. The UK has 4 countries, 3 crown dependencies and 14 overseas territories, which are divided into 264 2nd level divisions with different names 286 3rd level divisions, some of which are divided into 127214th level divisions.
I would not say USA is as simple as you make it out to be. Sure. There are 50 equalish states. Simple enough. But when you look closer at USA you will notice that you have areas like Porto Rico which is not a state but maybe should be. You have some islands that are a part of US colonial legacy. You have in USA several native american reserves, all with there own special status. And lets not forget Washington DC. Oh. And some states are actually Commonwealths. Yeah... It USA gets pretty crazy to.
Very true. I did not go in to that because equal representation is also something one can debate over when it comes to definition of what is equal representation.
I just used Pueto Rico as a example without going in to the details. The point of my post was to show that USA is not as simple or uniform as ibx2cat makes it out to be. It not just 50 states and that is it. ;) And yes. Just to go off topic a bit. Naming is be quite confusing sometimes. The Commonwealths of USA are as far as USA concerns just States. And they do not act really any different then the regular states. Not that I am a expert on the gritty details of states. But is also why I added it at the end of my post just to show a other little weird oddity of USA. In the end the oddities of USA are actually interesting to go in to. It shows part of US history. How the country came to be.
One mistake: Belgium was a unitary state for most of its history. Since the 70s there is some regionalization, but Belgium only bacame an actual federation in 1993. That is after the Maastricht treaty and surely long after Brussels had been de facto capital of the EEC or EU.
And the amount of projects there, because if one region gets the funds to do something, the other one wants that money as well. Which got better now, but there is still lots of unfinished stuff around.
@@darreljones8645 nope, federal district is group of federal subjects. For example far east federal district contain several krais, oblasts and republics.
I like your enthusiasm for Swiss politics. It is a very confusing topic and you captured a lot of it clearly. Greetings from Basel. I did laugh when you pronounced Basel like the food spice. We say it like Baah-zel. Still, the video was really cool. I learned a lot about Russia's states that I didn't know before your video.
There are parallels between the internal organizations of Russia and Canada: 1. Russian oblasts = Canadian provinces 2. Russian krays = Canadian territories 3. Russian republics = Quebec (which has special powers) 4. Russian cities of federal significance = Canada's National Capital Commission 5. Russian autonomous okrugs = Canada's Nunatsiavut autonomous area in Labrador
@@TGamingProduction Unlike other provinces, Quebec has its own controls on immigration, employment, personal taxes and public pension plans. Since the 1960s, Quebec governments have sought this autonomy to protect the unique character of its population, which is majority francophone. Quebec has its own UNESCO seat, allowing it a separate vote on cultural issues. Similarly, Quebec has its own seat in La Francophonie.
Belgium is even weirder than mentioned in the video, because there are actually 6 members of the federation. There are the 3 regions that were mentioned, but also 3 communities, one for each of the languages. Basically some matters are handled by the region's government, and some are handled by the community's government. And to make things weirder, Brussels is under the jurisdiction of both the Flemish and French community, and the Flemish region and community have a single government despite being constitutionally separate entities.
Lol, you could probably do a whole episodes of weird borders just based upon the Swiss cantons x) Switzerland is also very strange cause it's a country where internal borders can move and thus democratically. In 2020 a few municipalities will switch of cantons.
You say the United States gets the same amount of people no matter population. It's just 2. But we have the House of Representatives. Which is by population. Did you talk about blue in Russia?
@@ibx2cat to make matters even more confusing, the district of columbia has no representation in either the house of representatives or the senate, but they get three votes (one for house of representatives and two for senate) in the electoral college. speaking of which, i would *love* to hear about what people outside of the united states think about the electoral college.
blue are autonomous okrugs, which are generally for very cold northern places with lots of oil and some indigenous peolle with deer and stuff. thay are usually a part of an oblast while at the same time being equal to them in their status of a russian province, which makes no sence; one of them is also not a part of an oblast and is just its own thing despite having a population of about 50 000 people. our administrative division is a mess.
We (the swiss people) don’t elect our federal council, we elect the Council of States an the national council and these two councils elect the seven members of the federal council. But the rest was good.
The belgium system is complicated. Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels have their own parlement, then the Dutch, French and German speaking community have their own parlement (Brussels has some rules of the Dutch and some of the French), then Flanders and Wallonia both are cut into 5 provinces, which also have their own parlement and then every city can also decide a lot of rules for themselves
half cantons totally makes sense. If it was a simple case of each state gets 2 representatives then cantons would be splitting all the time to give their little village 2 representatives on the federal level. That would be crazy..... Why are you looking at me funny America?
US states rarely split though (3 in the US' short ~250 year history), the hassle often isn't worth it just due to state size and population (a lot of US states are bigger and more populated then the entire country of Switzerland). The only times it might be valid is states that have a population so large, that breaking it up would be a net benefit for at least one side to do so (usually to the dismay of regions that have a political stranglehold on the state). A few examples would be California (which actually has a movement for it), Texas, and New York. Smaller states, the effort to do it just wouldn't be worth any power they get from it. In Switzerland this is a legitimate issue due to it's much smaller population and size though, and I can totally see the point behind it.
In Brazil we have 27 states (1 more than Switzerland)... but only the state I live (São Paulo, which is only the 12th biggest one) is about 6 times bigger than Switzerland... lol
Brussels is the capital of Europe for a very prosaic reason. When the European Coal and Steel Federation (what would eventually become the EU) started out the intention was that the 'capital' would rotate around the member states alphabetically. Belgium was the first and things basically never moved on
Elephantinus Cornelius I heard it for the first time in this video. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a…well…special country with a lot of special and unike things in it so I thought cantons were just another thing invented for B&H.
goran gruev I forgot to say the cantons are in half of my country (the federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina), the other half (the Republic of Srpska, where I live) doesn't have cantons.
On those pictures of the Federal Council, there always is the Federal Chancellor included. They are not a member of the Swiss government, but rather the head of the general staff of the Federal Council.
He even said there were 7 leaders but another one is required to be president and go to foreign events and stuff, not sure how that one gets elected though
The reason why Wallonia can block the trade pact with Canada is because the federal government has no authority over economy. So Brussel, Flanders and Wallonia had to given their permission. The video is not really correct in the way how belgium works.
2:40 if you remove one letter from both appenzell cantons, they could be translated to appenzell inner testicle and appenzell outer testicle (orange/green)
im from just outside Edmonton and i can understand why Canadas population is mostly south winters here are freezing and its in central Alberta. i cant even imagine how cold it must get in the territories.
I understand the swiss parliament system can be confusing at first. But you did really good, but I think you missunderstood the half-canton thing. The reason why 6 cantons only count as a half-canton is that historically they were 1 canton, and when they split up the number of seats in the council wasn't changed. So the basically just went: Yeah okay, split up, we dont mind. But you won't get an extra 2 votes. Its probably also to prevent a canton intentionally splitting up 2 or 3 times just to get more council seats. btw: You can see the similarity in the 6 halfcantons names to one another. You have: Obwalden and Nidwalden (formerly Unterwalden), Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land (formerly Basel) and there is Appenzell-Innerrhoden and Appenzell-Ausserrhoden (formerly Appenzell)
You know how there's been a lot of talk about dissolving the Belgian state? I imagine that were that to occur, the Flanders region would end up getting dumped into the Netherlands, most of the Walloon region would end up part of France, and the City of Brussels would become sovereign territory of the EU. Hey, you said "Asterix". That was produced partly in Belgium, right?
You cover really interesting topics, and you're very knowledgeable. But might I suggest that you write a script for your videos and maybe break them up into smaller parts?
+ibx2cat - around 15:30 - "KRAY" - the Russian word used in names of those Russian territories (eg. "Krasnoyarskiy Kray") is general Slavic word meaning "country", but Slavic languages grammars indicate also, that its basic meaning is derived from meaning "to CUT" (compare Polish verbs "krajać", "kroić", "skrawać" etc.) - - and it means "a land at the border" or "a territory with borderline" - - similarly: 1. the state name of "UKRAINE" = "u- + kray + -ina" by grammar it means: "(the land) + at + the edge". 2. also KRAJINA (n Bosna and Croatia) is historical westernmost region of Serbian settlement, 3. and KRAJNA in Poland is northernmost part of the region of Greater Poland in Poland.
A lot of people are railing against TTIP (and it seems like any trade agreement involving America) but I was talking about CETA, a much less controversial one
ibx2cat Woops sorry xD I got confused because of the picture of TTIP protesters. I should have listened more carefully. Thanks for replying c: The main reasons I'm against TTIP and TPP is they give corporations the power to override governments which is anti-democratic because an unelected group of elites can override the elected representatives of the public, and they make the length of copyright and the punishments for breaking it even more ridiculous which is basically a death sentence for fanart, parody and online criticism. It's also a death sentence for animal welfare, the environment, healthcare, basically anything corporations are already screwing up, the few regulations they do still have to follow get removed. So yeah, sorry, I kind of went on a little rant there xD But thanks heaps for replying, it's awesome when RUclipsrs reply, it makes me feel special x3
A multi-layered federation - an interesting way to describe the USSR I guess it's pretty accurate.
5 лет назад+1
19:15 The US doesn't just have "equal states". For instance, Washington DC has a different administrative treatment, and so do Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the 326 Indian reservations. en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_States
I feel like you probably already know this, but US states also get different levels of representation in the House of Representatives based on population. Every state gets at least 2 representatives. California is the most populous state and has 52 representatives.
These are all the Half Cantons. *Basel* Basel-Stadt Basel-Landschaft *Unterwalden* Obwalden Nidwalden *Appenzell* Appenzell-Ausserrhoden Appenzell-Innerrhoden
Also the oblast where Yekaterinburg is located is still called Sverdlovsk oblast ( the Soviet name for Ye-burg). I don't know why they didn't change it. The same thing is happening in Ukraine recently - they renamed Dnipropetrovsk to Dnipro ,but the oblast still bears the old name. I heard it's because it's too much paperwork ,because u have to change the constitution basically.
My ancestors came from Viipuri, Finland, which is now Vyborg, Russia, part of the Leningrad Oblast right near the Finnish border. They took it over after WWII. It's part of the province of Finnish Karelia (Karjala in Finnish). There is a Karelia, vaguely related, in Russia as well.
i think "The Countries With The Strangest Internal Divisions" would have been a better title rather than having states at the end since not all countries have states as divisions like the US, plus states are commonly know as actual countries
Yes, Canada has a senate, but being a parliamentary democracy, it's our version of the House of Lords. The lower chamber is the House of Commons. Also, referring to our provinces and territories as states makes us bristle.
I live in Canada and that road is the only one that stretches across the whole country, but it’s not the only way to get places, when the bridge was shut down you can go around like there’s more than 1 road in Canada
In Europe we have Bosnia and Herzegovina which is formed of two countries: Republika Srpska and Federetion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Funny fact, the name "Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina" is missleading and makes many believe it is the entire country, but is not, it is just one half of Bosnia and consists of territory held by Bosniak and Croat troops. There is also a Canton of Brcko which is formed of Brcko municipality, and has a special status belonging technically to both because it is a territory that is the bridge uniting the Western with Eastern parts of R>epublika Srpska, and also an enclave along Sava river in the North with the rest of Fed. of BiH. Its basically used as a bridge by both entities.
Fyi, Canada's Senate is made of appointments by the prime minister sort of like the house of lords in the UK. There are as set number of Senators from the Provence, but the provincial governments don't select the Senators for their Provence. So the Canadian Senate isn't really representative like the American or Swiss examples. The other thing about Canada that you may find interesting is the reservation system (I think America and Australia and may some other neo-europes have similar things). In short, due to dealings with the native population there are pockets of the country that retain a level of autonomy from the rest of the country and deal directly with the federal government. Some are ghettoized rural or remote areas (Attawapiskat), but sometimes they are in more central regions which can have some interesting results (Tsuu T'ina next to Calgary). The reserves can have fairly difficult relations with the Provence they are in (Quebec is notable for the James Bay Hydroelectric Conflict and the Oka Standoff).
There is an interesting thing about the German Speaking Community in Belgium you could have mentioned. There are three "states" in Belgium, as you said, but also thre communities: the french speaking, the flamish speaking and the german speaking one. Brussels is not part of any of them. So in some issues, like culture or welfare, the communities decide, in others the states. And the German Speaking Community is found in Wallonia and Flanders. In some issues they have their own independency, in others they belong somehow to their "state" and in others they must obey Wallonia ... o_O it is very confusing and I certainly got something mixed up but when you're into it look it up!
The United States has territories also. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, are all inhabited. It also has a bunch of other territories that are not inhabited.
Maybe someone already explained in the comments, but explaining some of Belgium for geography/politics nerds: Belgium is a federal state with complete seperation of powers. If the federal government has power over some aspect (like social security), then the regions (states) don't have any power over this. And if the regional (state) government has power over something (like education), then the federal government has no say at all about this. It's not like in the US where states can make their own decisions/laws as long as they don't conflict with federal decisions/laws, but powers overlap. Quite a few powers were transferred to the regional governments in Belgium: Education, Economy, Energy, Agriculture, Public transport, Employment, and so on all are regional powers, not Federal. So when people say Belgium was without a government for 541 days, that's not really true. There was no new federal government during this period, but the new regional governments formed fairly quickly. So quite a few important departments, government powers and policies were were decided and running quite quickly in the regions. And even then, if there is no new government after an election in Belgium, the last government just keeps things running. They just have no powers to make big new decisions or to set new policies. So in thruth, Belgium was forming a NEW government for 541 days, but never really was WITHOUT a government. the old government kept running, and the regions had their governments quite quickly. It was blown completely out of proportion in the media...
The USA is basically 50 individual countries united into one cohesive Super State. All states follow federal law, yet have a lot of ability to create their own laws and even to have laws that contradict federal laws. Also, while we have one large national military, each individual state also essentially has its own state army units.
I thought he would talk about the Brazilian States + Federal District - that are also really big - and visible from above. Or the Chinese provinces - with different status.
Swiss German is German, I don't think people from Switzerland will be offended by me saying so. The written language is basically the same as in Austria and Germany. But the dialects are very far removed from standard German, and as opposed to most places in Germany they are used in everyday communication, even in university and television. A rough comparison might be that Swiss German relates to German like Scots relates to English.
The dialects are quite often written, you have books, publicities and news paper in dialect. When I invited a German friend here he was quite surprised to find out that written dialect was present everywhere. I don't know about the idea that Swiss-Germans think their dialect as a different language or not, lot of them are very proud of it and I met quite a few that say it's a distinct language. If they could agree on a standard, they'd probably officialize it as so (like the Dutch did with theirs in the past). Objectively i don't know, the problem compared to Dutch is that Allemanic is in the same dialectal branch than what High German was mostly based upon. The Walser dialects are the most strongly different from standard German, maybe they could count as a different language especially because not even other German Swiss can understand it easily.
+tonio103683 I know about dialect being written in SMS and adverts, but that's not really different from Germany except that it's probably much more emphasized, don't you think? We also have dialect poetry that might be printed in books or newspaper columns. Or is there anything else going on in Switzerland? Swiss newspapers, literature, and web blogs I'm aware of are all in standard German. I don't think Dutch is a good model because it was going its separate ways even before a standard German language was developed. If anything it would be Luxembourgish, who basically upgraded their local dialect (which is not very different from neighbouring regions of Belgium and Germany) to a standard language, while retaining standard German at the same time. Since French is also an official language there, Luxembourg is now nominally trilingual, even though two of those languages are really variants of each other.
mmh well ok let me take a step back, i might have answered you too quickly. So what i disagree with you is to say that the written language of Swiss German and other dialects of german is Standard German, i don't see it that way, the writen language are those languages written down. What is different between Germany and Switzerland is while the dialects have a written usage very restrain in Germany, in Switzerland they are quite often written down. So i agree with you by saying it's a difference of scale but i don't agree that standard german is the "written language" of Swiss German, German Switzerland has two "languages" or "varieties" if you prefer one written in a certain context and the other in another. This is true as well for Germany but it's so marginal compared to Switzerland one might say it almost doesn't exist. The question of Dutch, Luxembourgish and German is more complicated than that. Every dialects knew in the middle ages some form of written language, but it was marginal compared to the general use of the High German scripta. Dutch standardized in a definitive way mostly in the 16th century. Standard German developed during the same time. Dutch is lower Middle German while Standard German is based upon High German and a bit Middle German. Other germanic dialects in the area that are clearly not like Standard German (Frison and to some extent Lower German) get such standardization only way later. In conclusion i don't think you can use the criterion of which language have the oldest standard to say what prime on the other. Luxembourgish still sound a lot like German, it is a Dialect with German just for the mutual integibility criteria. Swiss German is a bit weird cause as i said, it is in the High German branch like standard German while a lot of Germans report having difficulties to understand it. But other don't. So i tend to lean towards "it's a dialect of the General German continuum". Except from the social and political status that Standard German benefits to me it's not THE language and then Dialects are Dialects OF German. Standard German is the koiné that is a dialect of the General German language continuum together with the Dialects like Swiss German, Bavarian, Saxon etc.
But the written dialect doesnt have real grammar rules and dictionaries, therefore I would not call it a written language. It's a bit like Vorarlbergerisch, even people from Tyrol have problems understanding it and people use it when messaging friends, but its still a dialect. A weird one though. Very weird.
Voralbergerisch is Alemanic like Swiss German no wonder Tyrolians (which speak a Austro-Bavarian dialect) would have some hardship to understand it then. It is even Upper Alemanic like Walsertütsch, Titsch or Grischunisch wich make it part of the most strongly different kind of Allemanic dialects. A written language is a language written, period. If you have some habit to be written, then it is written. This is completely separate from it having some sort of defined standard or not. At that, Swiss german have a standard : the Schwyzertütschi Dialäktschrift. It is not official so people just follows it generally as a guideline to write down Swiss German but it exist non the less. No language or form of language have no Grammar. Grammar is just a feature of human language used to organise it in order to communicate. Some languages officialise their grammar into a strict set of rules. The most extreme cases being French for example. A lot of world's languages today have not a comprehensive deep grammar rule book but are written nonetheless. People will know if you use a word that doesn't exist while speaking Swiss-German. There lack of an official dictionary doesn't stop them from that.
The way Swiss do their politics and voting is actually quite smart if you think about it.. I think you could do well to watch a few CGP Grey videos.. The half canton thing would probably be well explained by some his videos.
If this guy knew how to make videos with animation like CGP Grey or Wonderwhy this channel would have millions of views in most of its videos. Still enjoying the content, but it's hard not to say this.
I actually just did a video on the Jewish Autonomous Oblast pretty recently. Yah, it's really weird. Nice to see it mentioned - it's definitely one of the weirdest subdivisions out there.
In the US the two representatives per state is only for the senate, the house of representatives is actually based on population of the state, and both of those together make congress. Also Canada is territories or provinces (depending on the Canadian you ask), not states. I know I know it's nitpicking, but pointing it out anyway.
"They made themselves a little government, isn't that cute?- Toycat the alien observer 2017-18
Probably the first foreigner online to talk about my country (Switzerland) accurately enough to not annoy me throughout it^^
Well done!
notanynameyet At least he didn't say "bagel"; bagels are the first thing I thought about when I read "Basel" lol.
My family founded Glarus.
Layth Alkhaer I would change up your vocabulary there mate. Some people may get quite angry at you calling them “foreigners”
Or don’t whatever. I don’t really care.
MaskedMan-FeraligatrMan What has this got to do with a town being named similarly to a food?
If you understand German, "Inner-Hoden" is also a nice pronunciation. :D
Does this guy breathe? Honest question.
no I removed my lungs in favour of a machine to increase my words per minute
ibx2cat you know it's not a race right?
@@Οδοιπόρος bro...
This God king is above peasantry practices, such as breathing!
god no
Who else enjoys watching this channel and not knowing anything about his main channel?!
Yeah, I think he runs a minecraft channel or something.
I didn't even know he had a main channel xD
Ahmed Abdulla Ahmed hahahaha sooo true😂
me
What's his main channel?
3:28 The Swiss leaders in front of a Minecraft painting 😂
ibx2cat, it'samazinghowfastyoucantalkwithoutstumblingoveryourwordsevenonce!
LOL, you said tasty and not fastly
@@IronpenWorldbuilding no
@@aviz8590 ooof, autocorrect is my worst enemy, he said fasty, not fastly
@@IronpenWorldbuilding he said fast actually
@@IronpenWorldbuilding fast you
“Russia and Friends”
-Toycat, 2019
Liked the Input on Switzerland :)
Altough... Innerrhoden and Ausserrhoden could roughly be translated to Inner-Rhoden and Outer-Rhoden. So it's "Rhoden" instead of "Hoden".
What makes this funny is that "Hoden" actually means testicles in German ;)
That was what I read at first actually. ^^;
Yes, I heard that and thought "not in scrotum" :)
Isn't there a city in Germany whose name literally translates to "intestine city"? Is it Darmstadt?
@@yespls4184 yes
one element of the periodic table is named after that city, "Darmstadtium"
@@yespls4184 wow im actually from darmstadt xd
My country is a federation of two islands. Used to be three islands but one broke away and became a dependent of the UK
Gaz Matic What country?
MaxFI probably saint kitts and nevis
Gaz Matic is that Antigua and Barbuda?
Person 1 yes. St Kitts and Nevis
2:22
"Hey, where are you from?"
*"Zug."*
Cyrule "Zug" also literally means "train" in German.
@@Moderkek88 "I'm from Zug."
*Whips out google translate*
"What train was you born on?"
Who else speaks German and enjoys him mispronouncing the Swiss Cantons as Hoden instead of roden? XD
I think Sipaliwini in Suriname should get an honourable mention. It’s covered in Amazon rainforest and pretty much nobody lives there. The thing is that it’s actually much bigger than all other provinces in Suriname combined, so a Surinamese map looks like a WIP map of a country where the southern states are yet to be drawn.
Leningrad maintains its name because of WW2. Most of the civilian deaths that occurred during the war were during the siege of Leningrad, they keep the name to honor those that lost their lives.
Also a lot of people like the USSR and want it back. St.Peterburg was the name during Tsarist time - which were the worse times in the history of Russia.
St Petersburg is better.
Guys how about Petrograd
Umm, that's not true.
@@BlingSco simply not true
you called Canada's provinces states, I freaked out slightly when you said that
haha. Apologies, I was trying to use the generic term as much as possible
russia is interesting, it has states, provinces(oblasty), cities(raiony), districts
Erkin Alp Güney other way around. Provinces have more control in canada.
provinces have more administrative power but cannot go different from central politics even in cases they are allowed their own laws.
*Canadian here* i do believe you're correct. i live in Ontario. my license is Ontarian (each province differs and has different graduated licensing) my health card is OHIP (ontario health insurance program i think it's called?) alcohol laws are set provincially (i.e you can have an open alcoholic drink in public in Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec each have their drinking age at 18) but all of these can be overruled by the Federal governmant (i.e if they were to make alcohol illegal all together, or how with the legalization of marijuana, the provinces will be dictating how old you need to be to purchase it - the provincal government wont allow provinces to go below 18 i believe it is)
You actually go in great detail about Russia. Well done!
Steve Zakharov But he didn't say about blue!
@@Terrus_38 They're autonomous okrugs, if it helps. I'm Russian, and I'm not quite sure how they're different from other subjects. The division is mostly ethnical and historical. From my point of view, there are oblasts, and there's different regions with different levels of special rights. And there are Big Important Cities. Which is kinda redundant, since every city has its own goverment anyway. They just mostly wanted to separate Moscow and St. Petersburg from their oblasts legally (which pisses a lot of people living there, cause they feel cheated from benifits Moscow gets, but Moscow's special treatment is kinda a problem on itself). I personally felt how federation structure works only when Covid hit, cause every subject got to deal with it mostly on its own terms, so policies did vary from place to place. But mostly it's little things, I didn't get to live in an autonomous region, it's probably different there
Cherries and wine Interesting.
@@cherries_and_wine autonomous regions aren't that different. I have a lot of friends from Komi, but when they moved to live in some other area they didn't claim it feels different in terms of political rights. So the way I see it there are some cultural differences in republics but politically it's mostly the same
@@cherries_and_wine I thought they were called oblasts or is that something different
The Netherlands is pretty weird too though, we literally made a new state out of sea (called Flevoland) well state, it's called province here, same kinda thing.
Do The Netherlands' Constitient Countries also have provinces within them? Is The Netherlands mainland a Constituent Country of itself? How does that work?
Is it more like The UK's or Russian Federation's Constituent Countries? Russia may call them another name but is essence/spirit thats what they are. Like Chechnya or Scotland you know?
@@shonenjumpmagneto Like a 3rd level government? Below the 12 provinces are 342 municipalities. (all of which are in the country of the Netherlands, but there are 3 other countries, which are in the Carribean)
Which isn't too weird. The US have 50 states (plus other territories), divided into 3142 counties divided into 35930 municipal bodies.
Germany has 16 states, some of which have administrative districts or boroughs (40 in total) which are divided into rural districts, cities, neighborhoods, quarters and boroughs (608 in total) some of which are divided into 12514 4th level municipalities, quarters and neighborhoods.
The UK has 4 countries, 3 crown dependencies and 14 overseas territories, which are divided into 264 2nd level divisions with different names 286 3rd level divisions, some of which are divided into 127214th level divisions.
I would not say USA is as simple as you make it out to be. Sure. There are 50 equalish states. Simple enough. But when you look closer at USA you will notice that you have areas like Porto Rico which is not a state but maybe should be. You have some islands that are a part of US colonial legacy. You have in USA several native american reserves, all with there own special status. And lets not forget Washington DC. Oh. And some states are actually Commonwealths.
Yeah... It USA gets pretty crazy to.
Cythil Also he said all the states have equal representatives, which is only half true, we got two administrative bodies.
Very true. I did not go in to that because equal representation is also something one can debate over when it comes to definition of what is equal representation.
i don't know if commonwealth actually means anything different than state, other than the name. .
I just used Pueto Rico as a example without going in to the details. The point of my post was to show that USA is not as simple or uniform as ibx2cat makes it out to be. It not just 50 states and that is it. ;)
And yes. Just to go off topic a bit. Naming is be quite confusing sometimes. The Commonwealths of USA are as far as USA concerns just States. And they do not act really any different then the regular states. Not that I am a expert on the gritty details of states. But is also why I added it at the end of my post just to show a other little weird oddity of USA.
In the end the oddities of USA are actually interesting to go in to. It shows part of US history. How the country came to be.
Cythil oh yes man so crazy what did u say states that arent states and indian reservations whaaaaaaat
One mistake: Belgium was a unitary state for most of its history. Since the 70s there is some regionalization, but Belgium only bacame an actual federation in 1993. That is after the Maastricht treaty and surely long after Brussels had been de facto capital of the EEC or EU.
And the amount of projects there, because if one region gets the funds to do something, the other one wants that money as well. Which got better now, but there is still lots of unfinished stuff around.
Also Russia has Federal districts. Another way of grouping federal subjects.
Probably the blue areas, which he never explained.
@@darreljones8645 nope, federal district is group of federal subjects. For example far east federal district contain several krais, oblasts and republics.
I like your enthusiasm for Swiss politics. It is a very confusing topic and you captured a lot of it clearly. Greetings from Basel. I did laugh when you pronounced Basel like the food spice. We say it like Baah-zel. Still, the video was really cool. I learned a lot about Russia's states that I didn't know before your video.
Yeah, it looks pretty complicated, even for someone from another federal nation. But it seems to work quite well.
I'm pretty sure the seeing states clearly before you zoom in thing is based on size, it also happens with Brazil.
Oh yeah, i love subdivisions
There are parallels between the internal organizations of Russia and Canada:
1. Russian oblasts = Canadian provinces
2. Russian krays = Canadian territories
3. Russian republics = Quebec (which has special powers)
4. Russian cities of federal significance = Canada's National Capital Commission
5. Russian autonomous okrugs = Canada's Nunatsiavut autonomous area in Labrador
May I ask why Quebec has special powers and what are they? thank you
@@TGamingProduction Unlike other provinces, Quebec has its own controls on immigration, employment, personal taxes and public pension plans. Since the 1960s, Quebec governments have sought this autonomy to protect the unique character of its population, which is majority francophone. Quebec has its own UNESCO seat, allowing it a separate vote on cultural issues. Similarly, Quebec has its own seat in La Francophonie.
Do a video on Chechnya, that’s actually really interesting, that and Dagestan I really want to learn about how their governed separately to Russia
Belgium is even weirder than mentioned in the video, because there are actually 6 members of the federation. There are the 3 regions that were mentioned, but also 3 communities, one for each of the languages. Basically some matters are handled by the region's government, and some are handled by the community's government.
And to make things weirder, Brussels is under the jurisdiction of both the Flemish and French community, and the Flemish region and community have a single government despite being constitutionally separate entities.
Lol, you could probably do a whole episodes of weird borders just based upon the Swiss cantons x)
Switzerland is also very strange cause it's a country where internal borders can move and thus democratically. In 2020 a few municipalities will switch of cantons.
You say the United States gets the same amount of people no matter population. It's just 2. But we have the House of Representatives. Which is by population.
Did you talk about blue in Russia?
yes but the senate (the house I mentioned) is always 2 - I was referring specifically to that
@@ibx2cat to make matters even more confusing, the district of columbia has no representation in either the house of representatives or the senate, but they get three votes (one for house of representatives and two for senate) in the electoral college. speaking of which, i would *love* to hear about what people outside of the united states think about the electoral college.
blue are autonomous okrugs, which are generally for very cold northern places with lots of oil and some indigenous peolle with deer and stuff. thay are usually a part of an oblast while at the same time being equal to them in their status of a russian province, which makes no sence; one of them is also not a part of an oblast and is just its own thing despite having a population of about 50 000 people.
our administrative division is a mess.
@@wkbj7924 The electoral college is even worse than first past the post
I love this idea for a video. Keep it up toycat!
We (the swiss people) don’t elect our federal council, we elect the Council of States an the national council and these two councils elect the seven members of the federal council.
But the rest was good.
12:55 if you think this is bad look at Europe during the Middle Ages
Brazil also shows the name of the states and the division on the google maps
The belgium system is complicated. Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels have their own parlement, then the Dutch, French and German speaking community have their own parlement (Brussels has some rules of the Dutch and some of the French), then Flanders and Wallonia both are cut into 5 provinces, which also have their own parlement and then every city can also decide a lot of rules for themselves
Look at things like the scottish parliament. The amount of devolution in the UK is probably the closest to Belgium even within federal states.
half cantons totally makes sense. If it was a simple case of each state gets 2 representatives then cantons would be splitting all the time to give their little village 2 representatives on the federal level. That would be crazy..... Why are you looking at me funny America?
US states rarely split though (3 in the US' short ~250 year history), the hassle often isn't worth it just due to state size and population (a lot of US states are bigger and more populated then the entire country of Switzerland). The only times it might be valid is states that have a population so large, that breaking it up would be a net benefit for at least one side to do so (usually to the dismay of regions that have a political stranglehold on the state). A few examples would be California (which actually has a movement for it), Texas, and New York. Smaller states, the effort to do it just wouldn't be worth any power they get from it.
In Switzerland this is a legitimate issue due to it's much smaller population and size though, and I can totally see the point behind it.
Which states have split? I know of West Virginia from Virginia, and possibly Maine from Massachusetts, but what's the other one?
I appreciate your interest for my country :D i cracked up at your pronunciation tho, you literally said "appenzell inner-testicle" haha
In Brazil we have 27 states (1 more than Switzerland)... but only the state I live (São Paulo, which is only the 12th biggest one) is about 6 times bigger than Switzerland... lol
Fun fact: in Venezuela, deciding between a centralist government and a federal government actually caused a civil war
Brussels is the capital of Europe for a very prosaic reason. When the European Coal and Steel Federation (what would eventually become the EU) started out the intention was that the 'capital' would rotate around the member states alphabetically. Belgium was the first and things basically never moved on
Can you do a video on the coldest and hottest places inhabited by humans?
Hottest : Africa
Coldest : Antartica
@@Sprixx3D coldest: Siberia
Warmest: Ethiopia
Play at .75 speed for him to sound like a human.
Harsh.
Thanks 🙏
Play .50 speed make him sound drunk like I am right now lol.
Yup.
Man, I been watching you for a nearly a year now. I love your content.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaat, I thought cantons were a special thing only existing in my country (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Mr. Dr. Genius lol... switzerland is known for having cantons since centuries
Elephantinus Cornelius I heard it for the first time in this video. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a…well…special country with a lot of special and unike things in it so I thought cantons were just another thing invented for B&H.
goran gruev I forgot to say the cantons are in half of my country (the federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina), the other half (the Republic of Srpska, where I live) doesn't have cantons.
goran gruev What referendum?
goran gruev No, there isn't a referendum. We had one a year ago about the 9th of January being our Republic day and we voted yes.
man's understanding of Canada is pretty shet. Tabarnak! good video tho! keep it up 2soycat.
Thank you for making geography interesting.
Wait, 7 or 8 leaders in Switzerland? You say 7 but there are 8 people on the picture
On those pictures of the Federal Council, there always is the Federal Chancellor included. They are not a member of the Swiss government, but rather the head of the general staff of the Federal Council.
ITS 8
8? You know that an uneven number makes more sense because if there were 8, there could be a 4/4 stall when voting on a topic, right?
Counting requires effort
He even said there were 7 leaders but another one is required to be president and go to foreign events and stuff, not sure how that one gets elected though
WALLonia:
"Trump got his idea coming here in an holiday"
The reason why Wallonia can block the trade pact with Canada is because the federal government has no authority over economy. So Brussel, Flanders and Wallonia had to given their permission.
The video is not really correct in the way how belgium works.
2:40 if you remove one letter from both appenzell cantons, they could be translated to appenzell inner testicle and appenzell outer testicle (orange/green)
im from just outside Edmonton and i can understand why Canadas population is mostly south winters here are freezing and its in central Alberta. i cant even imagine how cold it must get in the territories.
Here in the South of France we freeze with 35°F at night and 45°/50°during day.
U.K. not being federated is so odd to me, being made of multiple distinct nations and all
I spent a solid 30 minutes trying to figure out what the autonomous oblast even is. The wiki page says nothing about its powers or anything
It basically doesn’t change anything. Putin can put anyone as a head of any state in Russia and they will be under control. It’s total vertical power
Could you please make a video about Canada in detail? (Administrative divisions, population spread etc.)
KasabianFan44 if you're unaware there is a channel that exists purely to do this. I refer you to the Canada episode on the channel Geography Now.
CD3MC
I already know about Geography Now
They're different styles, I appreciate both, but if I had to say, I like ToyCat more
When he talks about Canada he tends to get a lot of stuff wrong.... it's like his one weakness.
I understand the swiss parliament system can be confusing at first. But you did really good, but I think you missunderstood the half-canton thing. The reason why 6 cantons only count as a half-canton is that historically they were 1 canton, and when they split up the number of seats in the council wasn't changed. So the basically just went: Yeah okay, split up, we dont mind. But you won't get an extra 2 votes. Its probably also to prevent a canton intentionally splitting up 2 or 3 times just to get more council seats.
btw: You can see the similarity in the 6 halfcantons names to one another. You have: Obwalden and Nidwalden (formerly Unterwalden), Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land (formerly Basel) and there is Appenzell-Innerrhoden and Appenzell-Ausserrhoden (formerly Appenzell)
You know how there's been a lot of talk about dissolving the Belgian state? I imagine that were that to occur, the Flanders region would end up getting dumped into the Netherlands, most of the Walloon region would end up part of France, and the City of Brussels would become sovereign territory of the EU.
Hey, you said "Asterix". That was produced partly in Belgium, right?
I've always been interested in this. Only 886 views so far...
14,571 now.
37,000K now
Kevin Settle you know that that's 37 million...? By the way it's 48k by now
David Urban Really ? The more you know, just learned something.
K comes (if I;m informed right) from kilo, which of course means one thousand units of ..., so 37000K makes it 37000 thousand and thus 37 million :)
Awesome video hreetings from swtzerland🇨🇭
'Bring Lenin back' Good luck, you may find a problem with that.
His body is still intact... all you need a reanimation spell
dzejrid
Well, barely. They are replacing more and more of his body with wax or something
shh... not so loud, western spies are listening
Just send him to the jewish Autonomous community and they'll turn him into a golem.
Lets just give lenin a splash potion of weakness and a golden apple
hey nice description of switzerland pretty accurate !
You cover really interesting topics, and you're very knowledgeable. But might I suggest that you write a script for your videos and maybe break them up into smaller parts?
Toycat can you make a top 10 best and worst flags vid??
You explained Belgium really well! :D
The first one I think about is Germany because I'm German^^
Bundeslands are actually a pretty normal/well balanced system
ibx2cat True
Gladly I live in one of the more populated so we have more seats in the parliament
@GamingCouchDE
Which one?
The first one I thought of as well :)
Aus Dänemark :)
yeah in the 2nd chamber of the parliament...
+ibx2cat - around 15:30
- "KRAY" - the Russian word used in names of those Russian territories (eg. "Krasnoyarskiy Kray")
is general Slavic word meaning "country", but Slavic languages grammars indicate also,
that its basic meaning is derived from meaning "to CUT" (compare Polish verbs "krajać", "kroić", "skrawać" etc.) -
- and it means "a land at the border" or "a territory with borderline" -
- similarly:
1. the state name of "UKRAINE" = "u- + kray + -ina" by grammar it means: "(the land) + at + the edge".
2. also KRAJINA (n Bosna and Croatia) is historical westernmost region of Serbian settlement,
3. and KRAJNA in Poland is northernmost part of the region of Greater Poland in Poland.
Wow people in Australia think our Commonwealth of Australia is complicated, but after seeing this...
The TTIP is a terrible idea anyway.
A lot of people are railing against TTIP (and it seems like any trade agreement involving America) but I was talking about CETA, a much less controversial one
ibx2cat Woops sorry xD I got confused because of the picture of TTIP protesters. I should have listened more carefully. Thanks for replying c:
The main reasons I'm against TTIP and TPP is they give corporations the power to override governments which is anti-democratic because an unelected group of elites can override the elected representatives of the public, and they make the length of copyright and the punishments for breaking it even more ridiculous which is basically a death sentence for fanart, parody and online criticism.
It's also a death sentence for animal welfare, the environment, healthcare, basically anything corporations are already screwing up, the few regulations they do still have to follow get removed. So yeah, sorry, I kind of went on a little rant there xD
But thanks heaps for replying, it's awesome when RUclipsrs reply, it makes me feel special x3
A multi-layered federation - an interesting way to describe the USSR I guess it's pretty accurate.
19:15 The US doesn't just have "equal states". For instance, Washington DC has a different administrative treatment, and so do Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the 326 Indian reservations.
en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_States
Oh my god, the joke about there being only 1 road in Canada from South Park is actually based on facts...
Leningrad oblast (as well as Leningrad Zoo) keeps its name in memory of Defend of Leningrad during WW2
Also, you didn't mention number of languages and nationalities in Russian Federation, which explains why do we need so many provinces
I was in Basel Stadt in September this year (2020) and there were no Corona restrictions, but in Basel Kanton, there were! Weird.
I feel like you probably already know this, but US states also get different levels of representation in the House of Representatives based on population. Every state gets at least 2 representatives. California is the most populous state and has 52 representatives.
The US does have different levels of federal subjects? All the different types of territory - incorporated, organised, etc...
I have a playlist of a few dozen videos i call the best videos on RUclips, and this video just got added there
These are all the Half Cantons.
*Basel*
Basel-Stadt
Basel-Landschaft
*Unterwalden*
Obwalden
Nidwalden
*Appenzell*
Appenzell-Ausserrhoden
Appenzell-Innerrhoden
Also the oblast where Yekaterinburg is located is still called Sverdlovsk oblast ( the Soviet name for Ye-burg). I don't know why they didn't change it. The same thing is happening in Ukraine recently - they renamed Dnipropetrovsk to Dnipro ,but the oblast still bears the old name. I heard it's because it's too much paperwork ,because u have to change the constitution basically.
Listening to this guy, I'm starting to think that I don't actually speak English...
"awfanlirfnrfhaetjsththrsgdiggha" -direct quote from this video
My ancestors came from Viipuri, Finland, which is now Vyborg, Russia, part of the Leningrad Oblast right near the Finnish border. They took it over after WWII. It's part of the province of Finnish Karelia (Karjala in Finnish). There is a Karelia, vaguely related, in Russia as well.
really love your videos
i think "The Countries With The Strangest Internal Divisions" would have been a better title rather than having states at the end since not all countries have states as divisions like the US, plus states are commonly know as actual countries
Yes, Canada has a senate, but being a parliamentary democracy, it's our version of the House of Lords. The lower chamber is the House of Commons. Also, referring to our provinces and territories as states makes us bristle.
Very informative!
RIP Tannu Tuva
Tannu what?
I live in Canada and that road is the only one that stretches across the whole country, but it’s not the only way to get places, when the bridge was shut down you can go around like there’s more than 1 road in Canada
In Europe we have Bosnia and Herzegovina which is formed of two countries: Republika Srpska and Federetion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Funny fact, the name "Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina" is missleading and makes many believe it is the entire country, but is not, it is just one half of Bosnia and consists of territory held by Bosniak and Croat troops. There is also a Canton of Brcko which is formed of Brcko municipality, and has a special status belonging technically to both because it is a territory that is the bridge uniting the Western with Eastern parts of R>epublika Srpska, and also an enclave along Sava river in the North with the rest of Fed. of BiH. Its basically used as a bridge by both entities.
Fyi, Canada's Senate is made of appointments by the prime minister sort of like the house of lords in the UK. There are as set number of Senators from the Provence, but the provincial governments don't select the Senators for their Provence. So the Canadian Senate isn't really representative like the American or Swiss examples.
The other thing about Canada that you may find interesting is the reservation system (I think America and Australia and may some other neo-europes have similar things). In short, due to dealings with the native population there are pockets of the country that retain a level of autonomy from the rest of the country and deal directly with the federal government. Some are ghettoized rural or remote areas (Attawapiskat), but sometimes they are in more central regions which can have some interesting results (Tsuu T'ina next to Calgary). The reserves can have fairly difficult relations with the Provence they are in (Quebec is notable for the James Bay Hydroelectric Conflict and the Oka Standoff).
There is an interesting thing about the German Speaking Community in Belgium you could have mentioned. There are three "states" in Belgium, as you said, but also thre communities: the french speaking, the flamish speaking and the german speaking one. Brussels is not part of any of them. So in some issues, like culture or welfare, the communities decide, in others the states. And the German Speaking Community is found in Wallonia and Flanders. In some issues they have their own independency, in others they belong somehow to their "state" and in others they must obey Wallonia ... o_O it is very confusing and I certainly got something mixed up but when you're into it look it up!
The United States has territories also. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, are all inhabited. It also has a bunch of other territories that are not inhabited.
Maybe someone already explained in the comments, but explaining some of Belgium for geography/politics nerds:
Belgium is a federal state with complete seperation of powers. If the federal government has power over some aspect (like social security), then the regions (states) don't have any power over this. And if the regional (state) government has power over something (like education), then the federal government has no say at all about this.
It's not like in the US where states can make their own decisions/laws as long as they don't conflict with federal decisions/laws, but powers overlap.
Quite a few powers were transferred to the regional governments in Belgium: Education, Economy, Energy, Agriculture, Public transport, Employment, and so on all are regional powers, not Federal.
So when people say Belgium was without a government for 541 days, that's not really true. There was no new federal government during this period, but the new regional governments formed fairly quickly. So quite a few important departments, government powers and policies were were decided and running quite quickly in the regions. And even then, if there is no new government after an election in Belgium, the last government just keeps things running. They just have no powers to make big new decisions or to set new policies. So in thruth, Belgium was forming a NEW government for 541 days, but never really was WITHOUT a government. the old government kept running, and the regions had their governments quite quickly. It was blown completely out of proportion in the media...
when I think of Switzerland I think of a large pocket knife and clock making corporation with 7 CEOs that's also into banking
The USA is basically 50 individual countries united into one cohesive Super State. All states follow federal law, yet have a lot of ability to create their own laws and even to have laws that contradict federal laws. Also, while we have one large national military, each individual state also essentially has its own state army units.
I thought he would talk about the Brazilian States + Federal District - that are also really big - and visible from above. Or the Chinese provinces - with different status.
Spain and the UK are federations by design since their creation...
Swiss German is German, I don't think people from Switzerland will be offended by me saying so. The written language is basically the same as in Austria and Germany. But the dialects are very far removed from standard German, and as opposed to most places in Germany they are used in everyday communication, even in university and television. A rough comparison might be that Swiss German relates to German like Scots relates to English.
The dialects are quite often written, you have books, publicities and news paper in dialect. When I invited a German friend here he was quite surprised to find out that written dialect was present everywhere.
I don't know about the idea that Swiss-Germans think their dialect as a different language or not, lot of them are very proud of it and I met quite a few that say it's a distinct language. If they could agree on a standard, they'd probably officialize it as so (like the Dutch did with theirs in the past).
Objectively i don't know, the problem compared to Dutch is that Allemanic is in the same dialectal branch than what High German was mostly based upon. The Walser dialects are the most strongly different from standard German, maybe they could count as a different language especially because not even other German Swiss can understand it easily.
+tonio103683 I know about dialect being written in SMS and adverts, but that's not really different from Germany except that it's probably much more emphasized, don't you think? We also have dialect poetry that might be printed in books or newspaper columns. Or is there anything else going on in Switzerland? Swiss newspapers, literature, and web blogs I'm aware of are all in standard German.
I don't think Dutch is a good model because it was going its separate ways even before a standard German language was developed. If anything it would be Luxembourgish, who basically upgraded their local dialect (which is not very different from neighbouring regions of Belgium and Germany) to a standard language, while retaining standard German at the same time. Since French is also an official language there, Luxembourg is now nominally trilingual, even though two of those languages are really variants of each other.
mmh well ok let me take a step back, i might have answered you too quickly. So what i disagree with you is to say that the written language of Swiss German and other dialects of german is Standard German, i don't see it that way, the writen language are those languages written down. What is different between Germany and Switzerland is while the dialects have a written usage very restrain in Germany, in Switzerland they are quite often written down. So i agree with you by saying it's a difference of scale but i don't agree that standard german is the "written language" of Swiss German, German Switzerland has two "languages" or "varieties" if you prefer one written in a certain context and the other in another.
This is true as well for Germany but it's so marginal compared to Switzerland one might say it almost doesn't exist.
The question of Dutch, Luxembourgish and German is more complicated than that. Every dialects knew in the middle ages some form of written language, but it was marginal compared to the general use of the High German scripta. Dutch standardized in a definitive way mostly in the 16th century. Standard German developed during the same time. Dutch is lower Middle German while Standard German is based upon High German and a bit Middle German. Other germanic dialects in the area that are clearly not like Standard German (Frison and to some extent Lower German) get such standardization only way later. In conclusion i don't think you can use the criterion of which language have the oldest standard to say what prime on the other.
Luxembourgish still sound a lot like German, it is a Dialect with German just for the mutual integibility criteria. Swiss German is a bit weird cause as i said, it is in the High German branch like standard German while a lot of Germans report having difficulties to understand it. But other don't. So i tend to lean towards "it's a dialect of the General German continuum".
Except from the social and political status that Standard German benefits to me it's not THE language and then Dialects are Dialects OF German. Standard German is the koiné that is a dialect of the General German language continuum together with the Dialects like Swiss German, Bavarian, Saxon etc.
But the written dialect doesnt have real grammar rules and dictionaries, therefore I would not call it a written language. It's a bit like Vorarlbergerisch, even people from Tyrol have problems understanding it and people use it when messaging friends, but its still a dialect. A weird one though. Very weird.
Voralbergerisch is Alemanic like Swiss German no wonder Tyrolians (which speak a Austro-Bavarian dialect) would have some hardship to understand it then. It is even Upper Alemanic like Walsertütsch, Titsch or Grischunisch wich make it part of the most strongly different kind of Allemanic dialects.
A written language is a language written, period. If you have some habit to be written, then it is written. This is completely separate from it having some sort of defined standard or not. At that, Swiss german have a standard : the Schwyzertütschi Dialäktschrift. It is not official so people just follows it generally as a guideline to write down Swiss German but it exist non the less.
No language or form of language have no Grammar. Grammar is just a feature of human language used to organise it in order to communicate. Some languages officialise their grammar into a strict set of rules. The most extreme cases being French for example. A lot of world's languages today have not a comprehensive deep grammar rule book but are written nonetheless.
People will know if you use a word that doesn't exist while speaking Swiss-German. There lack of an official dictionary doesn't stop them from that.
Switzerland: I'm not gonna share lake Lehman, it's mine!
*and that's how Geneva was born*
Spain is something in between a federation and a centralized state.
I enjoyed this.
The way Swiss do their politics and voting is actually quite smart if you think about it.. I think you could do well to watch a few CGP Grey videos.. The half canton thing would probably be well explained by some his videos.
If this guy knew how to make videos with animation like CGP Grey or Wonderwhy this channel would have millions of views in most of its videos. Still enjoying the content, but it's hard not to say this.
I actually just did a video on the Jewish Autonomous Oblast pretty recently. Yah, it's really weird. Nice to see it mentioned - it's definitely one of the weirdest subdivisions out there.
"Someone from unitary states like myself", says the guy from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
In the US the two representatives per state is only for the senate, the house of representatives is actually based on population of the state, and both of those together make congress. Also Canada is territories or provinces (depending on the Canadian you ask), not states. I know I know it's nitpicking, but pointing it out anyway.
It is nice yeah. Nice channel man.